Be sure to follow the rule before you head out.
Rule: You must post before you leave.
Edit: Blocked the author's name, because it's not my tumblr. I didn't expect so many people to misinterpret it and respond in this way.
Edit 2: This is not from the same author, but it's a reply to them. I think it might help clarify the post for those that are confused:
I normally don't worry about usernames on tumblr, but since there've been some really out-of-pocket misconceptions in the thread, I don't want anyone to harass them.
Zionists invaded Palestine in 1947-48
Being deliberately ignorant of history isn't helping anyone.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_and_Judaism_in_the_Land_of_Israel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_diaspora
I do not support the apartheid state of Israel or the illegal settlements and occupation of Palestine, but Jewish people belong on parts of that land just as much as Palestinians belong on others, and this conflict will never be resolved as long as people, especially those who brush of thousands of years of history aside as nuance because its easier than actually making an effort to understand it, argue that only one group has a rightful claim to the land.
An anarchist should be supporting the people, not one state or another, and this isn't to say that there is a power balance or that both sides are responsible, no, only Israel is, but those in power over both people are using them as pawns to stay in power. They are the ones who need to be removed.
I don't see anything whatsoever in that Wikipedia that conflicts with the tumblr post. Would you care to quote which part you believe is inaccurate and why? I'm curious If you're misreading or somehow misinterpreting the post.
An anarchist should be supporting the people, not one state or another
Yes, and here's a relevant quote from Anarchism and Its Aspirations, which addresses this apparent contradiction nicely:
If we understand this sense of negative and positive freedom, what appears as a contradictory stance within anarchism makes perfect sense. An anarchist might firmly believe that the Palestinian people deserve to be liberated from occupation, even if that means that they set up their own state. That same anarchist might also firmly believe that a Palestinian state, like all states, should be opposed in favor of nonstatist institutions. A complete sense of freedom would always include both the negative and positive senses—in this case, liberation from occupation and simultaneously the freedom to self-determine. Otherwise, as both actually existing Communist and liberal regimes have demonstrated, “freedom from” on its own will serve merely to enslave human potentiality, and at its most extreme, humans themselves; self-governance is denied in favor of a few governing over others. And “freedom to,” on its own, as capitalism has shown, will serve merely to promote egotistic individualism and pit each against each; self-determination trumps notions of collective good. Constantly working to bring both liberation and freedom to the table, within moments of resistance and reconstruction, is part of that same juggling act of approximating an increasingly differentiated yet more harmonious world.
We can recognize that no state is good while still recognizing the Palestinians' right to be free from oppression and genocide. There really is no conflict with anarchism, even though it may appear to be at first glance. This is one of many very common misconceptions about anarchism.
Did you fully read the post you shared or my reply?
I already quoted the part that's inaccurate, also the post you shared isn't calling simply for liberation from occupation, which I support, its calling for the displacement of Israelis basically "back to where they came form", ignoring that they came form the region of Palestine/Israel, and mostly displaced by their own oppressors generations ago, while still maintaining some continuous settlement the region (so no, they didn't sudenly turn up in 47-48, and Zionism is about a hundred years older than that - like I say, it's easier to brush off as nuance than even learn the basics).
You don't free one people by displacing another. You free both by freeing them from the people playing them against each other and stopping peace for power.
The state of Israel appeared in 1948. This is a well-documented historic fact, no matter how inconvenient that fact may be to your agenda (had a look at your comment history, wow). It is this state that the post is referring to.
Also:
its calling for the displacement of Israelis basically "back to where they came form"
What are you quoting from? This is not a quote from the post, nor is it stated by it in any way.
So I am correct that you have completely misread and misinterpreted the post.
In fact, your comments appear to be copy/pasted versions of themselves. That may be why your comments don't really address my post at all...
Did you fully read the post you shared or my reply?
"Well, Jewish people need a place where they won't be discriminated against" I absolutely agree. so make every country in the world safe for Jewish people.
