What an amazing article. I have been losing my mind seeing the online feedback from the left over this entire conflict and it’s hard to keep it cool trying to argue with them.
I am also a fellow ex-lefty, and I don’t know if you were in the same rabbit holes of insanity as I was but I notice a lot of their patterns that we see here in other similar topics throughout history. For example when the whole Uyghur camps in China thing happened, some of these lefties were clamouring to Twitter to defend any and all claims that paint China in a bad light. When the claims were “they are reports of Uyghur people being carried into camps in an attempt to contain and re-educate them and strip them of their cultural habits in the name of counter-terrorism” the response was just “western media making stuff up again”. Then we got more eye witness reports, satellite shots, rogue media etc. and when it was clear that these camps existed the goalpost moved to “yeah but they’re not actually doing anything bad, these are just glorified prisons for terrorists and they are treated well there.” Then when we saw more reports, stories from ex-prisoners, journalists profiles, international reports that made it hard to deny the bad things happening in the camps then the response just moved to the far end of “yeah well they kinda deserve it because Uyghur nationalists are extremist separatists and they are an actual risk of terror so of course they will have to be re-educated, which is better than the US way of just bombing them all”.
Similarly, the classic response from the same people about USSR atrocities, for example the Holodomor and the gulag system, the line goes “it didn’t happen, it’s a western lie / Nazi propaganda” -> “it did happen but it wasn’t Stalin’s fault / gulag existed but it was just a normal prison” -> “Ukrainians deserved it because Kulaks were burning their own crops and refused to contribute so it was their fault / gulag was actually a re-education and forced labour program and that was actually good because the people there were irredeemably bad.”
And as you pointed out this is the same thing recycled over again with Hamas, literally just replace the terms madlibs style.
It is super frustrating to even just consume content of political nature when you have people like this going around and outrage baiting and spreading literal lies in order to attack your political stances, or just morally grandstand as the people who will always call out injustice while you, the sensible reader, are doing lip service to the *real* genocide and terrorism perpetrators by not pushing back.
Thank you. I stumble slowly into online leftist spaces and every time something like this happens get so repulsed I find myself unsubscribing and unfollowing almost all my daily content.
This is probably too reductionist but I think most of the anti-Israel stuff is a hangover for when the Soviets supported the Arab states and turned on their propaganda engine to frame Israel as colonizers. It's amazing how many weird, unexamined fissures in American politics come from conservatives hating everything the Soviets did and progressives praising and seeking to support everything the Soviets did.
If that Soviet history went how you said it did, then I would in fact guarantee that's what's going on, because most of modern leftism is atttempts to revive the Old Texts under the guise of it being The True Theory. Modern leftism is definitely descended genealogically from the original US student communist movements which definitely took their marching orders from the Soviets, but it's in the same way that a revived dead language mostly filled in with new words is descended from the original one - it's clearly not the same thing as the original one, but also is, in another sense.
Yes, it's definitely more parsimonious to believe that it's all downstream of a propaganda machine that shut down 35 years ago, and whose immediate successor now overwhelmingly supports the pro-Israel right, rather than thinking that Israeli actions *might* have even the slightest influence on how it's perceived.
Any time I see the video of a Israeli soldier bragging about clear-cut war crimes, videos of settlers pogroming locals, or translate their genocidal statements, I should in fact think it's all about the Soviet foreign policy circa 1980.
God, bless me with this level of comfortable delusion!
This is an incredible article and one that really needs more exposure. It really covers why arguing with Leftists is so exhausting and infuriating, and it illustrates the trap that many Liberals fall into when arguing with Leftists. We tend to start from the assumption that, because our beliefs are based on a coherent set of beliefs, that our opponent's must be likewise. That simply isn't true. Leftism simply does not have any set of coherent beliefs, but they sure like to pretend that they do. It's a trap they can use to easily frustrate Liberals until we throw up our hands and go away.
Thank you for opening my eyes that Leftism is a SUBCULTURE not an Ideology.
"Leftists believe that they’re powerless. They’re not really, but their power is so diffuse between them and indirect that none of them can perceive it."
"Leftists may be that don’t have “no-politics” rules, because they’ll take that one over too, because they’re committed to it. That’s why I can’t simply exist in normal trans spaces, because trans spaces have been totally co-opted by leftists."
"Despite being so invisible to normal people, Leftists['] ideas absolutely do percolate up and effect [sic] and influence more important people."
