Very true and very well expained. A black British politician said Jews don't suffer racism because they're white, seemingly forgetting the holocaust, and the origins of the Jewish community. Thank you for pushing back I will continue to support you. An adjustment to the ideas about slavery is also needed as you have mentioned, I recommend The Forgotten Slave Trade by Simon Webb, it goes into great detail about the european slaves of Islam that went on for a thousand years before the transatlantic trade (and carried on into the C19th). Also, you mentioned in one of your interviews that you don't understand why people in the north of Afghanistan are regarded as caucasian but people in the south are not. This is because the people in the north are largely from the Persian Sufi tradition and some of those tribes have very light/white skin, they speak Dari (similar to Farsi) and are mixed Sunni and Shia; whereas those that live in the south are almost all Sunni and their language, Pashtu, is related to Turkish. They have little in common due to the religious, ethnic, linguistic, and philosophical divide.
I generally agree, but unlike the US, there has been no successful civil rights movement in Israel. While mixed marriages are accepted, they are forbidden by law to take place in Israel, different groups live in different and ethnically segregated neighborhoods, and so on... My take on this is that the logic of events is gradually pushing Israel toward a de facto Apartheid-like set of arrangements, which was always a possible outcome of the Zionist project. Had the Palestine political class accepted Israel's right to exist and to work toward a win-win situation for the Palestinians both within Israel and without, I believed that sooner or later, the Zionist dream would wither away, through inter-marriage, common employment, and ethnic integration at the neighborhood level. But, in fact, Israel is further away from that of affairs than ever before.
Arab Israelis have the same exact rights as Jewish Israelis. They have voting rights. They are in the Knesset. 22% of the students in the Technion, which is Israel's MIT, are Arabs. There is zero indication of any movement towards Apartheid in Israel proper. Further, they removed all Jews from Gaza. They do not control area A in the west bank. They do not control the Administration of area B of the West Bank.
It is unclear the basis upon which you assume that Israel would wither away through intermarriage and ethnic integration. Although Jews marry outside their faith, it's not that regular, and this is even more so the case in Israel. And they have consistently maintained their ethnic 'Jewishness' again, much more so in Israel than anywhere else.
I did not say that Israel would wither away as a state, but that the Zionist belief in a Jewish state would lose its appeal in an increasingly integrated society. A recent poll by the Pew foundation reports that 79% of Arab Muslim Israeli’s believe they are discriminated against and 37% report a specific act of discrimination within the last year. I would be surprised if these results would occur in the absence of a pattern of discrimination. And as I understand it, the situation has become increasingly volatile.
For the same reasons, the belief in a Jewish state, is not going to lose its appeal for the Jews. This is a powerful and intrenched mindset of the Jews. In fact, the more religious Jews, who are the most Zionist, are the ones that are reproducing at a high rate.
Belief and actuality of discrimination are not always the same thing. Need specifics. Would like to see the pew poll. There are numerous videos where Arab-Israeli's, who all say they want Israel to run the country, not the Palestinians. Corey Gil-Shuster video is one example. At any rate, the fact remains that Arab-Israelis live a far higher quality of life than Arabs anywhere else in the Arab world.
Israel was founded to protect Jews from racism, not just by the Nazis, but also radical Islam. The hatred of Jews is deep in Islam and has been from the earliest times so it's not surprising Israel's mindset is protection. In an intereview a Palestinian in the west bank said they want equality, which they do have if they live in Israel, but their negative feelings about Jews mean they would not accept living in a majority Jewish state.
"Black Americans had our own version of Zionism. In the first half of the nineteenth century, roughly 5,000 black Americans—some fleeing slavery and others fleeing Northern racism—sailed to West Africa and in 1847 founded the nation of Liberia: a black ethnostate meant to be a haven for African Americans. "
Considering how the Americo-Liberians oppressed the native Africans in Liberia (even to the point of denying them the vote and subjecting them to forced labor), I'm not sure your analogy is as good a pro-Zionist argument as you think it is.
