#Define sovereignty

[siplifeslowly]

New Every Morning

https://www.canva.com/design/DAF7LytTIPQ/dYUCemLrz_AQLUaRqp9klw/watch His Mercies are New Every Morning by Angela Edmonds He is making all things new. Did you know that? And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Revelation 21:5a And this morning, this day, this moment- His mercies are new right now. You may be reading this in the middle of the night. Even…

[mybeautifulchristianjourney]

"[We insist that God] must surely lead everyone as we believe He has led us. We refuse to allow God the freedom to deal with each of us as individuals. When we think like that, we are legalistic." - Jerry Bridges

[in-sightpublishing]

Globalization With Tianxi Yu (余天曦)

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2024/08/21 Tianxi Yu（余天曦）is a man who’s interested in IQ tests. Here we talk some updates in his work and professional life when applying his intelligence to work and personal situations. Scott Douglas Jacobsen: With an increasingly globalized world, especially for the younger…

[vamptastic]

Another thing that is driving me fucking insane is that the only thing the current rise in the anti-zionist movement is in agreement upon is a ceasefire. I think that's good in terms of organizing around one immediate, actionable change, but god it's going to be a fucking shitshow when a ceasefire does occur because there seems to be very little consensus on what should happen long-term. Not surprising, considering a lot of people are new to the cause and that their passion stems from the obvious atrocity currently happening, not a deeper connection or investment. Just bonkers to see people who want one 'secular, democratic' state (not a lot of elaboration on what that means) and people who want two independent states and people who want one Palestinian state (sometimes secular, sometimes not) all calling themselves one movement... I mean, where is all this support going to be channeled in the years to come?

[psychotrenny]

I kinda hate it when ostensible leftists throw around meaningless Liberal criticisms. Like you can just condemn a state for the cruel and unjustifiable actions it's committing. Like Israel is an Imperialist Settler Colonist state that's been exploiting, ethnically cleansing and committing the genocide of indigenous Palestinians for it's entire existence with the intensity of this violence increasing in recent months as reprisals for recent acts of Palestinian resistance. It's not a fucking "illegitimate" or "terrorist" state because that's meaningless.

Whether a state is recognised as legitimate or not by under the Imperialist dominated world order means literally nothing about the morality of continued existence. And for what it's worth only 15% of UN member nations do not recognise the Sovereignty of Israel, meaning that by most definitions of the word it is in fact a legitimate nation; to be clear this demonstrates the uselessness of "legitimacy" as a concept rather than the righteousness of Israel's continued existence. Meanwhile the use of the word "Terrorism" has heavy connotation of non-state actors; while at it's broadest people may define it as "use of violence and intimidation to achieve political aims", but if such a broad definition was used in practice the term would be diluted beyond all meaning. The word "terrorism" is rarely used for the actions of states except as an extreme pejorative. The phrase "Terrorist State" is basically only used by Imperialists as a label they use to justify the violence they inflict on oppositional regimes. It's never used in a useful analytical or even descriptive way; it means nothing beyond being a pure insult and call to arms against the target.

Like you can condemn Israel for what it actually is using words that actually mean something; you don't have to keep repeating the same buzzwords that liberals use against states like Cuba and North Korea. You aren't gonna achieve much if you limit yourself to employing the language of Imperialism against it's masters. This rhetoric is rooted in a very specific ideology; it can't simply be pulled out and reversed

[heritageposts]

. . . But in 1948 Israel declared its sovereignty from the British Mandate through the besiegement of indigenous Palestinians. The new nation retained Regulation 133(3) with an important caveat: It was amended to give military commanders complete control over where a body is buried, as opposed to the original “community to which such person belongs.” This is the legal basis of postmortem detention, and over the last 80 years the scope of the law has expanded greatly. Namely, who is subject to postmortem detention by the military (from “enemy soldier” to the blanket term “terrorist”) and when the state is entitled to seize bodies (from “times of war” to “forever war on terror”). Regulation 133(3) can now impose restrictions on funerals when a body is returned to a family. When Palestinian prisoner Mustafa Arabat succumbed to torture in 1992, Israeli courts ruled in favor of the military to enforce that his funeral be held in the middle of the night and only attended by immediate family. Today, families whose bodies are eventually returned to them must abide by the military’s rules on how to express their final rites. Israeli law explicitly defines these funerals as a threat to “public order” and grants soldiers power over a family’s grieving.

. . . full article on The Nation (29 June, 2023)

[archived link]

[opencommunion]

"While largely toothless as a democratic body—shorn of true legislative capacities and having never developed a genuine transnational dynamic—the European Parliament is nonetheless an important bellwether to track the continent’s political winds. As the results of the parliament’s June 6-9 elections confirm, those winds are blowing in a bleakly reactionary direction.

... There are two principal causes for this. First, the fact that for many decades now European national governments and federal European institutions have legitimized — through emergency measures, moral panics and murderous border policies that have led to thousands of migrant deaths in the Mediterranean — the far Right’s defining claim that migration threatens the material and cultural survival of white European civilization. The far Right’s obsessive talk of borders and births, and its promotion of the myth of the Great Replacement, were enabled by the EU’s political center. Governments across the continent advanced anti-migrant policies on the grounds that stricter regulations would sap the foundations of extremism. But it turns out voters often prefer the original brand, choosing bellicose nativism over technocratic repression when it comes to the ​'migration crisis.'

The second engine of Europe’s turn towards authoritarianism is the EU’s promotion of fiscal austerity policies that have particularly impacted Southern Europe and Ireland, but which have led to welfare state retrenchment across the board. Beyond eroding livelihoods and exacerbating inequality, austerity also led to the rise of multiple movements to reclaim national sovereignty, almost all of which (after the punishment and capitulation of Syriza’s left-wing government in Greece) are now monopolized by reactionaries. While all of Europe’s far-right parties have played on this supposedly populist register, none have challenged the hegemony of markets and the rating agencies that dictate cuts to social programs. ... The real social malaise that plagues so much of Europe — overburdened and privatized healthcare, labor precarity, anemic social security, accelerating climate-related emergencies — is projected onto the far Right’s favorite scapegoats: primarily migrants, but also ​'gender ideology' and its alleged assault on the family as Europe’s moral and material core."

[matan4il]

To the person who wants us to differentiate the modern political movement that came to be called Zionism, and the Zionist nature of Judaism, I'll address you politely, even though your assertion that I must be a teenager (quick search of my blog would show you that I work at a Holocaust museum, education and research center, that also studies the history of the Jewish people in general, so... not a sound assumption) is very insulting and condescending.

Sure, we can distinguish the thousands of years old Zionist nature of Judaism from the modern political movement that came to be referred to as Zionism.

