Great post. I’ve done a full compilation of multiple surveys of Jews’ opinion of Israel around the world including the US, Israel, Canada, UK, France, and Australia. The results are exactly what you would expect and extremely consistent: https://tariqacknickulous.substack.com/p/yes-most-jews-are-in-fact-zionists
It infuriates me seeing Western politicians morally grandstand over "antisemitism" yet in their same breath actively spew out truly genocidal rhetoric against Muslims, Hispanics, and Black people. It's sickening
Superb article. I'll start by sharing that I was educated in an American public school and indoctrinated into the idea that the Holocaust was the worst thing to ever happen and that Jews are perpetual victims (the next Holocaust is surely right around the corner, as you well know, right?). However, this is untrue and the genocide olympics is something I am wholly uninterested in. This indoctrination has taken much work and study to shed. There is something to be said about the effectiveness of Zionist propaganda here. Many Western anti-Zionists engage in Jewish Exceptionalism without thinking, and without knowing. Indeed, in my own advocacy groups at university, there are many people who treat Jews as perpetual victims, people who suffer from the specter of the Holocaust on a material basis, people whose word should be considered more than others (Including Palestinians themselves), and people who deserve the benefit of the doubt even while supporting a serial killer state like Israel. The reality is that Jews in Western countries do not face material oppression. Discrimination is a different story altogether, but material, structural oppression? Entirely absent for Jewish Americans and Westerners. This article does an excellent job detailing how Western anti-Zionists need to refocus and adopt this frame of thinking. Thanks for writing it, it has helped me reflect on my own political framework and the people I devote my time to. I'll be sharing it among my friends and fellow anti-Zionist activists.
Feel free to ignore this, but I do have a good faith question for you as both a longtime viewer of your work (I’ve learned a lot from you!) and an anti-Zionist Jew/member of JVP. I think your commentary on Jewish exceptionalism is absolutely correct as is your conclusion. But if 90% of Jewish people are indeed Zionists of some stripe, what exactly would you like the 10% of us who vehemently oppose it to do? Is there nothing remarkable about the Jewish anti-Zionist work of the likes of Finkelstein, Maté, and Pappé? Not exceptional. Not more important than Palestinian voices, dear god no, but some level of importance? Shouldn’t there be members of the oppressor group vocally opposing the oppressive ideology? Isn’t that part of the revolutionary process of anti colonial struggle? Again: not the most important part, but still part of it. I don’t think it’s Jewish exceptionalism to say “I’m Jewish and I oppose this oppressive ideology and colonial action which exists to privilege my ethnicity to the expense of an indigenous group.” It’s just necessary work for those of us who belong to that group to do. It’s not to the detriment of the broader pro-Palestine movement and it is distinct from engaging in the sort of eggshell walking you describe in your piece, which is something I of course detest. I find JVP is quite good on this front, and everyone in the group I talk to would agree with everything you say. Anyway, hopefully you’ll explain a bit more what is to be done. I don’t see a problem with members of the oppressor group who oppose that oppression fighting against it publicly, especially with the chokehold Zionism has on brainwashing the broader western public, so long as it doesn’t cross the line into exceptionalism which is something that definitely does happen, but I don’t really see JVP as an example of that. Anyway this is an invitation to yell at me if I’m super off base here. Keep up the great work, BadEmp. Cheers.
What does the work of the 3 people you listed have to do with them being Jewish?
Nothing.
That’s the difference.
JVP is absolutely the premiere example of everything that I’m saying here. It is an organisation that absolutely dominates public attention and directs it to a Jewish exceptionalist framing as the end all be all. Its main purpose is to pay out large salaries to its 39 full-time employees (JVP financial disclosures show huge profits from the genocide, with a profit from 2023 of 6 million dollars out of 11 million in total revenue, which has doubtlessly increased exponentionally since), and its secondary purpose is to just sort of be a club for Jews to feel like they’re special and rebellious. Regardless of the organisations’ claims to be committed to “boosting Palestinian voices” etc, it is by far the most famous ‘pro-Palestinian’, organisation in the US, and I doubt anyone could even name any of the organisations that it claims to be uplifting.
JVP at the end of 2024 held 9 million dollars in raw cash, an increase from 3 million at the end of 2023. It does not distribute this money to anything at all aside from paying out 3 million dollars to executives and employees, and minor operating costs like buying t-shirts and signs etc. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/900018359/202511359349318416/full
JVP’s opposition to Zionism was only announced in 2019, after 25 years as an org, and it is tepid and centred entirely around Jewish feelings and Jewish wellbeing, with the implication being that if Zionism did ‘protect Jews’ as they claim it sought to, it may have been justified and they may instead support it. It is genuinely best described as a complete abomination.
“We know that opposing Zionism, or even discussing it, can be painful, can strike at the deepest trauma and greatest fears of many of us. Zionism is a nineteenth-century political ideology that emerged in a moment where Jews were defined as irrevocably outside of a Christian Europe. European antisemitism threatened and ended millions of Jewish lives — in pogroms, in exile, and in the Holocaust.