An interesting thesis, but here you're wrong: Leftists and their hangers-on are very much visible, at least in New York City. Their desire to undermine the greatest and from its inception the most multicultural city in the world, New York City, has led them to run assiduously for public office, get elected, and pass laws which have wreaked havoc. Their hatreds trickle down, and then they get reelected. The rest of us in our gerrymandered districts are powerless to stop them.
Garbage, noise, crime -- a general disregard for society's norms and the law's active acquiescence in an upside-down philosophy (elderly Chinese ladies and skinny Hasidim are oppressors, and the drug-addled and deranged who assault them are innocent) -- are the tangible evidence of the Leftist presence.
On Christmas Eve, last night, roaming car caravans of pro-Hamas protesters waved flags and blasted their amplified irrational aggression into our streets and parks. They circled Washington Square Park and disrupted the annual Christmas carol sing. They were not stopped.
That's not demonstrating, that's puerile acting-out aimed at undermining the places and traditions that bring us together. To Leftists, a functioning capitalistic, democratic society is a terrible threat; chaos serves their purpose even as it harms those they pretend to champion.
Black Lives Matter is part of this movement. It rent the fabric of our city, and we've yet to recover. Anyone who lived through the summer of 2020 could tell you that.
"Shut It Down for Palestine" is part of this movement. The childish jingles bawled out of megaphones ("No celebration until liberation!" was the rhyme last night at the Christmas Eve gathering) reveal the participants' playpen mentality.
Leftists aren't grownups. Is there no one around to take away their toys?
I see a difference between leftists and progressives, which doesn't mean that I'm saying "Progressives are good and leftists are bad". This is better explained in another Substack post of mine. I think most of the people you identify in New York are *mostly* just Progressives taking their cues from Leftists. I explain better here the relationship between the two: https://inverseflorida.substack.com/p/sanewashing-and-how-defund-the-police
It also explains why I think what the Progressives are doing is different to what the Leftists are doing. Both things are bad of course. The crime example you cite in particular is definitely something commonly associated with progressive prosecutors (whether correctly or not), no Leftists needed! The Hamas people in the car? Could easily be actual Leftists.
"To Leftists, a functioning capitalistic, democratic society is a terrible threat; chaos serves their purpose even as it harms those they pretend to champion."
Yes, although how and why they value chaos differs between them, with many who'll tell you they of course don't value chaos - maybe most of them actually - and many who'll tell you they *do*, for their own various copey reasons (because order and peace are an illusion in a society without justice, because they're just anarchic people, because it implies the contraidctions of capitalism are worsening, or more likely than anything above, they'll just reject your question.).
>Black Lives Matter is part of this movement.
Soooooort of. This one's really complicated. The relationship between Progressives and Leftists in this area is somewhat different than in others. I sort of touched on it with the initial Sanewashing post. But from my perspective, there isn't really coherent Black Lives Matter movement, in the same sense that I'd say there isn't really one coherent "Christianity", but rather, a lot of competing "Christianities", some of which aren't even aware of how different they are.
“I see a difference between leftists and progressives, which doesn't mean that I'm saying ‘Progressives are good and leftists are bad’".
Well, you might not say it here, but you *do* indeed say that leftists are bad (at least when it comes to pro-Hamas).
And *I* surely agree(!) that progressives aren’t good.
But you can’t deny you’re saying that progressives are less worse than leftists.
Especially given that I don’t recall you saying even once that a capitalistic, democratic society is per se bad, let alone a threat.
Unless you want to contort all the way back to “well, leftists aren’t worse because they don’t have any power”… but you surely don’t seem like you want to go *there*.
Because ideology is about social graphs and culture, and progressives still have to make the jump towards being not just anti capitalists, but supporting the dismantling of the American state among other things.
It's a borderline way of thinking: megalomaniac and yet never able to feel responsible for any result of that obsession with power, which of course is the trait which feeds the obsession, just as the obsession makes the trait inevitable. And of course other borderline ways of thinking permeate the left, such as splitting groups into "all good" and "all bad" and being totally fragile to disagreement.
I have never met a leftist irl who didn't stink of feet and sexual desperation. A lot of them are only "radicals" because they see Che Guevara as a sex symbol and find radicalization can get them laid, especially on college campuses.