How you can interpret this as anything other than displacing the Jewish people from that region, is on you.
As for my "agenda" - it's to share from my lived experience and knowledge of this conflict (which most of you have none) to push for REAL peace and freedom for ALL of the people of that region (and it looks copy-pasted because the erasure of Jewish history on the land is always the same), and as I already said - ignoring thousands of years of history because you're too lazy to learn it properly, and reducing the conflict to an "easy" but useless solution to fit your black and white view, is a sure fire way to ever let that happen. If you want to continue to do so, knock yourself out, but erasing the parts that are inconvenient to your agenda, only demonstrates your ignorance and unwillingness for there to be an real and viable solution to a conflict you openly refuse to understand (until we are free of states and nations, the ONLY viable solution is a two state one, where both people share the land).
No one is forcing you to double down, you can just put your hand up and say that in your quest to ignore nuance you uncritically shared a post that didn't say what you think it did (unless you agree that Jews have no history or place in the region and should all be removed and displaced to countries they have nothing to do with, which I don't think you do) and admit it's an uninformed shit take. A straightforward "free Palestine" or even "fuck the state of Israel" meme would serve everyone much better.
How you can interpret this as anything other than displacing the Jewish people from that region, is on you.
How can you possibly interpret it as "displacing the Jewish people from that region"? In what twisted way are you extrapolating that. It's not there. Like at all. Care to break that down for me and let me know how you arrived at such an interpretation?
You're arguing against a post that doesn't exist.
you uncritically shared a post that didn’t say what you think it did and admit it’s an uninformed shit take.
A bit full of yourself, considering you made a fool of yourself by grossly misinterpreting a post that makes an accurate point.
I really don't want to get involved... But I think someone else needs to say this: The original post is indeed ambiguous. It could be interpreted in two ways:
i) making every country safe for jews indicates that they should be going back to "their" country of origin
ii) making every country safe for jews indicates that a new state of israel/palestine is also safe for jews and everyone can just go on and live wherever they please.
Now we have two possible interpretations. The problem being that i) is actually ignorant of historical facts (jews have lived in that region far longer than muslims) and while admittedly being a minority have some right to live in the region. The claim that ashkenazi jews are by and lagre converts has also not a real and (this is even more important) clear historical background. On the other hand ii) might be a fairer interpretation and would actually solve a lot of things but fails in two aspects: 1) It seems not an easy solution and 2) It has the air of being a bit oversimplified. It reminds of a child hearing of war for the first time and reacting with "why can't they just stop and love each other". This sentiment is noble and a nice thought but it's also not based in reality.
its calling for the displacement of Israelis basically "back to where they came form", ignoring that they came form the region of Palestine/Israel
No, they didn't, really. Most ashkenazi jews were converts. And also: european. There's a reason why yiddish is so closely related to German. And jewish cuisine is clearly distinct from palestinian cuisine.
Jewsin diaspora are exactly that: in diaspora. They belong to wherever they live. You can actually still see the hole in German culture which the Nazis tore by murdering/displacing so much of the German population.
Claiming that a people needs to have some country to be purely for them is nothing, but blood and soil ideology.
(so no, they didn't sudenly turn up in 47-48, and Zionism is about a hundred years older than that - like I say, it's easier to brush off as nuance than even learn the basics).
Zionism is about 50 years older. And there was a minority of about 20% of jews in the 1930s. To make it a jewish majority state, mass settling was performed.
Lmao, what a dumbass post.
"Oh my god what an easy solution, just convince all Israelites to leave".
Oh my god, why didn't anyone think of that yet!?!?!?
This sounds like the thought process of a 14 year old who read their first article on the subject.
That is not what OP was saying at all. I don't know what hypothetical person you're quoting. OP wasn't even talking about any solution. Just stating that the source of the problem isn't that complicated. Sometimes a simple problem has a complicated solution.