Through study and action, through deep relationship with Palestinians fighting for their own liberation, and through our own understanding of Jewish safety and self determination, we have come to see that Zionism was a false and failed answer to the desperately real question many of our ancestors faced of how to protect Jewish lives from murderous antisemitism in Europe.”
In terms of actual change, JVP is purely detrimental for the reasons outlined in the article already. Regardless of the good intentions of some of its rank and file members, we would be much better if such organisations ceased to exist as this would allow room for all the air they take up to instead be taken up by much more productive organisations.
Oh wow. I didn't know that's what JVP describes Zionism as. That's just historically inaccurate, unlettered even. The ideology was a messianic nationalist movement that arose in part as a fundamentalist reaction to being accepted.
In obscuring how their cultural zealotry came about, they refuse to criticize a reactionary phenomenon that may still be ongoing in large ways and almost certainly is ongoing in fringe ultra groups within Israel.
And their words function as a threat--make us feel bad and we'll become (more) dangerous. This is the same "act crazy" tactic pursued by their militants, just wrapped in dogoodism.
Definitely they are leaving some doors open, while failing to work effectively for peace.
They sure seem effective at gathering donations, though.
Much appreciated! I hear what you’re saying and I can definitely see the major discrepancy between the organizational verbiage and how the volunteers and individual members feel. Absolutely shameful BS on their part, no doubt. Thanks for citing that.
I’d push back on the notion that the writings of the individuals I mentioned and other similarly situated Jewish anti-Zionist thinkers has nothing to do with their being Jewish, but that’s really neither here nor there.
I’d have no issue with an org like JVP ceasing to exist, or something better coming along, though I don’t know to what extent it is JVP’s fault for being a vocal and well-known organization in the movement. I hope to see it progress past the decision to institutionally treat Zionism with kiddie gloves. I don’t see it as an end-all-be-all by any means and I’m sick to death of the “protect Jewish feelings” discourse. At the same time, there is a dire and drastic need (siloed though it may be) to push Jews away from Zionism, and I would say the same of any members of a group which benefits from any other system of oppression anywhere in the world.
And 1000% agree that the attention JVP achieves is better placed on the many Palestinian-led groups throughout the West which fight for Palestinian liberation. I wish members of my group would stop playing victim like it’s 1940 or something. Times have changed and a vast vast majority of Jewish people have been subsumed into whiteness.
Anyway thanks for indulging me, merry Christmas, and all the best to you and yours.
If you are a member of the org the first thing you should be doing is asking the executives why they aren't spending their 9 million dollars in cash on things like bail funds and legal defenses for pro-Palestine protestors, etc. They have so much cash on hand that they could instantly fund the formation of an actual general anti-Zionist org whenever they want. Instead they're spending 3 million dollars a year on salaries for 39 employees, an average of $70,000 each. The two main executives paid themselves $120k each last year.
It is pretty transparently a grift off the members unfortunately, one that works bc lots of Jewish people like to feel special and rebellious and are paying up.
Excellent advice. A deeply serious shift needs to take place, and sadly a lot of groups like this one do shit like this. I want my money going to Palestinian aid and other such causes like you mention, and of course do donate directly to groups like UNRWA and PCRF, and the like.
Thanks again for clarifying for me, someone who sees the light on the curse of Jewish exceptionalism but also feels like it’s important and necessary for Jewish anti-Zionists to agitate and fight against Zionism as it is a parasite on the Jewish faith and ethnicity. That’s not in the same ballpark as liberating an indigenous group living under occupation and genocide, but I think material conditions are going to cause Jewish anti-Zionism to exist regardless. It’s a matter of how we engage in it and what it looks like — and that it focuses 100% of the energy on what matters. Like you say, bigotry and violence against us is fringe and atomized, not systemic.
In an ideal world: Why should the group/ethnicity of the speaker matter when denouncing a settler colonial ethnostate?
As a parallel, let's go back to the past:
In Nazi Germany:
A German: "I'm German and I oppose this oppresive ideology and colonial action which exists to privilege my ethnicity to the expense of an indigenous group."
The rest of the world: "Yep, we know that, let's work to free the oppressed and dismantle the Nazis."
What I feel happens in your example:
A Jewish person: “I’m Jewish and I oppose this oppressive ideology and colonial action which exists to privilege my ethnicity to the expense of an indigenous group.”
The rest of the Western World: "See? People of the in-group oppose this, therefore us opposing the same shouldn't be constructed as anti-semitism. Now, let's stop the bombs and let the food get in... dismantle Israel? One-state-solution? uhm..."
It's not inherently bad (I think) but it takes away from the message, we shouldn't need to go through leaps and hoops to oppose the ethno-supremacist state of Israel. We need to change the overton window to make "opposing the ethno-supremacist state of Israel" the default and 'normal' position.
Heard. I mostly do agree, but Germans to my knowledge didn’t monopolize nor mischaracterize opposition to the Nazi regime as systemized bigotry against the German people wherever they may be in the world. Zionism has done that. A lot of dirty work has been done thru the Zionist lens over decades such that anti-Zionism is still commonly considered to be the same as anti-Jewish discrimination, systemic or individual.
And again, really my only point about Jewish anti-Zionism is that it’s (1) going to materialize much in the same way any display of opposition to oppression from members of the oppressing group materializes throughout history, and (2) is if nothing else remarkable in the literal sense of the word, as in, worth remarking on.
