#path of least resistance decay into abuse and sameyness instead of creative possibilities of other ways of being. but it's def never unique

[lepertamar]

Because they are inherently exclusive in their conception of statehood and citizenship, all nation-states will contain minority populations which exist as an existential threat to the State's ideological roots and agreed upon mythology. Under the best of circumstances, the majority will handle this minority with condescending interest and concern; under the worst, shit will go to ethnic cleaning and/or genocide places very fucking fast. This is not something exclusive to the Third Reich, or Myanmar, or Turkey, or Indonesia, or Bhutan, or China etc; this is a problem at the very heart of the construct of the nation-state.

Israel, Palestine, Anti-Semitism, the Nation-State, and You

I'm going to try to turn my anger and frustration into action. I've abstained from making a post like this for a long time because I really don't enjoy posting or about or discussing this topic, but, we've reached a moment of such intense anti-Semitism that I think it's my duty, as a Holocaust historian, and as someone with an advanced degree in Modern Jewish History, to say something. I'm going to use bullet points.

- Jewish people in leftist and pro-Palestine spaces who inform others that their speech has anti-Semitic undertones aren't trying to silence you; they're asking you to please not make the space actively unsafe for them because they WANT to stay and do this work. Anti-Semitism is part of the intellectual heritage of the West, and all the places the West has colonized. It is part of the language, the speech, the literature, often in ways it's hard for non-Jews to grasp. When Jews hear it and see it, they're trying to educate you so these spaces can stay safe and accessible to them; please listen.

- The "Zionists" aren't getting celebrities who speak out against the IDF's war crimes in Gaza fired from projects because "they" control Hollywood and the media. Those celebrities were spewing anti-Semitism veiled as criticism of Israel, and it's absolutely just that they face consequences. I wish all public figures who spew bigoted bullshit faced consequences like these. Susan Sarandon, for example, said the following at a rally in New York: “There are a lot of people afraid of being Jewish at this time, and are getting a taste of what it feels like to be a Muslim in this country, so often subjected to violence.”

This isn't courageous pro-Palestinian speech. This is very very blatant anti-Semitic rhetoric, in which Jews are viewed as an internal enemy; a hive-mind inherently more loyal to each other than the state; and who must suffer collectively for any act perpetrated by any Jew. Hitler talked like this. Henry Ford talked like this. The White Russians talked like this. Just because Susan Sarandon is too willfully ignorant to understand why what she said was deeply violent and anti-Semitic, doesn't mean that it wasn't anti-Semitic. To the contrary, these words do not simply condone violence against Jews, but incite it. That doesn't help Palestinians. To the contrary, it creates situations where Jews may feel that they have no other option but to....flee to Israel...as happened to much of Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) Jewry during the second half of the twentieth century.

- Jews talking about the Holocaust, their historical experiences, and their intergenerational trauma is not political speech. It is not about Palestine, or Israel, until someone else decides to make it about Palestine, or Israel. Further, the realness of that trauma does not exist counter to the trauma experience by Palestinians. It does not cancel out the traumatic experiences of Palestinians, and vice versa. Both traumatic experiences simply exist. The Jew who barely survived Auschwitz and the death marches and made their way--sobbing and broken--to the Promised Land when they had nowhere else to go; and the Palestinian Arab, who spent centuries living on and cultivating that land, only to be violently expelled from their property and forced to live as a landless refugee within a State built on their ancestral land but not created for them, who now exist in silently damning photographs of Palestinian elders holding keys to properties which no longer exist...they are both real.

These experiences exist, and not in contradiction to each other. As educated, informed people, our place is not to fight over which trauma mattered more or was worse, or happened in the first place, but simply to accept that both experiences happened and were real. Are real. Very few things in this Conflict are easy or simple, and the only option for anyone who wants to move forward is to learn to hold those contradictions together in your head as equally true.