But do you understand that the modern political movement wouldn't exist without the fact that Judaism has ALWAYS been Zionist? That the distinction is, to a degree, an artificial one, especially in the context of anti-Zionists claiming that Judaism is incompatible with Zionism, which is a lie. With that claim, they mean to deny the very right of Israel to exist as a liberation and land back movement of the Jewish people, and while they're at it, they are de-legitimizing every Zionist movement ever, whether modern or not, they're de-legitimizing every Jew who had returned to Israel, even just as an individual, because they are denying the very Zionist nature of Judaism.

I'll attach at the end an attempt at demonstrating why the distinction is somewhat artificial in this context.

But before that, I'll address some of your other claims. You said that Zionism is a secular movement, and religious Jews are opposed to it. While some ultraorthodox Jews are indeed opposed to active Zionism, and prefer a passive wait for the Mashiach, they too are Zionist in the non-modern-political-movement sense (they still believe and pray for the Mashich to bring all Jews back to Israel and re-establish Jewish sovereignty in this land, not to keep them in the diaspora). And they do not represent all religious Jews. The modern political Zionist movement was very much joined by religious Jews, such as a political organization called "Ha'Mizrachi," which was established in 1902. Their Zionism was connected to the actions and writings of rabbis who preceded many secular Zionist leaders like Herzl (first published a Zionist pamphlet in 1896), such as Rabbi Shmuel Mohilever (first established Ha'Mizrachi as a spiritual and educational pro-Zionist center in 1893), Rabbi Yehuda Alkalai (published "Minchat Yehuda," a Zionist call for Jews to return to Israel in 1840, and established the Society for the Settlement of Eretz Yisrael in 1852), and Rabbi Zvi Kalischer (asked Mayer Amschel Rothschild to help with the purchase of land in Israel for Jews to return there in 1836, and published the Zionist book Drishat Zion in 1862). Even among ultraorthodox Jews, there are Zionist ones. Some of them were a part of Ha'Mizrachi organization. During the British rule in Israel, there were ultraorthodox Jews who actively helped the Zionist underground movements, the Etzel and the Hagana, and in a 2022 poll, 76% of Chassidic Jews defined themselves as Zionist.

You also made the assertion that the modern political movement of Zionism is European. Again, while many of its founders were from Europe, many Jews from Arab and Muslim countries came to Israel as a part of the modern Zionist movement. Please don't erase them. And why would they be a part of this movement? Because of the intrinsically Zionist nature of Judaism. Yemenite Jews didn't need to be a part of the founding fathers of the modern political movement, in order to be a part of the movement, and to see it as a fulfilment of ancient Jewish prophecies, when they were brought to Israel in a special operation in 1952. In fact, there was a Zionist Yemenite movement of return in 1881, following a verse in the Bible, in the Song of Songs book, that they believed told them they had to return to Israel during this year. Many of them settled in a village close to the Temple Mount, which the Arabs refer to as Silwan, a mispronunciation of the ancient Hebrew name Shiloach (that can be found in the Bible). These Yemenite Jews were ethnically cleansed by the Arabs during the 1936-1939 anti-Zionist, anti-Jewish riots. And when Jews tried to return to Kfar Ha'Shiloach, anti-Zionists attacked that as "colonization," too. Anti-Zionists make NO distinction between Jews returning to Israel from Europe, and Jews returning to it from Arab and Muslim countries. We're all just "Zionists" and "incompatible with Judaism," no matter how much our Zionism is derived from our Jewish identity, and no matter that we are native to this land, not colonizers.

You asked, "how can judaism be 'inherently zionist' when the idea of a jewish state has only existed for less than 200 of those years?" and I will ask you, what's unclear when I say that Zionism is about Jewish sovereignty in the Jewish ancestral homeland, which is an idea that I showed was inherent to Jewish tradition and religion? There were Jewish kingdoms here (the unified kingdom, the Kingdom of Israel, the Kingdom of Yehudah, and the Hasmonean Kingdom), that fulfilled that idea long before there was a Jewish state, and the Jewish state is a direct (and yes, modern) continuation of those ancient Jewish kingdoms (I mean, of course that's the modern reincarnation, we're not going to build a Jewish kingdom now, just so no one can use the accusation that a Jewish state is a modern concept... and I'm sort of weirded out by the fact that I have to defend the right of Jews to implement modern reincarnations of their traditional notions... Also, pretty sure that if we went with the old version and tried to set up a Jewish kingdom, we'd be crucified for being backwards), because it is founded on the same exact principle, that we get to self rule in our own ancestral land. Denying that is erasing Jewish history and parts of Jewish identity.

You said, "our connection to the land does not need to be mediated through a political body the majority of us have absolutely no say in," and I wanna ask you, does every German in the world (or at least most) have to live in Germany, and have a say in it as a citizen, for the nation state of the German people to have the right to exist? Same for every other nation state out there.

You called Israel, "a country younger than our grandparents, and for that matter any other country too," which is untrue on several levels. The state might be younger than some grandparents, but its right to exist is an ancient one, connected to those thousands of years old kingdoms, and in that sense, the modern state of Israel being founded in 1948 is no different to the modern state of India being founded in 1947. Would you tell Indians that their state has no right to exist, erasing its connection to previous forms of Indian self rule in that land, just because those weren't a modern state? Would you offend them by suggesting that the age of their modern state is a factor in its legitimacy? No. But for some reason, you feel comfortable doing that when it comes to the modern Jewish state. While we're at it, whether the current self rule of Palestinians constitutes a state is a matter of debate, but let's say that it counts, and that a Palestinian state started existing when they began self ruling in 1994 following the Oslo accords (the first time ever in history when Arabs in Israel self ruled, rather than be a colony serving a metropole situated in some other Arab or Muslim country), that would make their state not only younger than our grandparents, it would make it younger than quite a few Tumblr users. But I bet you wouldn't say that this de-legitimizes the right of a Palestinian state to exist. Yet you feel it's perfectly okay to say such things about Israel. You should ask yourself why can you accept others, but not a Jewish state. For the record, here's some modern states younger than Israel, that you would never dream to de-legitimize based on their age: Malaysia (1957), Singapore (1965), Zimbabwe (as Rhodesia, 1965), Bangladesh (1971), Guinea-Bissau (1973), Comoros (1975), Lithuania (1990), Latvia (1990), Belarus (1990), Armenia (1990), Georgia (1991), Croatia (1991), Slovenia (1991), Ukraine (1991), Moldova (1991), Uzbekistan (1991), Macedonia (1991), Azerbaijan (1991), Slovakia (1992), Montenegro (2006).

***

Okay, a small demonstration of how artificial the distinction between modern political Zionism and historical Zionism is...

Where do we put the start of the modern political movement of Zionism, what is the date when it began?