Although it is unnecessary to critique Israel with reference to other nations, to do so in order to argue that noncritical differences relieve Israel of blame for real and serious violations of human rights against people under its control is, at the very least, disingenuous.
Why the charge of apartheid is even controversial anymore shows a surreal lack attention to fact. Proof of guilt has been accumulating for decades, so whether it exactly maps onto South Africa or not is irrelevant. That apartheid is practiced in Israel is the conclusion of multiple experts and human rights organizations. The most eminent and unimpeachable individuals who have recognized apartheid are President Jimmy Carter, Bishop Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela. Organizations which work without obvious bias in mulitiple countries and find Israel guilty include Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the UN through successive special rapporteurs. In Israel itself B’Tselem believes Israel has satisfied the legal definition of apartheid under the 1973 International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid and the Rome Statute.
There is nothing absurd about seeing Zionism as a colonial project. That is, a foreign people with a different culture and language who have strong connections to foreign lands but who have only a slim connection to an already populated land come in large numbers, dominate that land for their own benefit and suppress the indigenous people. Liberia fits that pattern well, since African Americans “came back” to the continent of Africa, but not to the country of their origin. As Americo-Liberians they became a ruling class over indigenous people, who did not even have citizenship until 1904. English is the only official language of Liberia.
The Zionist project was a Western project from the onset, highlighted by the British Balfour Declaration sent to Baron Rothschild and by the early leaders: Ben-Gurion (Polish) and Gold Meir (raised in Milwaukee). The later influx of Mizrahi Jews came after the founding of Israel. Those not open to persuasion, were sometimes panicked into leaving by false flag operations by Jewish saboteurs disguised as Arabs. Israel needed them to outnumber the Palestinians.
Arguing that Israeli military rule of the West Bank is about security instead of a slow motion takeover of land and water resources ignores the obvious problem of the settlers. Adding more and more settlements which then require more and more soldiers to defend and more roads and checkpoints which divide the Palestinians into Bantustans makes no sense in terms of security. Withdrawal across the Green Line would actually make Israel safer and easier to defend. The expansion of Israel is the clear explanation. To Israel it is not the West Bank, it is Judea and Samaria. “From the river to the sea” is actually Israel’s ambition.
Finally, the promiscuous conflation of Hamas, founded in 1985, with Palestinians, is a slippery smear widely being used to discredit any and all Palestinians and allies.
This is a reply to SLGeorge of 10:23. My android app doesn't function properly.
It is interesting that you are ignoring the main point of my post. Both Hamas and Likud are evil, their tactics are unacceptable, and they must be removed from power. Their ends don't justify their means.
Your arguments regarding colonization are based on the past. Mine, vis-a-vis Israel, are based on the present. And by the way, my argument is not with jews or even with Israel, but with the Likud party.
Let's begin in 1967 when Israel got control of the West Bank. Those lands are occupied territory where it is illegal for Israel, as the occupying power, to place settlements.
The settlers are coming from a metropole consisting of Israel proper and the Jewish diaspora. In other words, from outside the legally recognized borders of the West Bank. This is entirely consistent with a settler-colonial project. Therefore Israel is colonizing the West Bank.
Mark, you did not specify the west bank in your original comment, but even at that it is not colonialism bc the west bank is not a country. Having said that, the movement into the west bank is not right.
There is no moral equivalence btwn Hamas and the Likud party.
I am not trying to create a hierarchy of morality. I said both are evil and I stand by that.
Likud's main reason for existing has been to obstruct any possibility of the two-state solution. They want all of Samaria and Judea. Look at Likud's original charter or even a recent platform of Bibi.
That's what we have with Eretz Israel. (The territory covering the largest extent of biblical Israel.)
Sure there are differences between Eretz Israel and Jim Crow south and colonial America. But the basic drive of the process and the effect on and response of indigenous natives is much the same.
Coleman's argument is a distinction with little significant difference.
The Jewish case for colonizing Palestine was biblical authority. The US rationale was Manifest Destiny. The effects of policy count more than motives. The ends DO NOT justify the means.
Israeli Arabs do have citizenship and voting rights. It does offer them a better life. But being only 21% of the population gives them very little political power. So they are no threat to the Israeli state or its freedom of action.