In an ideal world Zionism wouldn’t have taken over the Jewish faith such that most Jews in the world support it in some way, and in an ideal world people would actually listen to Arabs, Palestinians, and Muslims, instead of members of those groups being part of a systemically discriminated-against membership within broader society. Islamophobia is actually the issue that Jews pretend “antisemitism” is.
And obviously we don’t live in an ideal world and the phrase “ideal world” is one I would push back on in general.
But I do appreciate your response greatly and very much agree with most of it and certainly understand where you’re coming from.
"If Jewish Anti-Zionists want to talk about these sorts of questions, they are free to do so within their own communities, where they are actually relevant. But it is well past time that they stop hijacking the pro-Palestine movement and making it about themselves." - this fucking article
I don’t just mean “these sorts of questions,” though, in other words, I’m not talking about how Zionism affects Judaism or what have you. I simply mean public displays of protest the way any other group or cross-section of several groups would protest. I’m just inquiring about whether Jewish people have any place in anti-Zionist discourse, and if so, what that place is. I understand there are different discourses happening all at once. I’m deeply tired of the “well this actually is/isn’t bigoted against Jews” conversation, which is I think what BE is referring to in your quote. I mean Jewish people are who really just trying and wanting to be vocal, present, and helpful in the actual work being done to end Israeli occupation, colonization, and genocide, hand-in-hand with the liberation of Palestine and her people from the chains of these evils.
The most important thing Antizionist Jews can do is protest and speak out within their own communities. Be JVP in a synagogue and VP within pro Palestine circles.
There is nothing special about Jewish communities that makes outreach to them especially worthy of anyone's time. It makes about as much sense as trying to recruit to fight white supremacism at a Neo Nazi gathering.
Eh, I mean neo-Nazis gather for one reason. Jews gather for a multitude of reasons, some of which include doing or promoting Nazi shit of course, but I don’t think it’s 1:1. I think Jewish minds getting changed, especially outside of Israel since Israeli society is so insular and homogenous in its decision to Zionist terror and genocide, carries some weight and is not a complete waste of time, like your analogy claims. It isn’t my primary concern. My primary concern is Palestinian life, liberation, and complete self-determination, as well as holding evildoers accountable (including Jewish communities outside Israel hiding behind synagogues to colonize Palestine, of course). But this kind of gets to my “what is to be done” question. Should Jews shut up? Not protest at all? Not be vocal and present in any sense? Not try to at the absolute very least convince other Jews who may be on the fence or disinterested to get off the fence and take a stand?
I just don’t want to see my people as a lost cause, and I don’t even necessarily see people lost in the weeds of what you or I would call “neo-Nazism” to be absolute lost causes. People do change. But again, all that is way less important than the tasks at hand. Why not multitask though, so long as you acknowledge what’s most important and urgent?
The institutions you are talking about and their members are funders, propagandists, supporters and enablers of genocide. If you're going to "engage" with them, it should not be to treat them like poor misguided victims. That's a hotbed of active enemies who are actively helping to murder people.
I have serious questions about you if you are in community with Zionists (modern day Nazis) and you think this is acceptable just because you're Jewish. Same as I would someone who goes to a KKK church, post-hoc rationalizes it as "outreach", and sees no issue with what they're doing.
This is a great article btw, and I have noticed how people substitute vulgar anti-Semitism, with extreme philosemitism, where they think that Jews are some kind of infallible super man, who can do no wrong. Of course several philosemitic “anti Zionists”, have incredibly managed to inculcate into their system of thinking, this exact kind of cancerous philosemitism, preached by Zionists.
Both Daniel De Leon’s work, anti-Semitism its causes and cure, and Bernard Lazare’s anti-Semitism its history and its causes, demolish the very premise on which Semitism and philosemitism subsist. De Leon provided the simple foundation theoretical stone (by borrowing from Lazares book), and Lazare provides the theological and historical element to provide a potent punch to philosemitism, and racial Zionism.
One problem is that settlers usually have a homeland to go back to. But European Jews came from countries that genocided them, and Mizrahi Jews were expelled from their countries of origin. Where are they all going to go?
Did you ask ChatGPT for a random Jewish exceptionalist Zionist talking point? Sorry Palestinians, you can't be liberated because it might inconvenience your oppressors (they are very special and Jewish!)
Contrary to what you have all of us believe here, many Israeli youth have a right of return to Germany, and many choose to live in Berlin than in Tel Aviv. Ask anyone around, and where did the Poles return after the war that annihilated millions of Poles? They went back to their communities.
Second thing, the colonization of Palestine started way before there was war, and genocide.
And third but not the least, name one European country that won't have the Israeli Jewish settlers back into Europe, this is regarding your point of "settlers usually have a homeland to go back to".
