There is still a last train to Auschwitz waiting at the station for those "acceptable" Jews.
Three years ago, shortly after Oct. 7, a family friend of 40 years asked me if my grandparents (who were Israelis of the refugee variety) were Zionists. It was still early into this mess, so I hadn't yet picked up that that was actually a racist left-wing question. It was a litmus test, I just still trusted this person, so I didn't get that and I answered, "yeah, I guess so." I don't recall my grandparents calling themselves Zionists in the formal sense. I don't know that they would have labeled themselves as such.
Here's what I would say now if asked the same question: "If by 'Zionist' do you mean did they go to the one mosquito-infested chunk of desert swampland on Earth available to them over getting incinerated in a Nazi death camp? If that's what you're asking, yeah, they were Zionists."
Can you imagine asking someone totally out of context if their grandparents were in the Black Panthers or IRA, you know, just out of curiosity so you know if you should keep associating with them or not?
I honestly wish the Nazi keffidiots would just stop the performance already and put up the "No Jews Allowed" signs. It would be a lot easier for all of us.
Between the return of socialism and the resurgence of antisemitism, it's difficult not to draw some disturbing parallels between the current day and the world of a hundred years ago.
Neo-Stalinist/Maoists (they need to get a calendar) wearing green (made in China) Houthi and Hamas headbands, are desperate to offshore their own ancestral guilt for being the privileged heirs to the spoils of those who really were "racist, white supremacist, settler colonizing imperialists" (academics love
to add syllables).
By projecting this ancestral guilt onto a tiny and much murdered people, these heirs to the world feel much acquitted of guilt now that they know who the REAL villains are. Anti-Israelism is the latest iteration of Jew hatred. Not rocket science. And on the Right, we have a new generation of neo-Nazis loving Tucker and Candace, Fuentes and Piker (he may confuse their identity but they're not very bright to begin with). In all we have the new Hitler-Stalin Pact operating to erase Israel. My ancestors, the families of my Shoah parents, were erased by Nazis, lost to me. My Israeli present and future (daughter, brother z'l, cousins, friends, colleagues - all peaceniks) will NOT be erased by the new Hitlerite Stalinists amongst us.
“One must not grieve Israeli civilians without immediately redirecting the conversation to Palestinians, as though Jewish grief is inherently suspect.”
I’ve not yet finished reading, as this brought my head to a screeching halt: it’s exactly what happened to me the first time I “lost a ‘friend’”
I’d posted on fb about the six hostages who were murdered in the tunnel just before they were due to be released; and, unasked, a close friend made a remark which basically said how could .i possibly say that when there were so many in Pstine. It went rapidly downhill from there - and upset me in many ways, as this person is very good with words, but also knows that I’ve lost my ‘wordiness’, and have cognitive problems after a stroke, which get especially bad when .im upset/emotional(as here). I’m sure he did that deliberately.
He maintained a ‘polite’ but patronising tone until near the end, and he’d told me he’d be there fir me when I came to my senses, at which point he and his girlfriend started posting laugh-reacts. Bastard.
He had been a close friend online, someone .i had confided in, and wish that I had not: nothing that would bother me if others heard it, but deeply personal, emotional things, and it’s left me feeling very raw and vulnerable (as well as stupid for trusting him)
Thanks for that, Pat: it helped erase him a little. Now, to read the rest.
Pat, another article that really hits the nail on the head.
One thing I've never understood is what comes after the slogan. If someone says they want a "safe space free of Zionists," the obvious follow-up question is: What do you mean by that?
Zionism, in its simplest sense, means that the Jewish people have the right to a homeland and national self-determination. So if you're against Zionism, are you saying the Jewish people shouldn't have a homeland? If so, why should every other people have that right, but not the Jews?
That's the question I never hear answered. I know how it was answered for me—I was simply called a "filthy Zionist," and that ended the conversation. But I'm genuinely curious how someone who is sincere would answer it.
If the objection isn't to Jews having a homeland, then what exactly is the objection? Because once you ask that second question, the slogans don't seem nearly as convincing. That's why I think your article is so important. It forces people to think beyond the label.
Ideological purity tests as a form of lateral violence are becoming increasingly common, more accepted and less surprising, as the penalties for failure become all encompassing and veering even a hair out of line gets easier. I'm writing a piece about how this sort of shit recently affected me.
And 'solidarity' isn't just how you described it (so well) within the antizionist/pro-pally movement. Any criticism of any of their other cause célèbres, no matter how tangential, mild, or imaginary is grounds for expulsion, slander, ostracism, cancellation, and even (or especially) attempts to utterly ruin the heretic's life and/or livelihood. Utterly fictional crimes against humanity can and shall all be yours.
There is still a last train to Auschwitz waiting at the station for those "acceptable" Jews.
Three years ago, shortly after Oct. 7, a family friend of 40 years asked me if my grandparents (who were Israelis of the refugee variety) were Zionists. It was still early into this mess, so I hadn't yet picked up that that was actually a racist left-wing question. It was a litmus test, I just still trusted this person, so I didn't get that and I answered, "yeah, I guess so." I don't recall my grandparents calling themselves Zionists in the formal sense. I don't know that they would have labeled themselves as such.