The confinement of the non-citizen Arab population is analogous to Indian reservation system in the US. As a further analogy, the Oct 7 pogrom against innocent Israeli citizens happened when the "Indians" left the reservation and committed atrocities. During the American Indian Wars, viscous atrocities were committed by both sides.
The American settlers, the Boers of South Africa, and all occupying powers have legitimate security concerns. Occupied people have an inherent right to resistance. After all they are being denied self determination.
In closing I want to state unequivocally that I condemn the brutal tactics of both Hamas and the IDF.
There are two evils in the Holy Land: Hamas and the Likud party (together with its coalition partners.) Both must be driven from power.
The Jews did not colonize Palestine. There never was a state of Palestine for them to colonize. The Jews lived in this area, continually for thousands of years leaving only when they were forced out by Arab and other nations. This why the majority of Jews in Israel are Mizrahi.
The Jews accepted both land offers from the British Empire and the UN respectively. The Palestinians refused both offers, and then made war, along with other Arabs, against the Jews and lost.
SLGeorge is correct that "Jews" were there for millennia. There were "Hebrews", believers in the One God, from the time of Abraham crossing the river into Judea. They were forced out to Egypt, returned, to Babylonia, returned, etc all long before there was a Christianity or Islam. So who has better claim? Agreed that trying to settle the West Bank after agreements to borders are made is wrong. If only the Palestinians would respect the same borders.
It was colonized by Jews in exactly the same way that Liberia (a project of the American *Colonization* Society, and cited by Mr. Hughes in his article) was colonized by Americo-Liberians.
I couldn’t find a quote to use here bc this entire article was so damn good!!!
Absolutely brilliantly explained. As usual. Thank you Colman.
Very true and very well expained. A black British politician said Jews don't suffer racism because they're white, seemingly forgetting the holocaust, and the origins of the Jewish community. Thank you for pushing back I will continue to support you. An adjustment to the ideas about slavery is also needed as you have mentioned, I recommend The Forgotten Slave Trade by Simon Webb, it goes into great detail about the european slaves of Islam that went on for a thousand years before the transatlantic trade (and carried on into the C19th). Also, you mentioned in one of your interviews that you don't understand why people in the north of Afghanistan are regarded as caucasian but people in the south are not. This is because the people in the north are largely from the Persian Sufi tradition and some of those tribes have very light/white skin, they speak Dari (similar to Farsi) and are mixed Sunni and Shia; whereas those that live in the south are almost all Sunni and their language, Pashtu, is related to Turkish. They have little in common due to the religious, ethnic, linguistic, and philosophical divide.
Excellent and succinct explanation of the situation in Israel and the difference between Hamas Palestinians and African-Americans. Thank you.
I generally agree, but unlike the US, there has been no successful civil rights movement in Israel. While mixed marriages are accepted, they are forbidden by law to take place in Israel, different groups live in different and ethnically segregated neighborhoods, and so on... My take on this is that the logic of events is gradually pushing Israel toward a de facto Apartheid-like set of arrangements, which was always a possible outcome of the Zionist project. Had the Palestine political class accepted Israel's right to exist and to work toward a win-win situation for the Palestinians both within Israel and without, I believed that sooner or later, the Zionist dream would wither away, through inter-marriage, common employment, and ethnic integration at the neighborhood level. But, in fact, Israel is further away from that of affairs than ever before.
Arab Israelis have the same exact rights as Jewish Israelis. They have voting rights. They are in the Knesset. 22% of the students in the Technion, which is Israel's MIT, are Arabs. There is zero indication of any movement towards Apartheid in Israel proper. Further, they removed all Jews from Gaza. They do not control area A in the west bank. They do not control the Administration of area B of the West Bank.
It is unclear the basis upon which you assume that Israel would wither away through intermarriage and ethnic integration. Although Jews marry outside their faith, it's not that regular, and this is even more so the case in Israel. And they have consistently maintained their ethnic 'Jewishness' again, much more so in Israel than anywhere else.