Alright, I already asked. The answer is no, they're not at risk from the AfD, and only if you don't know jack shit about AfD’s platform could you ask such a ridiculous question. AfD is as zionist as a y other German party
i think the “factually incorrect” section mirrors ben shapiro’s argument that most muslims are fundamentalist islamists. it doesn’t matter how many jewish people believe in israel’s vitality to the jewish people. there is thousands of years of history and commentary on jewish peoples and religion that does not include israel. i understand you’re trying to highlight the seriousness of indoctrination into zionism and how effective the campaign to make zionism equate to judaism is, but you argue for it here in a way that is not very convincing and is detached from a larger history. it would be much more effective in my opinion to highlight the infrastructure needed to take thousands of years of history and somehow equate it to a less-than-100-year-old settler-colonial project as that would also be a great way to connect israel to nazi germany and how they were able to establish a mythos around germany.
.. Except it doesn't. Muslim support for ISIS (which is not actually as bad as Israel, to be clear) has never even remotely come close to Jewish support for Israel. There is a difference between 1 in 100 and 9 in 10.
You seem to go off vibes to the point you are no longer able to register the difference between an empirically false and an empirically correct claim.
Of course, your entire post is an example of Jewish exceptionalism: you can't make factual claims about Jews because of vibes. You have to acknowledge there's something super special and different about Israel because "thousands of years of history" which of course makes Jewish Nazis not responsible for their own actions (because they're Jewish).
in ben shapiro’s argument he was able to use surveys and statistics to place the number of violent extremist muslims at around 3/4. i’m simply pointing out how unconvincing that argument is and how yours mirrors it. i only mention “thousands of years of history” to point out how absurd it is that multiple diverse communities of jews that have existed much longer than the state of israel have been reduced to needing a jewish ethnostate and a more convincing argument is not to rely on statistics but to actually point out the infrastructure that leads to this indoctrination. i don’t even think your argument is bad, it’s certainly supported by more than ben shapiro’s was because israel is actually supported by the imperial core, i thought you could go deeper and shouldn’t rely on simply saying “look at this thing people believe according to surveys that couldn’t possibly account for the entire scope of jews across multiple different sects, communities, and regions”. like jews aren’t a monolith, are not special, etc. israel has established the infrastructure to overwrite thousands of years of history of multiple different peoples with no connection to israel whatsoever and that is INSANE. that’s what im saying lol
Just purely a lie. I am portraying all of those polls accurately. Zionism is not defined as "thinks Israel has committed war crimes" or "thinks Israel has committed genocide" by anyone. There is absolutely no contradiction there whatsoever.
Disapproval of Netanyahu is not disapproval of the Zionist ethnonationalist project.
"to say that that makes them morally equivilant to Nazis I think is somewhat questionable"
Anyone who believes in maintaining an ethnosupremacist settler colonial state is equivalent MATERIALLY (I have said nothing about morality) to Nazis. Their logics and modalities are the same.
That your examples of supposed "anti-Semitism" are not actual, real tangible oppression, but just internet talk show hosts, shows how you do not operate in anything resembling material reality. For Palestinians, discrimination against them is being bombed by Zionist Jews. Yet for Jews, apparently discrimination against them is a livestream on Rumble. I bet the Palestinians wish they could swap places with these supposed poor Jewish "victims of anti-Semitism" when that's the best example of it you could come up with.
Your comment is essentially just you looking for special exceptions as to why it's okay to be a Zionist. It is a laundry list of the most generic Zionist, Jewish Supremacist talking points that everyone has already heard a million times before, all designed to muddy the waters and mislead people away from understanding what Israel is and how it must be fought.
I'm not sure what you're even doing here to be honest. You are a Zionist, this isn't for you.
"You also love to make the provocation that 90% of Jews are modern nazis, but it is unhelpful. I don't say this because of the silly idea that it would be offensive to call 90% of Jews nazis. It is simply unhelpful because it is incorrect."
My claim is backed by swathes of empirical evidence. Your claim is backed by nothing except these facts hurting your feelings, which is why you didn't even try to provide any alternative evidence or refute the evidence that I provided.
Zionism is Jewish Supremacism. It is based around eliminating indigenous people from Palestine and replacing them with Jews, in a state only for Jews. This is Nazism.
90% of Jews support Zionism.
So 90% of Jews are Nazis.
You frame people who actively assist in mass murder as poor little victims. We're talking about grown adults, yet according to you these are 30 year old tiny little babies who simply can't be held responsible for their actions (participation in genocide for the benefit of themselves and their community) because "propaganda", an argument that could be used to absolve absolutely anyone of any crime ever, but which you curiously only employ when it comes time to make excuses for some of the most privileged and educated people on Earth participating in genocide. The way that you people seek to absolve them of any and all responsibility like this is truly sickening.
"Because of that, they support modern day nazism, but it doesn't objectively make them modern day nazis."
How did you type such an insane sentence without checking yourself?
You should be excommunicated because people like you exist to mislead purely to lie in order to mislead the anti-Zionist movement into liberal Zionism.