A lot of people would suggest that it started with Herzl. He's often referred to as "the father of Zionism" (that's incorrect. It would be more accurate to refer to him as "the father of diplomatic Zionism"). Herzl was actually an assimilationist Jew, who believed Jews in Europe should aspire to be like all other Europeans, erase the difference between them and the non-Jews (relinquishing our tradition, culture, religion, everything that makes us unique and a contribution to the richness of the human experience), and rely on the equal rights that Europeans would grant us. He believed in this, but experiencing antisemitism in the cosmopolitan Vienna, as well as covering the Dreyfus trial (when a Jewish officer was convicted of treason, and shamefully exiled, despite his many years of loyal service to his country, just because he was a Jew), he came to publish (as I mentioned) a Zionist pamphlet in 1896.

So, shall we count the start of the modern political movement of Zionism as 1896?

But the term "Zionism" as the name of the movement was actually coined in 1890, by Nathan Birnbaum!

So, shall we count the start of the modern political movement of Zionism as 1890?

But for the term to be coined, it had to describe something that already existed. And in fact, many Zionist groups, counted as a part of the modern political movement, were already active by that time. For example, some people start counting the new Yishuv in Eretz Yisrael as starting with the arrival in Israel of the Zionist Bilu group, in 1882 (they were established in January of that year, and despite being secular Jews, they were drawing from Jewish tradition, naming themselves after a biblical verse from the book of Isaiah. Because like I said, modern political Zionism wouldn't exist without the ancient Zionist nature of Judaism).

So, shall we count the start of the modern political movement of Zionism as 1882?

But that doesn't work either, because by the time the Bilu group arrived in Israel, the first Jewish moshava (a Zionist form of settlement based on values of agriculture and communality), Petach Tikva (sometimes nicknamed "the mother of moshavot"), was already established in 1878.

So, shall we count the start of the modern political movement of Zionism as 1878?

But how did this new movement of Zionists know to work the land, if in the diaspora, for hundreds of years, Jews were prohibited from being farmers, so they would have no claim to the land they worked? Well, many young Zionists learned how to do this work thanks to a Jewish agricultural school called Mikveh Yisrael, which was founded in 1870.

So, shall we count the start of the modern political movement of Zionism as 1870?

But a part of why Mikvah Yisrael was established, was the poor condition of Jews in Jerusalem. By the time demographic surveys were conducted in the 1840's, Jews were the biggest religious group in the Old City of Jerusalem, and so overcrowded that it made their lives much harder, sometimes even endangered (like when a plague would break out). The Jewish minister Moshe Montefiore started building neighborhoods for Jews outside the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem in 1860, moving Jews out of the old Yishuv and into a new form of settling in the land of Israel, outside the "protecting" walls of the four cities holy to Judaism, and into the idea that they can and should use agriculture to sustain themselves outside these cities, and re-connect with their land.

So, shall we count the start of the modern political movement of Zionism as 1860?

But the first victim of anti-Zionist terrorism in the land of Israel is actually considered to be Rabbi Shlomo Avraham Zalman Zoref, who was murdered by Arabs in 1851 for his Zionist efforts to help in the settlement of Jews in Israel and in the restoring of Jewish religious life in the Old City of Jerusalem through diplomatic efforts vis a vis Muhamad Ali Pasha, the Egyptian occupier of the Land of Israel at the time, and by enlisting the help of the consuls of Russia and Austria (by the way, one of his grandsons was among the founders of Petach Tikva).

So, shall we count the start of the modern political movement of Zionism as 1851?

But his diplomatic Zionist efforts, for which he was murdered, didn't start at the time of his death, they go back to when he managed to get that permit from Muhamad Ali Pasha in 1836 for Jews to re-build the Ashkenazi community in the Old City of Jerusalem, which had been destroyed by Muslims over a hundred years earlier.

So, shall we count the start of the modern political movement of Zionism as 1836?

But where did that Ashkenazi Jewish community, which Rabbi Zoref tried to restore, come from? Rabbi Yehuda Ha'Chassid successfully called Jews to return to Israel, and he did manage to inspire many to follow him as he started his own journey to Israel in 1697, and managed to buy land for his community in the Old City of Jerusalem, which was joined by Jews already living there. This WAS a form of a semi-modern Zionist movement. And it IS quite connected to what came later, in more modern times.

Or another example. Dona Garcia Nassi was a crypto Jew from Portugal, whose family had fled the Spanish Inquisition, only for the Portuguese Inquisition to grow stronger and harsher, driving her and a part of her family to Istanbul. There, they could stop pretending to be converts to Christianity, they got to publicly return to their Jewish identity. She did a lot for Jews, and in 1561, she used her financial and political ties to ask the Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the First to lease land in Israel, for Jews to self rule there. She first asked for land in Jerusalem, was refused, and so she ended up leasing land in Tiberias instead, helping to re-build the city and the Jewish community there, and allowing for a movement of Jews to return to Israel and settle in Tiberias. It's another type of semi-modern Zionist movement striving for Jewish sovereignty in Israel, in whatever form they could get it.

So where do we draw the line? How do we say, these Jews returning to Israel count as Zionist, but those don't? One of my best friends is a Jew from Morocco, his family was religious and fiercely Zionist, and your ask erased them. How do we accept a narrative that looks at thousands of years of Jews returning to Israel, from all sorts of backgrounds, and from all sorts of countries, and yet doesn't recognize that they all returned for the same reason, drawing from the same Jewish foundation? How do we not see that the separation is an artificial one?

Anti-Zionism is antisemitic in so many ways, and one of them is exactly what this narrative does to so many Jews who were proud, and wanted to be counted as Zionist, precisely because to them it was an expression of their Jewish identity.

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[xclowniex]

Another reason that antizionism is antisemitism is because the sovereignty of no other nation has a philosophical term that completely unrelated citizens from countries around the world define themselves by. Like there are serious issues in the ruling and actions of say, Kenya, Hungary or Honduras. You don’t have random Americans listing how much they hate Hungarian nationalists or corrupt agents in Kenya to the point of developing shorthand for it

Yeeep.

Zio is a slur created by the KKK.

You don't see Americans saying shit about how the NZ government is trying to take away rights from Maori and coming up with a shorthand for people who support the government in doing so.

I do believe that a person can be an antizionist without being antisemitic, but at the very least they would have to recognize that jews are indigenous and hamas should not stay in power and have a valid reason as to why Israel should not exist. But sadly a lot of them fail to to that.

[siplifeslowly]

His Sovereignty Covers Every Inch

I used to think that there was a way outside of His. In reality, His sovereignty covers everything, and we either experience the blessings of walking with Him or the consequences of not.

https://www.canva.com/design/DAF7MKPsvjE/watch I used to think that there was a way outside of His. – That everyone can choose God or not, so naturally, they can choose His Way or not. And if not- well, then there is a place we can go to escape Him and His good rule. It really boiled down to me believing deep down that there was a place we could go in this life where God was not. It sounds…

[sissa-arrows]

Albert Camus could not conceive of Algerian independence, nor could he conceive of himself as separate from French Algeria. It was his “red line in the sand,” the boundary which should not be crossed, the ultimate taboo. Algeria was the jewel in France’s colonial empire, so important that the French authorities considered it a region of France. It was not just a military conquest; it was an administrative one as well. Camus was defined and defined himself by colonial Algeria and could not live without it. Yet the paradox is that Camus persuasively uses the rhetoric of humanism while supporting French sovereignty over Algeria. Many of Albert Camus’ arguments are vastly identical to those trotted out today regarding Palestine.