I did not say that Israel would wither away as a state, but that the Zionist belief in a Jewish state would lose its appeal in an increasingly integrated society. A recent poll by the Pew foundation reports that 79% of Arab Muslim Israeli’s believe they are discriminated against and 37% report a specific act of discrimination within the last year. I would be surprised if these results would occur in the absence of a pattern of discrimination. And as I understand it, the situation has become increasingly volatile.
For the same reasons, the belief in a Jewish state, is not going to lose its appeal for the Jews. This is a powerful and intrenched mindset of the Jews. In fact, the more religious Jews, who are the most Zionist, are the ones that are reproducing at a high rate.
Belief and actuality of discrimination are not always the same thing. Need specifics. Would like to see the pew poll. There are numerous videos where Arab-Israeli's, who all say they want Israel to run the country, not the Palestinians. Corey Gil-Shuster video is one example. At any rate, the fact remains that Arab-Israelis live a far higher quality of life than Arabs anywhere else in the Arab world.
Israel was founded to protect Jews from racism, not just by the Nazis, but also radical Islam. The hatred of Jews is deep in Islam and has been from the earliest times so it's not surprising Israel's mindset is protection. In an intereview a Palestinian in the west bank said they want equality, which they do have if they live in Israel, but their negative feelings about Jews mean they would not accept living in a majority Jewish state.
"Black Americans had our own version of Zionism. In the first half of the nineteenth century, roughly 5,000 black Americans—some fleeing slavery and others fleeing Northern racism—sailed to West Africa and in 1847 founded the nation of Liberia: a black ethnostate meant to be a haven for African Americans. "
Considering how the Americo-Liberians oppressed the native Africans in Liberia (even to the point of denying them the vote and subjecting them to forced labor), I'm not sure your analogy is as good a pro-Zionist argument as you think it is.
I believe it fits as an analogy. What happens in an "ethnostate" after established has nothing to do with the advocacy prior.
Although it is unnecessary to critique Israel with reference to other nations, to do so in order to argue that noncritical differences relieve Israel of blame for real and serious violations of human rights against people under its control is, at the very least, disingenuous.
Why the charge of apartheid is even controversial anymore shows a surreal lack attention to fact. Proof of guilt has been accumulating for decades, so whether it exactly maps onto South Africa or not is irrelevant. That apartheid is practiced in Israel is the conclusion of multiple experts and human rights organizations. The most eminent and unimpeachable individuals who have recognized apartheid are President Jimmy Carter, Bishop Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela. Organizations which work without obvious bias in mulitiple countries and find Israel guilty include Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the UN through successive special rapporteurs. In Israel itself B’Tselem believes Israel has satisfied the legal definition of apartheid under the 1973 International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid and the Rome Statute.
There is nothing absurd about seeing Zionism as a colonial project. That is, a foreign people with a different culture and language who have strong connections to foreign lands but who have only a slim connection to an already populated land come in large numbers, dominate that land for their own benefit and suppress the indigenous people. Liberia fits that pattern well, since African Americans “came back” to the continent of Africa, but not to the country of their origin. As Americo-Liberians they became a ruling class over indigenous people, who did not even have citizenship until 1904. English is the only official language of Liberia.
The Zionist project was a Western project from the onset, highlighted by the British Balfour Declaration sent to Baron Rothschild and by the early leaders: Ben-Gurion (Polish) and Gold Meir (raised in Milwaukee). The later influx of Mizrahi Jews came after the founding of Israel. Those not open to persuasion, were sometimes panicked into leaving by false flag operations by Jewish saboteurs disguised as Arabs. Israel needed them to outnumber the Palestinians.
Arguing that Israeli military rule of the West Bank is about security instead of a slow motion takeover of land and water resources ignores the obvious problem of the settlers. Adding more and more settlements which then require more and more soldiers to defend and more roads and checkpoints which divide the Palestinians into Bantustans makes no sense in terms of security. Withdrawal across the Green Line would actually make Israel safer and easier to defend. The expansion of Israel is the clear explanation. To Israel it is not the West Bank, it is Judea and Samaria. “From the river to the sea” is actually Israel’s ambition.