Great post. I’ve done a full compilation of multiple surveys of Jews’ opinion of Israel around the world including the US, Israel, Canada, UK, France, and Australia. The results are exactly what you would expect and extremely consistent: https://tariqacknickulous.substack.com/p/yes-most-jews-are-in-fact-zionists
I have also compiled lots of socioeconomic data on Jews vs other demographics to prove empirically that they are not systemically oppressed or marginalized: https://tariqacknickulous.substack.com/p/privileged-reality-of-jewish-demographics
It infuriates me seeing Western politicians morally grandstand over "antisemitism" yet in their same breath actively spew out truly genocidal rhetoric against Muslims, Hispanics, and Black people. It's sickening
Superb article. I'll start by sharing that I was educated in an American public school and indoctrinated into the idea that the Holocaust was the worst thing to ever happen and that Jews are perpetual victims (the next Holocaust is surely right around the corner, as you well know, right?). However, this is untrue and the genocide olympics is something I am wholly uninterested in. This indoctrination has taken much work and study to shed. There is something to be said about the effectiveness of Zionist propaganda here. Many Western anti-Zionists engage in Jewish Exceptionalism without thinking, and without knowing. Indeed, in my own advocacy groups at university, there are many people who treat Jews as perpetual victims, people who suffer from the specter of the Holocaust on a material basis, people whose word should be considered more than others (Including Palestinians themselves), and people who deserve the benefit of the doubt even while supporting a serial killer state like Israel. The reality is that Jews in Western countries do not face material oppression. Discrimination is a different story altogether, but material, structural oppression? Entirely absent for Jewish Americans and Westerners. This article does an excellent job detailing how Western anti-Zionists need to refocus and adopt this frame of thinking. Thanks for writing it, it has helped me reflect on my own political framework and the people I devote my time to. I'll be sharing it among my friends and fellow anti-Zionist activists.
Feel free to ignore this, but I do have a good faith question for you as both a longtime viewer of your work (I’ve learned a lot from you!) and an anti-Zionist Jew/member of JVP. I think your commentary on Jewish exceptionalism is absolutely correct as is your conclusion. But if 90% of Jewish people are indeed Zionists of some stripe, what exactly would you like the 10% of us who vehemently oppose it to do? Is there nothing remarkable about the Jewish anti-Zionist work of the likes of Finkelstein, Maté, and Pappé? Not exceptional. Not more important than Palestinian voices, dear god no, but some level of importance? Shouldn’t there be members of the oppressor group vocally opposing the oppressive ideology? Isn’t that part of the revolutionary process of anti colonial struggle? Again: not the most important part, but still part of it. I don’t think it’s Jewish exceptionalism to say “I’m Jewish and I oppose this oppressive ideology and colonial action which exists to privilege my ethnicity to the expense of an indigenous group.” It’s just necessary work for those of us who belong to that group to do. It’s not to the detriment of the broader pro-Palestine movement and it is distinct from engaging in the sort of eggshell walking you describe in your piece, which is something I of course detest. I find JVP is quite good on this front, and everyone in the group I talk to would agree with everything you say. Anyway, hopefully you’ll explain a bit more what is to be done. I don’t see a problem with members of the oppressor group who oppose that oppression fighting against it publicly, especially with the chokehold Zionism has on brainwashing the broader western public, so long as it doesn’t cross the line into exceptionalism which is something that definitely does happen, but I don’t really see JVP as an example of that. Anyway this is an invitation to yell at me if I’m super off base here. Keep up the great work, BadEmp. Cheers.
What does the work of the 3 people you listed have to do with them being Jewish?
Nothing.
That’s the difference.
JVP is absolutely the premiere example of everything that I’m saying here. It is an organisation that absolutely dominates public attention and directs it to a Jewish exceptionalist framing as the end all be all. Its main purpose is to pay out large salaries to its 39 full-time employees (JVP financial disclosures show huge profits from the genocide, with a profit from 2023 of 6 million dollars out of 11 million in total revenue, which has doubtlessly increased exponentionally since), and its secondary purpose is to just sort of be a club for Jews to feel like they’re special and rebellious. Regardless of the organisations’ claims to be committed to “boosting Palestinian voices” etc, it is by far the most famous ‘pro-Palestinian’, organisation in the US, and I doubt anyone could even name any of the organisations that it claims to be uplifting.
JVP at the end of 2024 held 9 million dollars in raw cash, an increase from 3 million at the end of 2023. It does not distribute this money to anything at all aside from paying out 3 million dollars to executives and employees, and minor operating costs like buying t-shirts and signs etc. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/900018359/202511359349318416/full
JVP’s opposition to Zionism was only announced in 2019, after 25 years as an org, and it is tepid and centred entirely around Jewish feelings and Jewish wellbeing, with the implication being that if Zionism did ‘protect Jews’ as they claim it sought to, it may have been justified and they may instead support it. It is genuinely best described as a complete abomination.
“We know that opposing Zionism, or even discussing it, can be painful, can strike at the deepest trauma and greatest fears of many of us. Zionism is a nineteenth-century political ideology that emerged in a moment where Jews were defined as irrevocably outside of a Christian Europe. European antisemitism threatened and ended millions of Jewish lives — in pogroms, in exile, and in the Holocaust.
Through study and action, through deep relationship with Palestinians fighting for their own liberation, and through our own understanding of Jewish safety and self determination, we have come to see that Zionism was a false and failed answer to the desperately real question many of our ancestors faced of how to protect Jewish lives from murderous antisemitism in Europe.”
https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/resource/zionism/.
In terms of actual change, JVP is purely detrimental for the reasons outlined in the article already. Regardless of the good intentions of some of its rank and file members, we would be much better if such organisations ceased to exist as this would allow room for all the air they take up to instead be taken up by much more productive organisations.