“What is illegitimate in Arab demands ? The desire to regain a life of dignity and freedom, the total loss of confidence in any political solution backed by France, and the romanticism of some very young and politically unsophisticated insurgents have led certain Algerian fighters and their leaders to demand national independence. No matter how favourable one is to Arab demands, it must be recognized that to demand national independence for Algeria is a purely emotional response to the situation. There has never been an Algerian nation. The Jews, Turks, Greeks, Italians and Berbers all have a claim to lead this virtual nation. At the moment, the Arabs themselves are not the only constituent of that nation. In particular, the French population is large enough [c. 1/9], and it has been settled long enough [c. 150 years], to create a problem that has no historical precedent. The French of Algeria are themselves an indigenous population in the full sense of the word. Furthermore, a purely Arab Algeria would not be able to achieve economic independence, without which political independence is not real. French efforts in Algeria, however inadequate, have been sufficient that no other power is prepared to assume responsibility for the country at the present time.” — Algerian Chronicles

Camus is like the “Israeli left” and a part of the Western Left in general who cannot conceive the total liberation of Palestine. That’s why I said that if they actually cared they would have more “porteurs de valises” and less Albert Camus.

The porteurs de valises who were settlers totally conceived a free Algeria in their mind and they saw themselves living there as ALGERIANS and they did. They also acknowledged that as settlers they had bias and they worked on those bias (I made a post with the testimony of on of those men and how he realized that he had racist bias against Arabs and how he eventually realized that even if he was white his people were not French people but Algerians…) Most of those settlers who fought alongside our grandparents did not leave because they were kicked out at the independence. They left as refugees during the Black decade and had to fill the SAME paperwork as other Algerians. (I could talk about the 121’s Manifest but given that some of the people who signed it turned around and became Zionists I think the manifest was more about white people wanting a clear conscience they did put the right to not be an oppressor on the same level as the right to not be oppressed)

Camus on the other hand was racist he was a product of settler colonialism. You cannot steal, dispossess, oppress a people for over a century unless you don’t see them as fully human. He kept equating the resistance with the oppressor he kept pretending to condemn violence on “both sides” but when he was asked to sign the letter condemning the systematic use of torture by France against Algerians he refused to sign it. He also kept implying Algeria didn’t exist before France anyway. He also showed his lack of knowledge on history by claiming everyone had a right to Algeria anyway not just “Arabs” because Algeria had been part of the Roman Empire and the Ottoman Empire. Jews as a whole have zero rights over Algeria. Imazighen Jews had a right over Algeria because they were Imazighen not because they were Jews. If Turks, Italian, Greeks had a right over Algeria then we have a right over the south of France, over Spain, over Sicily, over Greece because some Roman leaders were Imazighen and because Al Andalus existed.

But what’s maybe one of my biggest issue with Camus, probably because that’s still happening to these days. Is how his position would require only Algerians to compromise. Settlers were simply asked to stop the killing and to pretend to see Algerians as equal humans that’s not a fucking compromise. Algerians on the other hand were asked to pretend that nothing had happened? Those white settlers who had killed your sons and nephews on May 8th 1945 in Setif and around? They never got punished for it. They never even expressed regrets they were proud of it. Algerians were asked to just forget about it to pretend it never happened. The guy who stole your father’s land and is making money from that land? In Camus’ Algeria he gets to keep that land in exchange he must pretend Algerians are equal. The Algerian has to pretend that land was never stolen that he doesn’t have a right to it. In Camus’ vision for Algeria only the Algerian is asked to actually make compromise so the white man gets to be cleaned of his sins.

To these days in the West, PoC are the one asked to make compromises all the fucking time (sometimes on a smaller scale sometimes not). “vote for the lesser of two evils it will be easier to fight and we will help”. Once the lesser of two evils is elected the people who told us to compromise don’t respect their part of the deal they actually call us out when we protest. Because those “deals” are not meant to save us all they are meant to save white people. Because the lesser of two evils doesn’t affect them and their lives so they will be able to afford staying comfortably at home and criticize us for still fighting.

That’s why what I resent the most about Camus is that “let’s make a compromise” attitude that actually only requires compromises from Algerians while settlers get to keep up with their lives the same exact way except they have to pretend they see us as humans. I would believe in the genuine intent behind these compromises (while still being against it) if reparation was mentioned for example but no, settlers get to live the exact same way as they did before they just get absolved of their crimes without ever getting justice. Meanwhile Algerians are asked to pretend nothing happened.

Just like I previously said that a settler colony cannot create settlers without racist bias and that they need to work on those bias, a settler colony also cannot create indigenous people who are not oppressed. Every single Algerian family has a fucked up story to tell about the horror of colonialism. Every single Palestinian family has a fucked up story to tell about the horror of colonialism. Every single Native of Turtle Island family has a fucked up story to tell about the horror of colonialism. I could go on, the point is you can’t ask people to just pretend it never happened because now the settlers are pretending to see you as a human.

[wishicouldcrossthesea]

Arendt refused any strict historical analogy between the displacement of the Jews from Europe and those of the Palestinians from a newly established Israel; she surveyed a number of historically distinct situations of statelessness to develop the general critique of the nation-state in The Origins of Totalitarianism in 1951. There she attempted to show how, for structural reasons, the nation-state produces mass numbers of refugees and must produce them in order to maintain the homogeneity of the nation it seeks to represent, in other words, to support the nationalism of the nation-state. This led her to oppose any state formation that sought to reduce or refuse the heterogeneity of its population, including the founding of Israel on principles of Jewish sovereignty, and it is clearly one reason she refected on the postsovereign and postnational promise of federalism. She thought that any state that failed to have the popular support of all its inhabitants and that defined citizenship on the basis of religious or national belonging would be forced to produce a permanent class of refugees; the critique extended to Israel, which, she thought, would find itself in endless conflict (thus heightening the danger to itself) and would perpetually lack legitimacy as a democracy grounded in a popular will, especially in light of its continued reliance on “superpowers” to maintain its political power in the region.

Judith Butler, "Is Judaism Zionism?"