Nobody serious is asking for all the Israelis to leave. The solution to one ethnostate is not another ethnostate. We're asking for a new state that truly treats all its citizens equally. And to have a tribunal of sorts to convict the people who committed war crimes. This is not an easy solution, but getting justice rarely is.
But the post says it's responding to claims that there isn't a simple solution. That seems to indicate that OP is trying to present a simple solution, which we both agree there isn't.
Yeah it does. To be honest, that didn't even register with me, because the rest of the post just talks about the cause, not the solution. Also it agrees with my experiences when discussion this topic. Quite a few people say it's complicated and that just ends the discussion for them.
Also any discussion about a solution must address the cause: as long as Israel occupies Palestinian land, they will face resistance.
Lmao, what a strawman comment.
It's not a strawman, the post says the situation is simple, and then says to make other countries safe for Jews, implying they should just go to other countries.
It's either that they're proposing a solution that that's simple, or maybe the situation isn't simple and easy to solve like their 14 year old self claims it is.
Why is it so much to ask to make every country feel safe for jewish people? Have the fascists won, or what?
Because if your answer to "the jewish question" is a settler colonial ethnostate, you're literally repeating fascist opinions.
Edit: Also, they never said anything about "every Israeli" leaving Palestine. That's the strawman bit. Your Motte-and-bailey argument didn't go unnoticed.
Why is it so much to ask to make every country feel safe for jewish people? Have the fascists won, or what?
No one has argued otherwise.
Because if your answer to “the jewish question” is a settler colonial ethnostate, you’re literally repeating fascist opinions.
No one has claimed that.
Because if your answer to “the jewish question” is a settler colonial ethnostate, you’re literally repeating fascist opinions.
That is the clear solution they're implying, either that, or there isn't a simple solution, and they're a fucking moron for claiming that it's a simple situation.
No one has argued otherwise.
You have. That was the thesis, OP stated. You called that thefis naive.
That is the clear solution they're implying
No, they're implying the opposite: "Don't commit genocide and set up an ethostate". The "don't" applies to both.
Where's it say "just convince all Israelites to leave"?
Well I see that it isn't there written, but we have the one sided description of Israel invading Palestinian land and occupying it for 76 years.
And then the recommendation to remove anti-semitism in other countries.
This does imply that once other countries are safe the Israeli should leave.
Also in my opinion if a country occupies an area for that long it belongs to them. No it isn't fair and yes they took it by force. However they would not had to fight a war if they weren't attacked by all surrounding countries.
This does imply that once other countries are safe the Israeli should leave.
I must have accidentally eaten something trippy because I've read so many texts and datasets in my life, and how you are extrapolating this is beyond me.
Also in my opinion if a country occupies an area for that long it belongs to them
So then for example, you agree that the US and Canada should continue engaging in the displacement and still ongoing genocide of Native Americans? Can you clarify this statement, please?
When it says "Jewish people need a place to live so make every country safe for them".
If that's not the solution being proposed then what solution is it proposing?
If a solution isnt being proposed, then maybe the problem isn't that simple.
To all the people saying there isn't an easy solution: you are wrong, the solution is actually very easy, easier than most international problems. It's the solution the entire political world has been willing to get behind for 50 years or so. If I remember correctly it's that Israel return to its 1967 borders and get rid of its nuclear weapons. Every couple years the UN votes on this, the results are always like 230 to 2. The whole world agrees, except for Israel and the US, and the US vetoes it every time.
Imagine getting 99% of the world to agree to something, and thinking the problem is too complicated to solve.
I don't think that would satisfy the people who want Israel to go back to it's 1947 boundaries though.
Also reminder that early western support for Zionism was born out of a desire to have a place to "dump" their jews, as a "peaceful" solution to "the jewish question"
And that therefore saying that being anti-zionism is in any way antisemitic is every manner of ridiculous when in reality zionism is in-and-of-itself an antisemitic movement.