Jews are unfortunate cannon fodder for their irrepressible id, as they seek to widen their polycule to incalculable numbers.
You might ask, why not just work out or even shower as a means to enhance their sexual desirability?
But you must understand, they're *oppressed,* by the United Slaves of Israel no less, and their water privalges were revoked some time ago.
It's amazing how little CHe Guevara came up when I hung out with leftists, except to say "Guys we shouldn't idolize him because he was a homophobe". Stalin was more popular for sure. I've written a lot (and will write more) about why people become leftists but it really is just as simple as "It is all social proof".
wait, and Stalin WASN'T a homophobe????? He literally called gay men "degenerates" and pedophiles. He added anti-sodomy statutes to the soviet criminal code. I don't know much about Soviet history and even I know that Stalin was about as gay-friendly as Mike Huckabee. XD
Not sure if you're familiar with police culture, but these description of leftists aligns with it quite closely. There is a very strong sense of belonging within their community, an incredibly distorted worldview that can make them feel as if they're constantly under siege, loving to deny terrible behavior by some of their own or justify it by pointing to their noble mission of keeping people safe and protecting the community etc
I've heard American cops as having that kind of culture before, and definitely seen good evidence for it. The big difference to me though is that cops actually take action in the real world and are bound in professional associations that are part of this huge network of other things, and leftists are sort of almost transient - not in the sense that they come and go from the ideology, but that they can arrive and get stuck there from anywhere, because it's an internet culture thing.
Before I say anything else or continue the article.. about 8 months later, we can say there weren't beheaded babies. There were certainly war crimes and atrocities but that specific claim is not true. I'll take a look at the rest and see what you have to say and how it holds up 8 months later.
One can hate Islamism oppotunistically weaponizing a legitimate grievance for its own horrible purposes and also think it outrageous that a place with barely any Jews by moral right belonged to them and Palestinians were morally obligated to be transfered out via the JNF or else they simply hates Jews. A bizarre idea that people from Europe were morally entitled to a place they weren't from and had maybe 70% gentic ancestry from there 2000 years ago and the people already living there who also have common ancestors with people there 2000 years ago just have to leave. If the ethnic groups were reversed and every other fact remained the same all Zionists would have the opposite view as to who is right. My view would stay the same.
Quit whining about Jews returning to their ancestral home. Ffs. It’s just stupid and annoying. It’s not a bizarre idea. And if you think Israel has primarily ‘European’ citizens you are deluded. Anyway tjeee are 9 million Israelis who are not going to dissolve their country for your and other idiotic ideas.
A place I had ancestors from 2000 years ago is not my ancestral home. And you do know it is also Palestinians ancestral home. About 70% of Palestinian DNA is from Palestine 2000 years ago, same proportion as Askenazi. Palestinians and Mizrahi are more related to each other than either to Ashkenazi. Weird how for Zionists a vague mytho-historical conception of peoplehood from 2000 is enough to make outrageous demands on third parties but slavery in the New World in recent history is just like get over it already (a view I have some sympathy with but why this strange exception for one group only?) Palestinians are largely the same people Jews are if you look at a direct line of descent back 2000 years. The Bible is not history and the Biblical view of Palestine is flatly wrong pre 500BC and oversimplified thereafter.
Not gonna engage with you because of your demeaning language ‘vague mytho historical conception of people hood’ which you would never use toward another minority group. Actually Jews have a very very strong historical factual sense of peoplehood…
I have no demeaning language about Jews - I just don’t think history is a children’s storybook myth for anybody - Jews included. I am actually philo-semitic. I actively would like more Jews in the US and in my community. Jews have contributed so much awesome shit to the world, both materially and intellectually, that we’d be worse off without it. Zionism is just a bizarre double standard blind spot for people who are otherwise pretty awesome. I love the United States and I love European culture too, but Manifest Destiny was just a strange deviation from a culture that also had great ideas. Afrocentrism was a bizarre and mythical concept, but it doesn’t mean black people suck.
Oh please. I have a very sophisticated understanding of Judaism and how Zionism is part of Judaism. You really shouldn’t believe your own bullshit. Open up a Jewish prayer book some day and learn something.
Your ignorance masked in your superiority is immense as is your demeaning language that you don’t even recognize.