[edenfenixblogs]

Reminder! But be aware that many Jews use the term Zionist/Zionism in a way that you do not understand it/are not familiar with! Many Jewish people who you would define as Zionists and/or people who have all the same politics as you may:

1. Call themselves Zionists because it is a term with deeply individual meanings for many Jews

2. Not call themselves Zionists, but bristle at hearing the term “Zionist” be used as a pejorative because the history of the word Zionist being used as an antisemitic dogwhistle in leftism, communist Russia, and Arab extremist organizations (and because I am Jewish and on the internet I will state explicitly that no, of course I do not think all Arabs are extremists. I do not think all Muslims are extremists. I do not tolerate Islamophobia in any way on my blog or in real life. If I see a single even somewhat questionable instance of maybe Islamophobia in any replies here, you will be blocked and reported. I am taking the time to educate about Zionism as a dogwhistle, because I have chosen to tolerate a certain amount of feedback as a Jewish person. I am neither Arab nor Muslim so it is not my place to extend an olive branch of understanding regarding Islamophobia to you nor do I have any interest in doing so. I wholeheartedly condemn anti-Arab and Islamophobic hatred. As we all should)

3. Actively call themselves anti-Zionists because they define the term Zionism in a way that includes occupation, genocide, and expulsion

4. Actively call themselves anti-Zionists but still believe that Jewish people as an ethnoreligous group are inherently indigenous to the lands around Jerusalem while ALSO considering Palestinians to be indigenous to that same land.

5. Actively call themselves anti-Zionists because they oppose the formation of any religious state whatsoever, but still believe that Jews deserve to reside where they are right now without forced expulsion.

For non-Jewish people using the term anti-Zionism, I urge you to really think about what Zionism actually means to you as a term. Like what do you think that word is? What kind of person do you think a Zionist is? What assumptions are you making in the use of that term and is it fair to expect every Jewish person to agree with that definition and why do you feel that way?

And before anyone comments on me or makes assumptions about my stance.

I do not call myself a Zionist!

I deeply oppose the current government of Israel. I had the opportunity to go on a birthright trip to Israel, and declined to go because I do not support the subjugation of Palestinians. I also chose not to go, because at the time there was a spate of bus bombings. I have family in Israel that I have never met and cannot meet because I refuse to go there out of both personal fear AND political unrest AND political/moral opposition.

I support sovereignty and equal rights and liberation and self determination for all Palestinians. I believe Palestinians are indigenous to the land.

I also believe Jewish people are indigenous to the land. Since Hadrian’s expulsion of the Jewish people from Israel/Judea in 135 and the resultant formation of Syria Palestina, there has been no place that Jews have existed that has considered them foundational parts of society or that has not expelled us. We have always been considered settlers. There is no other place in which we could even conceivably BE indigenous besides the levant. I believe that the “whiteness” of modern Jews of European descent is a product of millennia of expulsion, resettlement, and relocation. I know for a fact that PoC Jews have also REMAINED in the region since the expulsion in 135 and if they’re not indigenous to there, then who on earth is?

I believe that indigeneity does not expire. I believe that the fact that Jews sing daily prayers about their history in Israel/the levant is pretty strong evidence that Jews all over the world have never lost their connection to the region. I believe that two thousand years is a long time.

I believe that it could not matter less whether Jews or Palestinians were there “first.” What matters is the strong cultural ties BOTH cultures have to the levant. What matters is that civilians have a safe government that they can trust not to commit genocide against them. To expel them from the land of their ancestors. To banish them to settlements.

I believe colonialism is wrong. I believe imperialism is wrong. I believe there’s even more I need to learn even after living in this conflict and diaspora my entire life. I do not believe that the land that exists there right now needs to be called Israel. I only believe that there needs to be safeguards in place at a governmental level that explicitly protects the sovereignty, safety, and legitimacy of Palestinians and the Jews who live there. There must be guardrails to prevent genocide against both groups. There must be some formal institutional mechanism to ensure the safety of both parties.

I believe that none of these ideas are in conflict with one another.

Anyone telling you that the solution is straightforward is lying or has plans to harm a large number of people. You are not special. You did not invent the perfect idea that no one thought of that magically solves the issues of statelessness, fear of displacement, expulsion, or genocide. If your plan only involves helping one group without regard to the needs of the other, it is a bad plan. If you don’t believe that Jews should be expelled from Israel, is that Zionism? If you believe Jews should have self determination and representation within government that protects their interests, is that Zionism? Even if the same self determination and representation exists for Palestinians? If you are a hardcore anti-Zionist and believe that Jews do not belong in i/p at all, where do the Jews go?

Where are the Jews indigenous to that isn’t Israel? Where do they go. Europe doesn’t want us. The rest of SWANA doesn’t want us. We certainly are not indigenous to the Americas. It’s been awhile since there were expulsions from Asia (as far as I know), but they did happen there. And Asian countries have very rich indigenous histories of their own that we have no place in. The United States is increasingly violent to us and is certainly nobody’s idea of a Jewish homeland.

If your argument against Zionism is that Jews don’t belong there, where do we belong? If your argument against Zionism is that Jews don’t deserve to ever leave diaspora and should not have self determination or protection, why not us too? Again, I have no desire to go to Israel!!! I have actively rejected offers to visit Israel!!!

I don’t call this set of beliefs Zionism. I don’t believe there is a term for this set of beliefs. But someone else might disagree. And that’s the point. I’m not shaming anyone who does or does not call themselves a Zionist.

[indigovigilance]

Sovereignty, Citizenship, and the Bookshop

Credit to @flameraven for scripts

Read on Ao3 at: Sovereignty, Citizenship, and the Bookshop (1702 words) by indigovigilance Summary: The rules regarding who may enter the bookshop, and who may give others permission to enter the bookshop, are revealed by events rather than exposition. Parallel themes surround the Bentley. In this meta I generate a theory of sovereignty and citizenship as it pertains to the Bookshop, and what that implies about a statement Crowley makes and Aziraphale's final decision in S2E6.

What actually is the Bookshop?

First, Aziraphale explains to Crowley:

S2E5: AZIRAPHALE: We're perfectly safe in here. Technically, this bookshop still counts as an Embassy.

But then, speaking to Shax, Aziraphale further defines the bookshop:

AZIRAPHALE: Out of the question. Might I remind you, that this bookshop is technically an independent embassy. Being a former outpost of Heaven, and as such…

Which doesn't actually make any sense.

An embassy, by definition, is a satellite of another larger nation. It is usually the residence of an ambassador, and is considered the "soil" and jurisdiction of the home country, regardless of where it is in the world: "An embassy is considered “foreign soil,” meaning that it operates under the jurisdiction and laws of the home country, not the host country (the country where the embassy is physically located)." [ext source]

So an embassy, by its basic definition, cannot be independent. It's an oxymoron. I'll interpret this to mean that the Bookshop constitutes its own nationstate (and that Aziraphale just doesn't say it that way because he's a funky little guy).

Bookshop: A Sovereign Nation of Two

There has been extensive discussion about why Crowley seems never to have told Aziraphale that he was living in his car, and why, if/when Aziraphale figured it out, he didn't say anything about it. (I wrote a meta discussing how we know that Aziraphale knows by the beginning of S2E4 that Crowley is living in his car. Additionally, in S2E6, Aziraphale doesn't seem to look particularly surprised when Crowley announces to the room that he's tired of living in his car; you can interpret this as being distracted and phased out but I don't think Aziraphale is ever so dissociated that he would miss a statement like that and simply not react. So by then, he certainly knows.)