Oh wow. I didn't know that's what JVP describes Zionism as. That's just historically inaccurate, unlettered even. The ideology was a messianic nationalist movement that arose in part as a fundamentalist reaction to being accepted.
In obscuring how their cultural zealotry came about, they refuse to criticize a reactionary phenomenon that may still be ongoing in large ways and almost certainly is ongoing in fringe ultra groups within Israel.
And their words function as a threat--make us feel bad and we'll become (more) dangerous. This is the same "act crazy" tactic pursued by their militants, just wrapped in dogoodism.
Definitely they are leaving some doors open, while failing to work effectively for peace.
They sure seem effective at gathering donations, though.
Much appreciated! I hear what you’re saying and I can definitely see the major discrepancy between the organizational verbiage and how the volunteers and individual members feel. Absolutely shameful BS on their part, no doubt. Thanks for citing that.
I’d push back on the notion that the writings of the individuals I mentioned and other similarly situated Jewish anti-Zionist thinkers has nothing to do with their being Jewish, but that’s really neither here nor there.
I’d have no issue with an org like JVP ceasing to exist, or something better coming along, though I don’t know to what extent it is JVP’s fault for being a vocal and well-known organization in the movement. I hope to see it progress past the decision to institutionally treat Zionism with kiddie gloves. I don’t see it as an end-all-be-all by any means and I’m sick to death of the “protect Jewish feelings” discourse. At the same time, there is a dire and drastic need (siloed though it may be) to push Jews away from Zionism, and I would say the same of any members of a group which benefits from any other system of oppression anywhere in the world.
And 1000% agree that the attention JVP achieves is better placed on the many Palestinian-led groups throughout the West which fight for Palestinian liberation. I wish members of my group would stop playing victim like it’s 1940 or something. Times have changed and a vast vast majority of Jewish people have been subsumed into whiteness.
Anyway thanks for indulging me, merry Christmas, and all the best to you and yours.
If you are a member of the org the first thing you should be doing is asking the executives why they aren't spending their 9 million dollars in cash on things like bail funds and legal defenses for pro-Palestine protestors, etc. They have so much cash on hand that they could instantly fund the formation of an actual general anti-Zionist org whenever they want. Instead they're spending 3 million dollars a year on salaries for 39 employees, an average of $70,000 each. The two main executives paid themselves $120k each last year.
It is pretty transparently a grift off the members unfortunately, one that works bc lots of Jewish people like to feel special and rebellious and are paying up.
Excellent advice. A deeply serious shift needs to take place, and sadly a lot of groups like this one do shit like this. I want my money going to Palestinian aid and other such causes like you mention, and of course do donate directly to groups like UNRWA and PCRF, and the like.
Thanks again for clarifying for me, someone who sees the light on the curse of Jewish exceptionalism but also feels like it’s important and necessary for Jewish anti-Zionists to agitate and fight against Zionism as it is a parasite on the Jewish faith and ethnicity. That’s not in the same ballpark as liberating an indigenous group living under occupation and genocide, but I think material conditions are going to cause Jewish anti-Zionism to exist regardless. It’s a matter of how we engage in it and what it looks like — and that it focuses 100% of the energy on what matters. Like you say, bigotry and violence against us is fringe and atomized, not systemic.
In an ideal world: Why should the group/ethnicity of the speaker matter when denouncing a settler colonial ethnostate?
As a parallel, let's go back to the past:
In Nazi Germany:
A German: "I'm German and I oppose this oppresive ideology and colonial action which exists to privilege my ethnicity to the expense of an indigenous group."
The rest of the world: "Yep, we know that, let's work to free the oppressed and dismantle the Nazis."
What I feel happens in your example:
A Jewish person: “I’m Jewish and I oppose this oppressive ideology and colonial action which exists to privilege my ethnicity to the expense of an indigenous group.”
The rest of the Western World: "See? People of the in-group oppose this, therefore us opposing the same shouldn't be constructed as anti-semitism. Now, let's stop the bombs and let the food get in... dismantle Israel? One-state-solution? uhm..."
It's not inherently bad (I think) but it takes away from the message, we shouldn't need to go through leaps and hoops to oppose the ethno-supremacist state of Israel. We need to change the overton window to make "opposing the ethno-supremacist state of Israel" the default and 'normal' position.
Heard. I mostly do agree, but Germans to my knowledge didn’t monopolize nor mischaracterize opposition to the Nazi regime as systemized bigotry against the German people wherever they may be in the world. Zionism has done that. A lot of dirty work has been done thru the Zionist lens over decades such that anti-Zionism is still commonly considered to be the same as anti-Jewish discrimination, systemic or individual.
And again, really my only point about Jewish anti-Zionism is that it’s (1) going to materialize much in the same way any display of opposition to oppression from members of the oppressing group materializes throughout history, and (2) is if nothing else remarkable in the literal sense of the word, as in, worth remarking on.
In an ideal world Zionism wouldn’t have taken over the Jewish faith such that most Jews in the world support it in some way, and in an ideal world people would actually listen to Arabs, Palestinians, and Muslims, instead of members of those groups being part of a systemically discriminated-against membership within broader society. Islamophobia is actually the issue that Jews pretend “antisemitism” is.