Edit: I would also like to add that people here are conflating "simple" with "easy" when these are two separate things.
This situation is not easy. The solution is in fact nigh-on impossible to do. But there is no moral ambiguity here over what would be the right thing to do, and to pretend there is is to believe propaganda -- That means it is also incredibly simple despite being close to impossible.
I think “western support” is an entirely too charitable interpretation of history. The British are fairly directly responsible for the current day conflict. They promised the Arab groups of the region, including the Palestinians, during WWI that if they revolted against the Ottomans they’d support an independent region. The Arab’s revolted in 1916, only for the British and French to invade to “drive the ottoman’s out” but decided to carve the region up for themselves instead. Then the Balfour Declaration of 1917 where the British promised Palestine to the Jewish people. Then the Mandatory Palestine period of 1920-1948 where the British emigrated jews en masse to the region. The first british High Commissioner of Mandatory Palestine was a Jewish Zionist. The Palestinians revolted from 1936-1939, wanting independence and an end to open-ended Jewish immigration to the region. The British Army violently suppressed it.
By one estimate, ten percent of the adult male Palestinian Arab population between 20 and 60 was killed, wounded, imprisoned or exiled.
I have no fucking idea what the original poster meant about “Zionists invaded Palestine in 1947-48” either. They’d been invading for the prior 30 years at that point, with the help of the British. The first clash between Palestinians and Jews happened in 1920 at the Battle of Tel Hai.
The British have so much blood on their hands here. In 1946 they basically said “We don’t want to be in charge of this anymore” and shrugged their shoulders. They got the US to help, who pushed that 100k more Jewish immigrants be re-settled there. They are directly responsible for the forming of the Israeli state. The British just declared that the Mandate for Palestine would end one day and they had no responsibility from that date. They literally retreated from the country during the outbreak of a civil war.
This is also an important point, yes!
Let's say you magically dissolved Israel. What then? Do you put a different group in power with the Jews still there? Do you deport them? Do you let it be a democracy, or do you need to enforce the leadership somehow? Do you carve up the territory for other surrounding nations like the Kurds? It isn't an easy problem by any stretch of the imagination.
Plus, Israel won't be dissolved, it's very well established now. So calling for it will lead to terrorism hurting civilians and more war rather than that dissolution actually happening.
Do you let it be a democracy
That one, if I had to choose. But I don't, it's the Palestinians that get to decide their own fate. I believe it's everyone's right to self-determination.
A lot of people only seem to imagine ethnostates as a solution. I invite those people to ask themselves some questions on why that is.
Looks like there are about 10M population of Israel vs 3M Palestinians in the West bank and 2M in Gaza. (The former number does not include the latter ones, see the wiki link) That would make them badly outnumbered. So it'd still be the Israelis who chose the fate of the Palestinians if you leave it up to a direct democratic vote of everyone in the area of what is currently Israel.
I think a two state solution is ideal. (Though after the attacks I doubt it's feasible) But a two state solution would likely not be able to be entirely democratic, since the majority Israelis would be able to vote for the oppressive status quo.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Israel https://www.state.gov/reports/2022-report-on-international-religious-freedom/israel-west-bank-and-gaza/west-bank-and-gaza/
Idk if Israelis would be the majority. You would probably have all the Palestinian refugees, whose refugee status is inheritetd, come back. That would be about another 5.6 million. One state would probably lead to complete chaos. And let's not pretend Palestinians and surrounding Arab states would be kind "overlords". There is a reason so many Jews from Arab nations fled to Israel.
I regret not making my assumption explicit: a democracy in which there is a just constitution that guarantees the rights of everyone equally. I would not model this democracy based on the USA, because it is such a broken system. In the USA, only one party is in power at a time, which makes problems like the dictatorship of the majority a real concern. Better are European systems where nobody ever gets an absolute majority and always has to form a coalition. It's of course also not without its problems and I don't profess to have all the solutions.