I would actually use this for lots and lots of ethnic groups. Jews are a variety of people who slowly and gradually coalesced around monotheism in a specific area that were always in Palestine - there was no Exodus. I’d definitely say this about “Arabs” who are anything but a single people with a common history. Palestinians are hardly Arab by genes and Levantines in general have more genes in common with Greeks than Saudis. The Jews were NOT expelled from Palestine by the Romans. They were merely kicked out of Jerusalem. And lots and lots of Jews convenience converted to Christianity and then Islam. Genetics tells us so. Nothing remotely special about Judaism in this regard. I also have similar realism vs mytho-history things to say about Islam. Being a skeptic of Zionism and Jewish mytho-historicism doesn’t mean I think any other ethnic mytho-history is accurate or any religious mytho-history is accurate. Ask me about Islam and what the best scholarship says about it. There are no religions that just spring into their world via revelation. Its all syncretism and gradual development.
It’s really disgusting to see you write about a ‘vague mytho historical conception’. Only to Jews would someone have enough gall to write such insulting crap. Go on. Keep it up.
Want me to talk about Arabs? Basically you have lots of un-genetically related people who were brutally conquered by some tribes from Arabia and forced a language on them and they now all are Arabs even though the genes didn’t travel much at all. I think Pan-Arabism and Islamism are as dopey and reductive and ahistorical as Zionism. Islam is as dubious in its etiological account of itself as Judaism is. Christianity too.
Oh my god so they can all go away. Except they won't and so that's why zionisim exists and must continue to exist lest we be wiped out with assholes trying to fulfill their own "manifest destiny." You fucking dork.
What an amazing article. I have been losing my mind seeing the online feedback from the left over this entire conflict and it’s hard to keep it cool trying to argue with them.
I am also a fellow ex-lefty, and I don’t know if you were in the same rabbit holes of insanity as I was but I notice a lot of their patterns that we see here in other similar topics throughout history. For example when the whole Uyghur camps in China thing happened, some of these lefties were clamouring to Twitter to defend any and all claims that paint China in a bad light. When the claims were “they are reports of Uyghur people being carried into camps in an attempt to contain and re-educate them and strip them of their cultural habits in the name of counter-terrorism” the response was just “western media making stuff up again”. Then we got more eye witness reports, satellite shots, rogue media etc. and when it was clear that these camps existed the goalpost moved to “yeah but they’re not actually doing anything bad, these are just glorified prisons for terrorists and they are treated well there.” Then when we saw more reports, stories from ex-prisoners, journalists profiles, international reports that made it hard to deny the bad things happening in the camps then the response just moved to the far end of “yeah well they kinda deserve it because Uyghur nationalists are extremist separatists and they are an actual risk of terror so of course they will have to be re-educated, which is better than the US way of just bombing them all”.
Similarly, the classic response from the same people about USSR atrocities, for example the Holodomor and the gulag system, the line goes “it didn’t happen, it’s a western lie / Nazi propaganda” -> “it did happen but it wasn’t Stalin’s fault / gulag existed but it was just a normal prison” -> “Ukrainians deserved it because Kulaks were burning their own crops and refused to contribute so it was their fault / gulag was actually a re-education and forced labour program and that was actually good because the people there were irredeemably bad.”
And as you pointed out this is the same thing recycled over again with Hamas, literally just replace the terms madlibs style.
It is super frustrating to even just consume content of political nature when you have people like this going around and outrage baiting and spreading literal lies in order to attack your political stances, or just morally grandstand as the people who will always call out injustice while you, the sensible reader, are doing lip service to the *real* genocide and terrorism perpetrators by not pushing back.
Thank you for writing this. I’ve been losing my mind over the past month as a Jew living in Canada.
Im a non Jew living in Canada, and im with you.
Thank you. I stumble slowly into online leftist spaces and every time something like this happens get so repulsed I find myself unsubscribing and unfollowing almost all my daily content.
This is probably too reductionist but I think most of the anti-Israel stuff is a hangover for when the Soviets supported the Arab states and turned on their propaganda engine to frame Israel as colonizers. It's amazing how many weird, unexamined fissures in American politics come from conservatives hating everything the Soviets did and progressives praising and seeking to support everything the Soviets did.
If that Soviet history went how you said it did, then I would in fact guarantee that's what's going on, because most of modern leftism is atttempts to revive the Old Texts under the guise of it being The True Theory. Modern leftism is definitely descended genealogically from the original US student communist movements which definitely took their marching orders from the Soviets, but it's in the same way that a revived dead language mostly filled in with new words is descended from the original one - it's clearly not the same thing as the original one, but also is, in another sense.