And obviously we don’t live in an ideal world and the phrase “ideal world” is one I would push back on in general.
But I do appreciate your response greatly and very much agree with most of it and certainly understand where you’re coming from.
"If Jewish Anti-Zionists want to talk about these sorts of questions, they are free to do so within their own communities, where they are actually relevant. But it is well past time that they stop hijacking the pro-Palestine movement and making it about themselves." - this fucking article
I don’t just mean “these sorts of questions,” though, in other words, I’m not talking about how Zionism affects Judaism or what have you. I simply mean public displays of protest the way any other group or cross-section of several groups would protest. I’m just inquiring about whether Jewish people have any place in anti-Zionist discourse, and if so, what that place is. I understand there are different discourses happening all at once. I’m deeply tired of the “well this actually is/isn’t bigoted against Jews” conversation, which is I think what BE is referring to in your quote. I mean Jewish people are who really just trying and wanting to be vocal, present, and helpful in the actual work being done to end Israeli occupation, colonization, and genocide, hand-in-hand with the liberation of Palestine and her people from the chains of these evils.
You're really sincere and seem to really care. It's very encouraging to see.
The most important thing Antizionist Jews can do is protest and speak out within their own communities. Be JVP in a synagogue and VP within pro Palestine circles.
There is nothing special about Jewish communities that makes outreach to them especially worthy of anyone's time. It makes about as much sense as trying to recruit to fight white supremacism at a Neo Nazi gathering.
Eh, I mean neo-Nazis gather for one reason. Jews gather for a multitude of reasons, some of which include doing or promoting Nazi shit of course, but I don’t think it’s 1:1. I think Jewish minds getting changed, especially outside of Israel since Israeli society is so insular and homogenous in its decision to Zionist terror and genocide, carries some weight and is not a complete waste of time, like your analogy claims. It isn’t my primary concern. My primary concern is Palestinian life, liberation, and complete self-determination, as well as holding evildoers accountable (including Jewish communities outside Israel hiding behind synagogues to colonize Palestine, of course). But this kind of gets to my “what is to be done” question. Should Jews shut up? Not protest at all? Not be vocal and present in any sense? Not try to at the absolute very least convince other Jews who may be on the fence or disinterested to get off the fence and take a stand?
I just don’t want to see my people as a lost cause, and I don’t even necessarily see people lost in the weeds of what you or I would call “neo-Nazism” to be absolute lost causes. People do change. But again, all that is way less important than the tasks at hand. Why not multitask though, so long as you acknowledge what’s most important and urgent?
The institutions you are talking about and their members are funders, propagandists, supporters and enablers of genocide. If you're going to "engage" with them, it should not be to treat them like poor misguided victims. That's a hotbed of active enemies who are actively helping to murder people.
I have serious questions about you if you are in community with Zionists (modern day Nazis) and you think this is acceptable just because you're Jewish. Same as I would someone who goes to a KKK church, post-hoc rationalizes it as "outreach", and sees no issue with what they're doing.
Very well said! Thanks again for engaging and explaining, answering my questions, etc.
Well written, nice.
Great post i downloaded substack for you
This is a great article btw, and I have noticed how people substitute vulgar anti-Semitism, with extreme philosemitism, where they think that Jews are some kind of infallible super man, who can do no wrong. Of course several philosemitic “anti Zionists”, have incredibly managed to inculcate into their system of thinking, this exact kind of cancerous philosemitism, preached by Zionists.
Both Daniel De Leon’s work, anti-Semitism its causes and cure, and Bernard Lazare’s anti-Semitism its history and its causes, demolish the very premise on which Semitism and philosemitism subsist. De Leon provided the simple foundation theoretical stone (by borrowing from Lazares book), and Lazare provides the theological and historical element to provide a potent punch to philosemitism, and racial Zionism.
One problem is that settlers usually have a homeland to go back to. But European Jews came from countries that genocided them, and Mizrahi Jews were expelled from their countries of origin. Where are they all going to go?
Did you ask ChatGPT for a random Jewish exceptionalist Zionist talking point? Sorry Palestinians, you can't be liberated because it might inconvenience your oppressors (they are very special and Jewish!)
Sounds like it'll be Cyprus and Canada, then.
Germany should "schaffen das"
Contrary to what you have all of us believe here, many Israeli youth have a right of return to Germany, and many choose to live in Berlin than in Tel Aviv. Ask anyone around, and where did the Poles return after the war that annihilated millions of Poles? They went back to their communities.
Second thing, the colonization of Palestine started way before there was war, and genocide.
And third but not the least, name one European country that won't have the Israeli Jewish settlers back into Europe, this is regarding your point of "settlers usually have a homeland to go back to".
They go back to the countries they are from. Bad things happen. That was 4 generations ago. Get over it.
Do you seriously think Jews are at any risk of being persecuted in a 2nd Holocaust in Europe in the year 2025?
Ask the AfD
Alright, I already asked. The answer is no, they're not at risk from the AfD, and only if you don't know jack shit about AfD’s platform could you ask such a ridiculous question. AfD is as zionist as a y other German party
Time for the world's smallest violin.