What I don't like is just saying that the two state solution is ideal, but immediately saying it's not feasible for something the Palestinians have done. This again places the Israeli needs over the Palestinians and disregard the vastly bigger crimes Israel has committed onto the Palestinian population over the years.
You could say the same thing about the US, it's been under european occupation for 250 years.
Most jews living in Israel were born there. Like it or not, that is their home now. They can't go back to their country because they don't have another one.
What can be changed is only what they do from now on. The right thing is to make peace and make ammends with the Palestinian people. The wrong thing to do is the genocide they are doing right now.
You could say the same thing about the US
You think I don't? And what part of the post leads you to believe the author wants Jewish people to "go back to their country"? That is NOT in the post. Where are you getting this, and what are you arguing against? Definitely not my post!
The post argues how jews occupied the land and are treating Palestinians poorly and the proposed solution is to 'make every country safe for jews' and 'stop creating an ethnostate'. The past is past, you can't undo all the things that already happened. The "ethnostate" already exists. Other countries stopping from being antisemitic won't solve anything now. So what I understand is being proposed, between the lines, is for other countries to stop being antisemitic, so the Israelis can go to those other countries instead of their own and give the land back.
The US also doesn't have the right to exist.
Here's my hot take:
No nation has the inherent right to exist. A nation has the sole duty to safeguard the lives, safety, and freedom of all of its people, and any nation that consistently fails to do this is illegitimate.
And yes, I agree, this makes nearly every nation illegitimate.
I like this take! It's similar to my opinion, except I think quite possibly we can eventually find alternative ways to safeguard our lives, safety, and freedom without a state at all.
Read Abdullah Öcalan and Murray Bookchin are definitely worth reading here. Öcalan points out that states are fundamentally genocidal because it's easier to control one identity than several. Rajava is a really interesting example of libertarian socialism that doesn't attempt to confront the state, but basically just ignores it unless it's a threat. Rojava isn't a country, it's just an autonomous zone within the state or Syria (that isn't governed by Syria).
I think that model offers a lot. It could even offer a path beyond Israel and the US. Öcalan's Democratic Confederalism is like 100 pages and worth the read IMHO.
Thank you. Do you happen to have links to these? Are they on anarchist library?
See, we've given them more than enough money to buy their own country. You gotta take the training wheels off at some point, and 76 years seems like plenty of time to find their feet. At the very least, wander out into the desert like their dear Moses and build a new Jerusalem, with hookers, and blackjack, and matzoh. Especially the matzoh that shit is fuckin awful and we could all use a place designated to hold all of it. For cultural purpose of course.
I agree the ideal solution would have been to stamp out antisemitism, so that a Jewish State would not have been necessary. But that should have been done before millions of Jews were killed in genocide. Imagine being being a survivor and being told : "Trust us, we are good people now, we won't commit genocide against you... again". Antisemitism and antisemites didn't all die with Hitler.
People say its complicated
Why not just eradicate all antisemitism in Western nations
EzPz
It almost seems like Israel demonstrates the "tyranny of the majority" problem often attributed to democracies.
To service a majority audience, it was all too easy to do stuff like expanding settlements, violently overreact to low-level protest, refuse to negotiate towards a two-state solution, and bottleneck a free-standing Palestinian economy. Of course this marginalizes and radicalizes the minority until it blows up.
Historians can analyze if there was animosity and an occupier mindset immediately from 1948 onwards, when and how much, but it's academic. The situation today is not conducive to constructive resolutions, plus a significant part of the electorate that LIKES it that way.
They probably needed some stronger constitutional guardrails to present this sort of abuse. But again, door open, cows escaped already.
isreal was intended as an ethnostate from the get go. palastinians were second class citizens at best, since the colonisation began. this is bot an issue with constitutions. isreal was always intended to be this way. palastinians where never supposed to have any kind of power or live next to israelis as equals.