Yes, it's definitely more parsimonious to believe that it's all downstream of a propaganda machine that shut down 35 years ago, and whose immediate successor now overwhelmingly supports the pro-Israel right, rather than thinking that Israeli actions *might* have even the slightest influence on how it's perceived.
Any time I see the video of a Israeli soldier bragging about clear-cut war crimes, videos of settlers pogroming locals, or translate their genocidal statements, I should in fact think it's all about the Soviet foreign policy circa 1980.
God, bless me with this level of comfortable delusion!
My guess would be more from post 9-11 allyship with Arab/Muslim world. And the Arab Muslim world being incredibly anti-semetic and anti-Israel.
The subtext here is that the poster thinks it’s okay to kill civilians on purpose as long as you frame it as oppressed fighting oppressor.
Be careful living near such a person, you never know when they will decide you’re the oppressor and are as such a valid target for murder.
This is an incredible article and one that really needs more exposure. It really covers why arguing with Leftists is so exhausting and infuriating, and it illustrates the trap that many Liberals fall into when arguing with Leftists. We tend to start from the assumption that, because our beliefs are based on a coherent set of beliefs, that our opponent's must be likewise. That simply isn't true. Leftism simply does not have any set of coherent beliefs, but they sure like to pretend that they do. It's a trap they can use to easily frustrate Liberals until we throw up our hands and go away.
Thank you for opening my eyes that Leftism is a SUBCULTURE not an Ideology.
They are very open about the fact that they are living vicariously through Hamas and that this is what they want for Whitey.
No better than useful idiots defending Stalin well into the 1950’s.
"Leftists believe that they’re powerless. They’re not really, but their power is so diffuse between them and indirect that none of them can perceive it."
"Leftists may be that don’t have “no-politics” rules, because they’ll take that one over too, because they’re committed to it. That’s why I can’t simply exist in normal trans spaces, because trans spaces have been totally co-opted by leftists."
👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏
"Despite being so invisible to normal people, Leftists['] ideas absolutely do percolate up and effect [sic] and influence more important people."
An interesting thesis, but here you're wrong: Leftists and their hangers-on are very much visible, at least in New York City. Their desire to undermine the greatest and from its inception the most multicultural city in the world, New York City, has led them to run assiduously for public office, get elected, and pass laws which have wreaked havoc. Their hatreds trickle down, and then they get reelected. The rest of us in our gerrymandered districts are powerless to stop them.
Garbage, noise, crime -- a general disregard for society's norms and the law's active acquiescence in an upside-down philosophy (elderly Chinese ladies and skinny Hasidim are oppressors, and the drug-addled and deranged who assault them are innocent) -- are the tangible evidence of the Leftist presence.
On Christmas Eve, last night, roaming car caravans of pro-Hamas protesters waved flags and blasted their amplified irrational aggression into our streets and parks. They circled Washington Square Park and disrupted the annual Christmas carol sing. They were not stopped.
That's not demonstrating, that's puerile acting-out aimed at undermining the places and traditions that bring us together. To Leftists, a functioning capitalistic, democratic society is a terrible threat; chaos serves their purpose even as it harms those they pretend to champion.
Black Lives Matter is part of this movement. It rent the fabric of our city, and we've yet to recover. Anyone who lived through the summer of 2020 could tell you that.
"Shut It Down for Palestine" is part of this movement. The childish jingles bawled out of megaphones ("No celebration until liberation!" was the rhyme last night at the Christmas Eve gathering) reveal the participants' playpen mentality.
Leftists aren't grownups. Is there no one around to take away their toys?
I see a difference between leftists and progressives, which doesn't mean that I'm saying "Progressives are good and leftists are bad". This is better explained in another Substack post of mine. I think most of the people you identify in New York are *mostly* just Progressives taking their cues from Leftists. I explain better here the relationship between the two: https://inverseflorida.substack.com/p/sanewashing-and-how-defund-the-police
It also explains why I think what the Progressives are doing is different to what the Leftists are doing. Both things are bad of course. The crime example you cite in particular is definitely something commonly associated with progressive prosecutors (whether correctly or not), no Leftists needed! The Hamas people in the car? Could easily be actual Leftists.