Here's what I would say now if asked the same question: "If by 'Zionist' do you mean did they go to the one mosquito-infested chunk of desert swampland on Earth available to them over getting incinerated in a Nazi death camp? If that's what you're asking, yeah, they were Zionists."
Can you imagine asking someone totally out of context if their grandparents were in the Black Panthers or IRA, you know, just out of curiosity so you know if you should keep associating with them or not?
I honestly wish the Nazi keffidiots would just stop the performance already and put up the "No Jews Allowed" signs. It would be a lot easier for all of us.
Exactly
Those “right kind of Jews” will also be shunned and excluded as soon as they are no longer useful.
And they will find some way to justify their treatment then too
It’s already happened. Beinart got reamed for talking to Israelis - and he grovelled for “forgiveness” It was not forthcoming …
Between the return of socialism and the resurgence of antisemitism, it's difficult not to draw some disturbing parallels between the current day and the world of a hundred years ago.
Neo-Stalinist/Maoists (they need to get a calendar) wearing green (made in China) Houthi and Hamas headbands, are desperate to offshore their own ancestral guilt for being the privileged heirs to the spoils of those who really were "racist, white supremacist, settler colonizing imperialists" (academics love
to add syllables).
By projecting this ancestral guilt onto a tiny and much murdered people, these heirs to the world feel much acquitted of guilt now that they know who the REAL villains are. Anti-Israelism is the latest iteration of Jew hatred. Not rocket science. And on the Right, we have a new generation of neo-Nazis loving Tucker and Candace, Fuentes and Piker (he may confuse their identity but they're not very bright to begin with). In all we have the new Hitler-Stalin Pact operating to erase Israel. My ancestors, the families of my Shoah parents, were erased by Nazis, lost to me. My Israeli present and future (daughter, brother z'l, cousins, friends, colleagues - all peaceniks) will NOT be erased by the new Hitlerite Stalinists amongst us.
shalom / salaam
So true, expressed so well
This is brilliant, and so on-point.
“One must not grieve Israeli civilians without immediately redirecting the conversation to Palestinians, as though Jewish grief is inherently suspect.”
I’ve not yet finished reading, as this brought my head to a screeching halt: it’s exactly what happened to me the first time I “lost a ‘friend’”
I’d posted on fb about the six hostages who were murdered in the tunnel just before they were due to be released; and, unasked, a close friend made a remark which basically said how could .i possibly say that when there were so many in Pstine. It went rapidly downhill from there - and upset me in many ways, as this person is very good with words, but also knows that I’ve lost my ‘wordiness’, and have cognitive problems after a stroke, which get especially bad when .im upset/emotional(as here). I’m sure he did that deliberately.
He maintained a ‘polite’ but patronising tone until near the end, and he’d told me he’d be there fir me when I came to my senses, at which point he and his girlfriend started posting laugh-reacts. Bastard.
He had been a close friend online, someone .i had confided in, and wish that I had not: nothing that would bother me if others heard it, but deeply personal, emotional things, and it’s left me feeling very raw and vulnerable (as well as stupid for trusting him)
Thanks for that, Pat: it helped erase him a little. Now, to read the rest.
Pat, another article that really hits the nail on the head.
One thing I've never understood is what comes after the slogan. If someone says they want a "safe space free of Zionists," the obvious follow-up question is: What do you mean by that?
Zionism, in its simplest sense, means that the Jewish people have the right to a homeland and national self-determination. So if you're against Zionism, are you saying the Jewish people shouldn't have a homeland? If so, why should every other people have that right, but not the Jews?
That's the question I never hear answered. I know how it was answered for me—I was simply called a "filthy Zionist," and that ended the conversation. But I'm genuinely curious how someone who is sincere would answer it.
If the objection isn't to Jews having a homeland, then what exactly is the objection? Because once you ask that second question, the slogans don't seem nearly as convincing. That's why I think your article is so important. It forces people to think beyond the label.
Ideological purity tests as a form of lateral violence are becoming increasingly common, more accepted and less surprising, as the penalties for failure become all encompassing and veering even a hair out of line gets easier. I'm writing a piece about how this sort of shit recently affected me.
And 'solidarity' isn't just how you described it (so well) within the antizionist/pro-pally movement. Any criticism of any of their other cause célèbres, no matter how tangential, mild, or imaginary is grounds for expulsion, slander, ostracism, cancellation, and even (or especially) attempts to utterly ruin the heretic's life and/or livelihood. Utterly fictional crimes against humanity can and shall all be yours.
Canada went from "to kill the Indian in the child" to "to kill the zionist in the Jew"
Shameful
if you are still voting for the Liberals or NDP, you are voting for this double speak.
apartheid, colonialism, genocide, and resistance.
Add refugees which seems to cover most non jewish Palestians livining in Palestian controlled areas!!