The vast majority hold dual citizenships. They can go back to wherever they came from.
Google says 10% do
As a Jew, and a member of the global Zionist movement, I am a proud anti Zionist Jew . Now praise me for saying this. This is special
i think the “factually incorrect” section mirrors ben shapiro’s argument that most muslims are fundamentalist islamists. it doesn’t matter how many jewish people believe in israel’s vitality to the jewish people. there is thousands of years of history and commentary on jewish peoples and religion that does not include israel. i understand you’re trying to highlight the seriousness of indoctrination into zionism and how effective the campaign to make zionism equate to judaism is, but you argue for it here in a way that is not very convincing and is detached from a larger history. it would be much more effective in my opinion to highlight the infrastructure needed to take thousands of years of history and somehow equate it to a less-than-100-year-old settler-colonial project as that would also be a great way to connect israel to nazi germany and how they were able to establish a mythos around germany.
.. Except it doesn't. Muslim support for ISIS (which is not actually as bad as Israel, to be clear) has never even remotely come close to Jewish support for Israel. There is a difference between 1 in 100 and 9 in 10.
You seem to go off vibes to the point you are no longer able to register the difference between an empirically false and an empirically correct claim.
Of course, your entire post is an example of Jewish exceptionalism: you can't make factual claims about Jews because of vibes. You have to acknowledge there's something super special and different about Israel because "thousands of years of history" which of course makes Jewish Nazis not responsible for their own actions (because they're Jewish).
in ben shapiro’s argument he was able to use surveys and statistics to place the number of violent extremist muslims at around 3/4. i’m simply pointing out how unconvincing that argument is and how yours mirrors it. i only mention “thousands of years of history” to point out how absurd it is that multiple diverse communities of jews that have existed much longer than the state of israel have been reduced to needing a jewish ethnostate and a more convincing argument is not to rely on statistics but to actually point out the infrastructure that leads to this indoctrination. i don’t even think your argument is bad, it’s certainly supported by more than ben shapiro’s was because israel is actually supported by the imperial core, i thought you could go deeper and shouldn’t rely on simply saying “look at this thing people believe according to surveys that couldn’t possibly account for the entire scope of jews across multiple different sects, communities, and regions”. like jews aren’t a monolith, are not special, etc. israel has established the infrastructure to overwrite thousands of years of history of multiple different peoples with no connection to israel whatsoever and that is INSANE. that’s what im saying lol
Can’t even read this in the uk without a vpn
Just purely a lie. I am portraying all of those polls accurately. Zionism is not defined as "thinks Israel has committed war crimes" or "thinks Israel has committed genocide" by anyone. There is absolutely no contradiction there whatsoever.
Disapproval of Netanyahu is not disapproval of the Zionist ethnonationalist project.
"to say that that makes them morally equivilant to Nazis I think is somewhat questionable"
Anyone who believes in maintaining an ethnosupremacist settler colonial state is equivalent MATERIALLY (I have said nothing about morality) to Nazis. Their logics and modalities are the same.
That your examples of supposed "anti-Semitism" are not actual, real tangible oppression, but just internet talk show hosts, shows how you do not operate in anything resembling material reality. For Palestinians, discrimination against them is being bombed by Zionist Jews. Yet for Jews, apparently discrimination against them is a livestream on Rumble. I bet the Palestinians wish they could swap places with these supposed poor Jewish "victims of anti-Semitism" when that's the best example of it you could come up with.
Your comment is essentially just you looking for special exceptions as to why it's okay to be a Zionist. It is a laundry list of the most generic Zionist, Jewish Supremacist talking points that everyone has already heard a million times before, all designed to muddy the waters and mislead people away from understanding what Israel is and how it must be fought.
I'm not sure what you're even doing here to be honest. You are a Zionist, this isn't for you.
"You also love to make the provocation that 90% of Jews are modern nazis, but it is unhelpful. I don't say this because of the silly idea that it would be offensive to call 90% of Jews nazis. It is simply unhelpful because it is incorrect."
My claim is backed by swathes of empirical evidence. Your claim is backed by nothing except these facts hurting your feelings, which is why you didn't even try to provide any alternative evidence or refute the evidence that I provided.
Zionism is Jewish Supremacism. It is based around eliminating indigenous people from Palestine and replacing them with Jews, in a state only for Jews. This is Nazism.
90% of Jews support Zionism.
So 90% of Jews are Nazis.
You frame people who actively assist in mass murder as poor little victims. We're talking about grown adults, yet according to you these are 30 year old tiny little babies who simply can't be held responsible for their actions (participation in genocide for the benefit of themselves and their community) because "propaganda", an argument that could be used to absolve absolutely anyone of any crime ever, but which you curiously only employ when it comes time to make excuses for some of the most privileged and educated people on Earth participating in genocide. The way that you people seek to absolve them of any and all responsibility like this is truly sickening.
"Because of that, they support modern day nazism, but it doesn't objectively make them modern day nazis."
How did you type such an insane sentence without checking yourself?
You should be excommunicated because people like you exist to mislead purely to lie in order to mislead the anti-Zionist movement into liberal Zionism.