"To Leftists, a functioning capitalistic, democratic society is a terrible threat; chaos serves their purpose even as it harms those they pretend to champion."
Yes, although how and why they value chaos differs between them, with many who'll tell you they of course don't value chaos - maybe most of them actually - and many who'll tell you they *do*, for their own various copey reasons (because order and peace are an illusion in a society without justice, because they're just anarchic people, because it implies the contraidctions of capitalism are worsening, or more likely than anything above, they'll just reject your question.).
>Black Lives Matter is part of this movement.
Soooooort of. This one's really complicated. The relationship between Progressives and Leftists in this area is somewhat different than in others. I sort of touched on it with the initial Sanewashing post. But from my perspective, there isn't really coherent Black Lives Matter movement, in the same sense that I'd say there isn't really one coherent "Christianity", but rather, a lot of competing "Christianities", some of which aren't even aware of how different they are.
>Leftists aren't grownups
Basically agree lol.
“I see a difference between leftists and progressives, which doesn't mean that I'm saying ‘Progressives are good and leftists are bad’".
Well, you might not say it here, but you *do* indeed say that leftists are bad (at least when it comes to pro-Hamas).
And *I* surely agree(!) that progressives aren’t good.
But you can’t deny you’re saying that progressives are less worse than leftists.
Especially given that I don’t recall you saying even once that a capitalistic, democratic society is per se bad, let alone a threat.
Unless you want to contort all the way back to “well, leftists aren’t worse because they don’t have any power”… but you surely don’t seem like you want to go *there*.
“I think most of the people you identify in New York are *mostly* just Progressives taking their cues from Leftists.“
Well, the problem is that this is a hole in your analysis big enough to drive a truck through.
And the last several months have made this all the more clear.
If “Progressives” are taking their cues from Leftists - and they clearly are - then the “progressives” have become decidedly il-liberal.
How is this a distinction with a difference?
Because ideology is about social graphs and culture, and progressives still have to make the jump towards being not just anti capitalists, but supporting the dismantling of the American state among other things.
Fair enough response.
My reply is:
“First, they came for the trade unionists. and I did not speak out…”
It's a borderline way of thinking: megalomaniac and yet never able to feel responsible for any result of that obsession with power, which of course is the trait which feeds the obsession, just as the obsession makes the trait inevitable. And of course other borderline ways of thinking permeate the left, such as splitting groups into "all good" and "all bad" and being totally fragile to disagreement.
I have never met a leftist irl who didn't stink of feet and sexual desperation. A lot of them are only "radicals" because they see Che Guevara as a sex symbol and find radicalization can get them laid, especially on college campuses.
Jews are unfortunate cannon fodder for their irrepressible id, as they seek to widen their polycule to incalculable numbers.
You might ask, why not just work out or even shower as a means to enhance their sexual desirability?
But you must understand, they're *oppressed,* by the United Slaves of Israel no less, and their water privalges were revoked some time ago.
It's amazing how little CHe Guevara came up when I hung out with leftists, except to say "Guys we shouldn't idolize him because he was a homophobe". Stalin was more popular for sure. I've written a lot (and will write more) about why people become leftists but it really is just as simple as "It is all social proof".
wait, and Stalin WASN'T a homophobe????? He literally called gay men "degenerates" and pedophiles. He added anti-sodomy statutes to the soviet criminal code. I don't know much about Soviet history and even I know that Stalin was about as gay-friendly as Mike Huckabee. XD
I never said it makes sense. It's all Social Proof.
Thank you so much for writing this. I feel very sane and seen.
Not sure if you're familiar with police culture, but these description of leftists aligns with it quite closely. There is a very strong sense of belonging within their community, an incredibly distorted worldview that can make them feel as if they're constantly under siege, loving to deny terrible behavior by some of their own or justify it by pointing to their noble mission of keeping people safe and protecting the community etc
I've heard American cops as having that kind of culture before, and definitely seen good evidence for it. The big difference to me though is that cops actually take action in the real world and are bound in professional associations that are part of this huge network of other things, and leftists are sort of almost transient - not in the sense that they come and go from the ideology, but that they can arrive and get stuck there from anywhere, because it's an internet culture thing.
Before I say anything else or continue the article.. about 8 months later, we can say there weren't beheaded babies. There were certainly war crimes and atrocities but that specific claim is not true. I'll take a look at the rest and see what you have to say and how it holds up 8 months later.