I posit that Crowley did not ask to move in and would have refused to do so even if offered for one very simple reason: moving in would have made him a citizen of Bookshop, and therefore a point of vulnerability for Aziraphale. Because as he explains to Shax in S2E3, he can't technically invite her in:

SHAX: if you won't let me in… CROWLEY: Not technically something I can do.

Of course, Crowley is a demon: he could be lying. But let's take the statement at face value, since Shax, also a demon, who seems reasonably familiar with the rules of entry, doesn't question it. So Crowley, by never establishing citizenship, ensures that he can never be coerced or tricked into letting anyone into the Bookshop. He maintains his foreign entity status on purpose to protect Aziraphale.

One more note, in passing: Crowley stays at the shop in S2E3 and S2E4, but he has been charged by Aziraphale to "mind the bookshop, and Gabriel." His role is more akin to a house-sitter than a houseguest. He's there on work visa, and it does not establish citizenship.

So Crowley isn't a citizen of Bookshop. But someone other than Aziraphale is.

S2E1: MAGGIE: I can be out of here in two weeks. AZIRAPHALE: Out of here? Why? Don't you like it anymore? MAGGIE: Oh, Mr. Fell, I love this shop! I've loved it since I was a baby. But I know how behind I am on rent. (…) MAGGIE: You can't just forgive me eight months' rent. AZIRAPHALE: Oh, I can. I'm very good at forgiveness. It's one of my favorite things. Now, you have paid your rent, I have my music, and I know exactly what I'll be doing for the next 21 minutes. [he giggles and leaves] (creepiest most disturbing giggle in all of cinematic history BUT ANYWAYS)

We've established that Maggie not only is a tenant of land owned by Aziraphale, but that her accounts are all paid up. Her citizenship (or at least, permanent residency) is secure. If simply renting out the space wasn't enough, we learn that she is a fourth-generation resident of the space owned by Aziraphale, which started inside the bookshop itself, and so Maggie may have been born into citizenship. Either way, the consequences of this arise in S2E6:

AZIRAPHALE: Maggie, what just happened? MAGGIE: I… I think I might have just told them they could come in.

Crowley can't tell demons that they can come in. But Maggie can. My explanation for this is because she actually lives (and is up on her rent) in a territory of the nation of Bookshop. It could be posed that Maggie can invite demons in because she is a guest of the ball, and so this is a temporary power, but Crowley was a "guest"/house-sitter and didn't have this power, so I reject this explanation and affirm it as a citizenship/residency power.

The Metatron's Offer

At time of writing, the fandom has spent two months trying to figure out why Metatron offered Aziraphale the job of Supreme Archangel. Was it to get him back into Heaven where he can keep a closer eye on him? Was it to get him away from Crowley? Did Metatron realize that he is a wellspring of power and wants to tap into it for nefarious purpose?

I'm going to propose a different, much simpler reason: he needed to get Aziraphale out of the bookshop. To explain that, we look to a line that Crowley delivers during the Conversation:

CROWLEY: I mean, if Gabriel and Beelzebub can do it, go off together, then we can. Just the two of us. We don't need Heaven, we don't need Hell, they're toxic. We need to get away from them, just be an us. You and me, what do you say? AZIRAPHALE: Come with me… to Heaven. I'll run it, you can be my second in command. We can make a difference. CROWLEY: You can't leave this bookshop.

Hang on, didn't Crowley just say that they should run off together? Why is he now saying that he can't leave the bookshop? These statements seem contradictory, but through the lens of sovereignty, they're not. You see, if Aziraphale goes off to Alpha Centauri without rejoining Heaven, the Bookshop still belongs to him and constitutes the sovereign nation over which he rules. It is the anchor and touchstone of his independent status. What ever new residence they establish will, in turn, be an embassy of that "independent embassy." The Bookshop then (I hypothesize, and posit that Crowley does too) grants Aziraphale protection from Heaven and Hell no matter where he is in the universe.

A Brief Aside on the Mechanics of Satellites

We have some evidence that Bookshop rules extend to wherever Aziraphale happens to be "residing," in that when Aziraphale borrows Crowley's car, Shax must trick him into giving him permission to enter (S2E4):

HITCHHIKER: I'm so sorry, can you be an angel and give me a lift? Only m-my car's broken down and my phone's dead. Just to the next town, there's a garage there. AZIRAPHALE: Oh… yes, well… I suppose you better climb in, then.

Thus establishing that, theoretically, Crowley and Aziraphale could "go off together" and still have the protection of the Bookshop.

The Consequences of Aziraphale's Final Decision

Crowley tells Aziraphale that he cannot leave the bookshop, but then we know that Aziraphale takes the job and ascends to Heaven. Metatron looks extremely relieved. No sooner do they ascend than Muriel enters the bookshop, where we know Metatron has placed them. Let's take this point by point.

The Bookshop is no longer a sovereign nation

By rejoining Heaven, Aziraphale has reclaimed his citizenship as an angel of Heaven. I'm going to go ahead and say (for sake of argument and because it is thematically consistent) that Heaven does not honor duel citizenship. Therefore, Aziraphale has given up his citizenship of Bookshop, but as it still belongs to him, it is now territory subject to the jurisdiction of Heaven. Muriel has been placed there as a representative of Heaven. Having been (we can surmise) the only "independent embassy" in existence where both angels and demons had to ask permission to enter, it is once again a good and proper embassy of Heaven.

This is important because now, neither Aziraphale nor Crowley have any place to go that is protected from both Heaven and Hell.

Muriel has unfettered access to Aziraphale's collection of books

My very simplistic theory for why Metatron went to so much trouble to get Aziraphale to cede control of the Bookshop is that he needs access to his collection of books. Specifically, he needs a certain Scrivener who enjoys reading to set up camp there and peruse every single book. This is because he is looking for something.

Gabriel left Heaven with a large box; he arrived at the Bookshop with an empty box. We can punt around all sorts of possible reasons but let's say, for sake of conjecture, that Gabriel stole the Book of Life on his way out to protect himself and Beelzebub from erasure. We don't know where the Book is now, but Metatron (who doesn't know the box was empty) has good reason to believe that the Book of Life is somewhere in the bookshop. But it's too dangerous to admit that they've lost track of it, so the best way to find a Book in a bookshop is to get the owner out of there, install an avid reader as steward, and wait patiently.

Other consequences of this theory of citizenship

We are given to believe that Crowley and Aziraphale are both outcasts of Hell and Heaven, respectively, yet Aziraphale seems to be the only one of them that benefits from the protections of independence. We could say that it is because Aziraphale owns land, and so that allows him to establish a nationstate, whereas the Bentley does not, but since Aziraphale brings the protections of independence with him when he borrows the Bentley, that seems flimsy. I find it more likely that in S3 we're going to learn something about Crowley that explains why he lacks these protections, and if I dare to make conjecture, it will be the subject of another meta.