- All Israelis are as much a Netanyahu-loving Arab-hating group of nationals, as all U.S. Americans are a Trump-loving POC-hating group of nationals. A lot of Israelis are DEEPLY unhappy with the war, Netanyahu, and his handling of Palestinians, and have been for a VERY long time. Netanyahu has been openly engaging in criminal acts, and working to undermine Israel's democracy, for YEARS now. Further, Israel has a HUGE number of active political parties; at least 13 active right now, for a country with the population of ~9,813,920. It is a Parliamentary system, meaning that the party in charge is not the party which wins the majority of votes, but which wins the largest PROPORTION of votes. A majority of Israelis don't need to have voted for Netanyahu's party (Likud) for his party to have won the majority of seats in the Knesset.

Moreover, if all Israelis WERE just like that first line of this bullet point's first sentence, why should American Jews be held responsible for that? Why is this belief in Jews as a collective hive-mind still so prevalent?

- "None of this matters; all Jews should know better based on their historical experiences and any Jew who supports Israel is basically a Nazi." Yeah. A lot to unpack.

First of all, no one is born having been educated and and encouraged to engage in critical thought about their past(s). That's a choice. Jews are, before anything else, people, and they, like all people, must choose to grow, learn, and change. They, like you, can choose to learn from the past, or just sprint forward without critical thought. Like you. Like anyone. Like everyone.

Now, for the next part....non-Jews really like using Hitler/Third Reich/Holocaust comparisons in relation to Israel and Palestine. Let's break this down to what it actually is. Israel and Nazi Germany are both examples of a nation-state. They are also VERY FAR from the only examples of a nation-state. Indonesia is a nation-state (which is actively committing genocide in West Papua, and which actively committed genocide in East Timor). China (which is engaged in genocidal activity against its Uighur population) is/wants to be a nation state. Poland, Norway, Croatia, Serbia, Bhutan (which has been ethnically cleansing its Lhotshampa, or ethnic Nepali, minority since the 1980s), Myanmar (Rohingya genocide), Rwanda, Iran, Armenia, Iraq, Azerbaijan, Turkey; these are ALL nation-states.

The nation-state--a type of polity which exists for a singular ethno-national group based on the understanding that that ethno-national group has long term historical roots in that particular geographic area--is an inherently exclusive type of political organization, and very much a product of modernity. Because they are inherently exclusive in their conception of statehood and citizenship, all nation-states will contain minority populations which exist as an existential threat to the State's ideological roots and agreed upon mythology. Under the best of circumstances, the majority will handle this minority with condescending interest and concern; under the worst, shit will go to ethnic cleaning and/or genocide places very fucking fast. This is not something exclusive to the Third Reich, or Myanmar, or Turkey, or Indonesia, or Bhutan, or China, etc; this is a problem at the very heart of the construct of the nation-state. All nation-states.

The fact that a certain portion of critics of Israel choose specifically Nazi Germany and the Holocaust as comparisons for Israeli policy towards Palestine again and again and again says, to me, that this is a person who a. knows that invoking that comparison will deeply disturb all Jews around; and b. will use that Jewish distress as "proof" that "all Jews" are evil Zionists who hate Palestine and use Holocaust memory as a tool of ideological violence.

It is transparent, ignorant, and offensive.

LIST OVER

If you are angry or defensive or wanting to unfollow me or respond with righteous indignation after reading this, it may be because you are an anti-Semite, and are suffering from cognitive dissonance based on the fact that you believe that you are a good person with no bigoted beliefs. The good news, is that you can use your negative emotions to learn, and grow a more complex understanding of all the contradictory truths at the heart of all this. I would love to be able to HELP you learn. This blog is a space I hope is open and welcome for everyone, Jewish, Palestinian, and otherwise, because everyone deserves access to history, and an understanding of how history works. This is not a space, however, which will ever strive to make anti-Semites feel good about themselves, or their beliefs.

If you're mad because you think material contained in this post makes me a "self-hating Jew," let's talk offline, starting with your grandparents and Hebrew School teachers.