In the end no matter how their horrid leftist ideology justifies it, they are defenders of a totalitarian Islamist murderous ideology.
One can hate Islamism oppotunistically weaponizing a legitimate grievance for its own horrible purposes and also think it outrageous that a place with barely any Jews by moral right belonged to them and Palestinians were morally obligated to be transfered out via the JNF or else they simply hates Jews. A bizarre idea that people from Europe were morally entitled to a place they weren't from and had maybe 70% gentic ancestry from there 2000 years ago and the people already living there who also have common ancestors with people there 2000 years ago just have to leave. If the ethnic groups were reversed and every other fact remained the same all Zionists would have the opposite view as to who is right. My view would stay the same.
Quit whining about Jews returning to their ancestral home. Ffs. It’s just stupid and annoying. It’s not a bizarre idea. And if you think Israel has primarily ‘European’ citizens you are deluded. Anyway tjeee are 9 million Israelis who are not going to dissolve their country for your and other idiotic ideas.
A place I had ancestors from 2000 years ago is not my ancestral home. And you do know it is also Palestinians ancestral home. About 70% of Palestinian DNA is from Palestine 2000 years ago, same proportion as Askenazi. Palestinians and Mizrahi are more related to each other than either to Ashkenazi. Weird how for Zionists a vague mytho-historical conception of peoplehood from 2000 is enough to make outrageous demands on third parties but slavery in the New World in recent history is just like get over it already (a view I have some sympathy with but why this strange exception for one group only?) Palestinians are largely the same people Jews are if you look at a direct line of descent back 2000 years. The Bible is not history and the Biblical view of Palestine is flatly wrong pre 500BC and oversimplified thereafter.
Not gonna engage with you because of your demeaning language ‘vague mytho historical conception of people hood’ which you would never use toward another minority group. Actually Jews have a very very strong historical factual sense of peoplehood…
I have no demeaning language about Jews - I just don’t think history is a children’s storybook myth for anybody - Jews included. I am actually philo-semitic. I actively would like more Jews in the US and in my community. Jews have contributed so much awesome shit to the world, both materially and intellectually, that we’d be worse off without it. Zionism is just a bizarre double standard blind spot for people who are otherwise pretty awesome. I love the United States and I love European culture too, but Manifest Destiny was just a strange deviation from a culture that also had great ideas. Afrocentrism was a bizarre and mythical concept, but it doesn’t mean black people suck.
Oh please. I have a very sophisticated understanding of Judaism and how Zionism is part of Judaism. You really shouldn’t believe your own bullshit. Open up a Jewish prayer book some day and learn something.
Your ignorance masked in your superiority is immense as is your demeaning language that you don’t even recognize.
I would actually use this for lots and lots of ethnic groups. Jews are a variety of people who slowly and gradually coalesced around monotheism in a specific area that were always in Palestine - there was no Exodus. I’d definitely say this about “Arabs” who are anything but a single people with a common history. Palestinians are hardly Arab by genes and Levantines in general have more genes in common with Greeks than Saudis. The Jews were NOT expelled from Palestine by the Romans. They were merely kicked out of Jerusalem. And lots and lots of Jews convenience converted to Christianity and then Islam. Genetics tells us so. Nothing remotely special about Judaism in this regard. I also have similar realism vs mytho-history things to say about Islam. Being a skeptic of Zionism and Jewish mytho-historicism doesn’t mean I think any other ethnic mytho-history is accurate or any religious mytho-history is accurate. Ask me about Islam and what the best scholarship says about it. There are no religions that just spring into their world via revelation. Its all syncretism and gradual development.
You revealed yourself with your language. Don’t obfuscate. I see your ignorance.
It’s really disgusting to see you write about a ‘vague mytho historical conception’. Only to Jews would someone have enough gall to write such insulting crap. Go on. Keep it up.
Want me to talk about Arabs? Basically you have lots of un-genetically related people who were brutally conquered by some tribes from Arabia and forced a language on them and they now all are Arabs even though the genes didn’t travel much at all. I think Pan-Arabism and Islamism are as dopey and reductive and ahistorical as Zionism. Islam is as dubious in its etiological account of itself as Judaism is. Christianity too.
Oh my god so they can all go away. Except they won't and so that's why zionisim exists and must continue to exist lest we be wiped out with assholes trying to fulfill their own "manifest destiny." You fucking dork.