I didn't get around to a discussion of the consequences of Aziraphale throwing his halo and "declaring war," or that war declaration being maybe-cancelled by Crowley; suffice to say, that may again be it's own meta.

~~~

If you enjoyed this, you may enjoy: Honolulu Roast: the story of a coup

another meta on the topic of ownership re the Bentley by @ineffable-endearments can be found here.

~~~

edit: I was reminded by @rekishi-aka to note that in S1, Gabriel and Sandolphon walk right in, because at that time the bookshop is an embassy of Heaven. For all of S2 except the final 30 minutes, celestials all have to ask permission to enter, including Michael, Uriel, Saraqael, and Muriel, because the Bookshop is independent. After Aziraphale throws his halo, celestials just appear inside the Bookshop: by declaring war, Aziraphale has relinquished his protection. It's unclear whether it would have been reestablished by Crowley cancelling the war, but it's a moot point because then Aziraphale agrees to become the Supreme Archangel.

[girlactionfigure]

WHAT IS ANTI-ZIONISM?

To understand what anti-Zionism is, we must first understand what Zionism is. Zionism is the movement for Jewish self-determination in the Land of Israel. In practical terms, this translates to support for the establishment and continued existence of Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel. 

In the First Zionist Congress, the participants defined Zionism as “Zionism seeks to establish a home for the Jewish people in Eretz ­Israel [the Land of Israel] secured under public law.”

Zionism is not support for any Israeli government, Israeli policies, or even any particular solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Likewise, anti-Zionism is not opposition to any Israeli government, Israeli policies, or any particular solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. 

Anti-Zionism is opposition to Zionism. In other words, it’s an “anti” ideology that’s not necessarily “for” anything — other than to oppose Zionism. That means that virtually anyone who opposes Zionism is an anti-Zionist, whether they be Ilhan Omar or David Duke. 

Just as Zionism is not support for any Israeli government, Israeli policies, or even any particular solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, anti-Zionism is not opposition to any Israeli government, Israeli policies, or any solution to the conflict. Rather, it’s opposition to Jewish sovereignty in Israel in and of itself. 

THE FIRST ANTI-ZIONISTS 

Early anti-Zionism can be divided into two categories: Jewish anti-Zionism and non-Jewish anti-Zionism. 

Zionism was, initially, of very little consequence to the non-Jewish world, which paid little attention, or regarded it cynically as a “Jewish trick.” But it was cause for rigorous debate among Jews. Jewish anti-Zionism itself can be divided into two categories. First were some Orthodox Jews, who believed a Jewish state should only be established upon the coming of the Messiah. Some fringe Orthodox sects, like the Satmar (not to be confused with the Neturei Karta), still believe this. The second group were those who believed that Zionism was a far-fetched, “reactionary” idea, and that the best course of action for Jewish survival would be for Jews to integrate into full members of their societies. 

The earliest non-Jewish anti-Zionists were European antisemites. Wilhelm Marr, the antisemite who coined the word “antisemitism,” wrote of the First Zionist Congress, “the entire matter is a foul Jewish swindle, in order to divert the attention of the European peoples from the Jewish problem.” 

The Catholic Church responded to the First Zionist Congress by invoking ancient antisemitic tropes: “According to the Sacred Scriptures, the Jewish people must always live dispersed and vagabondo [vagrant, wandering] among the other nations, so that they may render witness to Christ not only by the Scriptures...but by their very existence.”

Most notably, the First Zionist Congress inspired the writing of The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, the most influential antisemitic hoax in history, which purported to document the minutes of the First Zionist Congress. 

EARLY ARAB ANTI-ZIONISM 

Until the 1917 Balfour Declaration, most Arabs had never actually heard of Zionism. The Balfour Declaration was a British document that stated, “His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.” While the Balfour Declaration never specified the exact nature of this Jewish national home, it seemed to contradict the promise that the British made to the Arabs just a year prior, in which they promised them a unified Arab state in Greater Syria, which included Palestine. 

That said, in 1899, the Arab mayor of Jerusalem, Yousef al-Khalidi, wrote to the chief rabbi of France, “Who can deny the rights of the Jews to Palestine? Good lord, historically it is your country!…But in practice you cannot take over Palestine without the use of force…” The chief rabbi of France forwarded al-Khalidi's letter to Theodor Herzl, who was quick to send a reply, assuring al-Khalidi that the Zionist movement had no intention of displacing the Muslim and Christian populations. It’s also worth noting that during this time period, Palestine experienced a mass influx of immigrants from other Jewish countries. Thus, it wasn’t immigration that al-Khalidi opposed, but rather, Jewish immigration. 

An anti-Zionist Palestinian Christian newspaper, Falastin, was first published in 1911. It’s worth noting that while Falastin claimed to differentiate between Zionists and Jews, it dabbled in antisemitic conspiracies from the Elders of Zion, described Hitler as “Innocent and Noble, strong and beloved by his people,” threatened the Jewish communities of the rest of the Muslim world should a Jewish state be established, and opposed the Nuremberg Trials. 

It was in the 1920s, under the influence of Haj Amin al-Husseini, that Arab anti-Zionism grew into the mainstream. Al-Husseini mobilized the Palestinian Arab population with false threats that the Jews intended to take over Al Aqsa mosque to rebuild the Temple. This incitement led to a series of massacres. 

NAZI ANTI-ZIONISM

Since the 1960s, there has been a concerted propaganda effort to portray Zionism as a continuation of Nazism. The Nazis, however, made their anti-Zionism no secret from the beginning. 

Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf, “For while the Zionists try to make the rest of the world believe that the national consciousness of the Jew finds its satisfaction in the creation of a Palestinian state, the Jews again slyly dupe the dumb Goyim. It doesn’t even enter their heads to build up a Jewish state in Palestine for the purpose of living there; all they want is a central organization for their international world swindle…”

Shortly after the Nazis came to power, they began breaking up Zionist meetings in Berlin; for example, a 1934 Jewish Daily Bulletin headline reads, “Nazi Officials Raid Zionist B’nai B’rith Meeting in Berlin.” 

In 1937, a Nazi document on foreign policy read, “(1) The formation of a Jewish state or a Jewish-led political structure under British mandate is not in Germany’s interest…(2) Germany therefore has an interest in strengthening the Arab world as a counterweight against such a possible increase in power for world Jewry.”

By 1941, the Nazis officially banned all Zionist activities in Germany. 

Also in 1941, Hitler personally assured Palestinian Arab nationalist leader Haj Amin al-Husseini that Germany “supports an uncompromising struggle against the Jews…[this] would include, of course, opposition to a Jewish homeland in Palestine, which is nothing more than a national hub for the destructive influence of Jewish interests.” 