Finally, the promiscuous conflation of Hamas, founded in 1985, with Palestinians, is a slippery smear widely being used to discredit any and all Palestinians and allies.
This is a reply to SLGeorge of 10:23. My android app doesn't function properly.
It is interesting that you are ignoring the main point of my post. Both Hamas and Likud are evil, their tactics are unacceptable, and they must be removed from power. Their ends don't justify their means.
Your arguments regarding colonization are based on the past. Mine, vis-a-vis Israel, are based on the present. And by the way, my argument is not with jews or even with Israel, but with the Likud party.
Let's begin in 1967 when Israel got control of the West Bank. Those lands are occupied territory where it is illegal for Israel, as the occupying power, to place settlements.
The settlers are coming from a metropole consisting of Israel proper and the Jewish diaspora. In other words, from outside the legally recognized borders of the West Bank. This is entirely consistent with a settler-colonial project. Therefore Israel is colonizing the West Bank.
Mark, you did not specify the west bank in your original comment, but even at that it is not colonialism bc the west bank is not a country. Having said that, the movement into the west bank is not right.
There is no moral equivalence btwn Hamas and the Likud party.
I am not trying to create a hierarchy of morality. I said both are evil and I stand by that.
Likud's main reason for existing has been to obstruct any possibility of the two-state solution. They want all of Samaria and Judea. Look at Likud's original charter or even a recent platform of Bibi.
I will give you the last word. :) Thanks for the correspondence & for being intellectual and civil.
Thank you too.
History doesn't repeat, but it does rhyme.
That's what we have with Eretz Israel. (The territory covering the largest extent of biblical Israel.)
Sure there are differences between Eretz Israel and Jim Crow south and colonial America. But the basic drive of the process and the effect on and response of indigenous natives is much the same.
Coleman's argument is a distinction with little significant difference.
The Jewish case for colonizing Palestine was biblical authority. The US rationale was Manifest Destiny. The effects of policy count more than motives. The ends DO NOT justify the means.
Israeli Arabs do have citizenship and voting rights. It does offer them a better life. But being only 21% of the population gives them very little political power. So they are no threat to the Israeli state or its freedom of action.
The confinement of the non-citizen Arab population is analogous to Indian reservation system in the US. As a further analogy, the Oct 7 pogrom against innocent Israeli citizens happened when the "Indians" left the reservation and committed atrocities. During the American Indian Wars, viscous atrocities were committed by both sides.
The American settlers, the Boers of South Africa, and all occupying powers have legitimate security concerns. Occupied people have an inherent right to resistance. After all they are being denied self determination.
In closing I want to state unequivocally that I condemn the brutal tactics of both Hamas and the IDF.
There are two evils in the Holy Land: Hamas and the Likud party (together with its coalition partners.) Both must be driven from power.
The Jews did not colonize Palestine. There never was a state of Palestine for them to colonize. The Jews lived in this area, continually for thousands of years leaving only when they were forced out by Arab and other nations. This why the majority of Jews in Israel are Mizrahi.
The Jews accepted both land offers from the British Empire and the UN respectively. The Palestinians refused both offers, and then made war, along with other Arabs, against the Jews and lost.
See my reply a couple of posts above.
SLGeorge is correct that "Jews" were there for millennia. There were "Hebrews", believers in the One God, from the time of Abraham crossing the river into Judea. They were forced out to Egypt, returned, to Babylonia, returned, etc all long before there was a Christianity or Islam. So who has better claim? Agreed that trying to settle the West Bank after agreements to borders are made is wrong. If only the Palestinians would respect the same borders.
Excellent points!
Was the land of Israel ever "colonized" by Jews? The "decolonization" crowd would say yes, but if so -- what Jewish country colonized Palestine?
https://carolinacurmudgeon.substack.com/p/if-israel-deserves-to-be-decolonized
It was colonized by Jews in exactly the same way that Liberia (a project of the American *Colonization* Society, and cited by Mr. Hughes in his article) was colonized by Americo-Liberians.