ISLAMIST ANTI-ZIONISM 

Islamism is, in essence, political Islam. Islamists believe that the doctrines of Islam should be congruent with those of the state. Islamists work to implement nation-states governed under Islamic Law (Sharia), emphasize pan-Islamic unity (in most cases, hoping for an eventual worldwide Islamic Caliphate, or empire), support the creation of Islamic theocracies, and reject all non-Muslim influences. For this reason, Islamists tend to portray themselves as “anti-imperialist,” while in truth they are striving to swap western imperialism with Islamic imperialism. 

Despite what many might expect, the antisemitism at the core of Islamist movements did not originate as a response to Zionism or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Instead, Islamists justify their antisemitism because of the Prophet Muhammad’s initial conflict with the Jewish tribes of the Arabian Peninsula in the seventh century. 

Nevertheless, Islamists believe Zionism and Israel are “proof” that Jews are in an eternal struggle with Islam.It’s not uncommon for Islamists to conflate the past, such as the Arabian Jewish tribes’ rejection of Islam in the seventh century, with the present, such as Israeli policies they find unfavorable.

Finally, Islamists see Zionist Jews and the State of Israel as “usurpers” of what they consider to be rightfully Islamic land, belonging to a future Islamic Caliphate. 

"ANTI-ZIONIST" AS AN IDENTITY 

In the 1870s, Wilhelm Marr coined the word antisemitism to replace the previously-used term, “Jew-hatred.” This was at the height of the scientific racism movement, when being “anti” the so-called “Semitic race” would be considered a positive thing. As in, “I’m not a Jew-hater, I’m an antisemite!” Surely this sounds familiar.

In the immediate aftermath of the Holocaust, the gruesome images emerging from Nazi death camps shocked the world. Open antisemitism became associated with the evils of Nazism. So the Soviets, who’d long expressed antisemitic views, switched strategies.

In 1969, the United Nations passed the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. Both the United States and Brazil wanted to add a clause including antisemitism. The Soviet Union, which had been heavily oppressing its Jewish population since the 1950s, worried that such a clause would be used to rebuke them for persecuting Soviet Jews. As such, they included a counter proposal, which was a clause that equated Zionism to Nazism. That way, they could say that they were (rightfully) anti-Zionists, not antisemites. Neither clause passed.

But the Soviets were never covert about the fact that their “anti-Zionism” was actually just antisemitism. In the 1960s, Soviet propaganda made blatantly antisemitic claims, including: “The character of the Jewish religion serves the political aims of the Zionists,” “Zionism is inextricable from Judaism, rooted in the idea of the exclusiveness of the Jewish People,” comparisons of Judaism to the Italian mafia, and claims that Israel was merely a means to an end of Jewish imperialism and world domination.

To strengthen their sphere of influence over Arab and African nations, the Soviets launched a covert operation against Israel, named Sionistskiye Gosudarstva, meaning “Zionist Governments.” According to KGB chairman Yuri Andropov (1967-1982), “We had only to keep repeating our themes—that the United States and Israel were ‘fascist, imperial-Zionist countries’ bankrolled by rich Jews.’”

As the Soviets gained increasing influence over the Palestinian cause in the 1960s, the Palestinian leadership, too, shifted from the overt expressions of Nazi-esque antisemitism of the 1940s to the language of anti-Zionism. 

POST-HOLOCAUST JEWISH ANTI-ZIONISM 

The predominant debate of pre-Holocaust Jewish Europe was whether Jews should pursue their own national aspirations (Zionism) or whether it was best to try to assimilate into their host nations as full citizens, as Jews had only recently become emancipated in Europe. The Holocaust shattered any illusion of integration. 

Today, young Jewish anti-Zionists tend to glorify the General Jewish Labor Bund, the predominant anti-Zionist — or arguably non-Zionist — Jewish group in pre-World War II Europe. The Bund was officially disbanded in the 1920s, as the Soviet Union cracked down on its Jewish population, but its legacy continued through the International Jewish Labor Bund. After the Holocaust, Bundists in Displaced Persons camps advocated for Jewish refugee migration to Palestine. However, the Bund opposed partition, advocating for a binational state instead (something that the Arab leadership of Palestine itself rejected multiple times between 1939 and 1947). 

A minority of ultra-Orthodox sects continue to reject a Jewish state before the coming of the messiah. However, one extremely fringe group, the Neturei Karta, seems to always steal the spotlight. The Neturei Karta are not just religious anti-Zionists but vicious antisemites who have closely allied themselves with the murderous Islamic Republic of Iran, blame Zionists for the Holocaust, and more, so much so that another religious anti-Zionist sect, the Satmar, issued a cherem (“censure,” similar to excommunication) against them. 

Of course, today, there are a number of anti-Zionist left wing Jewish groups, such as Jewish Voice for Peace and IfNotNow. I’ve talked about both those groups at length in other posts. Polls consistently show that between 80-97% of Jews are Zionists. 

WHEN FAR-RIGHT, FAR-LEFT, AND ISLAMIST ANTI-ZIONISM CONVERGE

Recently some people expressed shock that “pro-Palestine” influencer Sneako and journalist Sulaiman Ahmed met with white supremacists Nick Fuentes, Jake Shields, and former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke. To me, this is entirely unsurprising. People who openly hate Jews will naturally have unfavorable views of a Jewish state. It’s not shocking that they would find common ground with allegedly non-antisemitic anti-Zionists. 

Islamist-Nazi collaboration dates back to the 1930s, when the Nazis helped fund the Muslim Brotherhood. Similarly, the alliance between the Nazis and the father of Palestinian nationalism, Haj Amin al-Husseini, is well-documented. Al-Husseini spent World War II in Berlin working as a Nazi propagandist, visited the concentration camps as the Holocaust was unfolding, and met with both Hitler and Mussolini. 

During the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, both Palestinian Arab paramilitaries — the Army of the Holy War and the Arab Liberation Army — were trained by former German Nazis.The Nazis even formed their own legion, Black International, to fight alongside the Palestinian Arabs against the Zionists. Fawzi al-Qawugji, the leader of the Arab Liberation Army, had severed in the Nazi forces himself. 

In the 1950s, the Soviets, who loudly proclaimed themselves “anti-Zionists,” exported Nazi propaganda films to the Arab world to “inflame” anti-Israel sentiment. These were films that had been produced by the Nazis in Germany during the Nazi regime. 

Wolfgang Abramowski and Willi Pohl, two German neo-Nazis, helped the Palestinian terrorist “anti-Zionist” group Black September plan the 1972 Munich Massacre.They provided weapons, forged passports and other documents, and drove the terrorists around as they planned their attack. 

rootsmetals

no it’s not shocking pro-Palestine influencers met w a former Grand Wizard of the KKK!

[daily-chonny-jash]

minor appreciation of "tridential regicide/sovereignty". tridential is defined as "referring to a trident" (tridential regicide, he's gonna kill them with the trident), or, "having three points" (tridential sovereignty.) really cool.