The Return of Ta-Nehisi Coates
October 1, 2024 5:23 AM Subscribe
See also this astounding interview on CBS, in which Coates makes a parallel between Israeli apartheid and Jim Crow and host Tony Dokoupil asks why Palestinians deserve this treatment.
This interview with Jon Stewart is less hostile, but Stewart tries to redirect to, if not bothsidesism, a sort of fatalism. Coates responds "I think we have to guard against the temptation to accept that history is necessarily the limit to who we are."
posted by Il etait une fois at 6:26 AM on October 1 [48 favorites]
This interview with Jon Stewart is less hostile, but Stewart tries to redirect to, if not bothsidesism, a sort of fatalism. Coates responds "I think we have to guard against the temptation to accept that history is necessarily the limit to who we are."
posted by Il etait une fois at 6:26 AM on October 1 [48 favorites]
Here's an NYT interview about The Message, Coates' upcoming book.
posted by box at 6:40 AM on October 1 [1 favorite]
posted by box at 6:40 AM on October 1 [1 favorite]
I am very impressed with anyone who has a platform and uses it to push back against the dehumanization of Palestinians, which is so horrifyingly ubiquitous in the modern media and political landscape. Kudos to Coates.
posted by mrjohnmuller at 6:46 AM on October 1 [57 favorites]
posted by mrjohnmuller at 6:46 AM on October 1 [57 favorites]
Looks like that first CBS YouTube link went away, ieuf. Here's another.
It is amazing how the one host jumps right to "when did you stop beating your wife" and I am impressed how TNH handles it. It has been a long road for me to be deprogrammed from a baseline pro-Israel position and it is frankly painful to realize how many of the fundamental lessons of the Holocaust remain unlearned.
posted by grumpybear69 at 6:50 AM on October 1 [28 favorites]
It is amazing how the one host jumps right to "when did you stop beating your wife" and I am impressed how TNH handles it. It has been a long road for me to be deprogrammed from a baseline pro-Israel position and it is frankly painful to realize how many of the fundamental lessons of the Holocaust remain unlearned.
posted by grumpybear69 at 6:50 AM on October 1 [28 favorites]
I have a great amount of respect for Ta-Nehisi Coates. But I am deeply concerned about the weight that is going to be placed on the opinion of one (admittedly intelligent and insightful) person's experience over a ten-day trip in 2023. As much as he would like to dismiss the statement that the Israeli/Palestinian situation is "complicated," there is no doubt whatsoever that it is indeed complicated. Even just trying to parse what has happened since 1948 is deeply fraught and difficult. And trying to draw analogies to American slavery is just impossible.
And I say this as someone who is strongly critical of Netanyahu and the current government's handling of Gaza and the West Bank. Hamas is horrible and what they did on October 7 was reprehensible, AND Israel's response has been completely out of line. All of these things can be true.
My biggest concern right now is that Netanyahu has so poisoned public sentiment for Israel in the last 20 years (and recently just to avoid jail time) that the inevitable outcome will be the destruction of Israel (either literally or as a Jewish state) and a new diaspora of Jews. There are some of you who may say "good," but having spent 2000+ years being kicked out of everywhere they have tried to call home, I'm just very concerned.
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 7:05 AM on October 1 [29 favorites]
And I say this as someone who is strongly critical of Netanyahu and the current government's handling of Gaza and the West Bank. Hamas is horrible and what they did on October 7 was reprehensible, AND Israel's response has been completely out of line. All of these things can be true.
My biggest concern right now is that Netanyahu has so poisoned public sentiment for Israel in the last 20 years (and recently just to avoid jail time) that the inevitable outcome will be the destruction of Israel (either literally or as a Jewish state) and a new diaspora of Jews. There are some of you who may say "good," but having spent 2000+ years being kicked out of everywhere they have tried to call home, I'm just very concerned.
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 7:05 AM on October 1 [29 favorites]
So it turns out the CBS interviewer represents freakish new lengths in the category of zealotry of a convert.
posted by Space Coyote at 7:11 AM on October 1 [8 favorites]
posted by Space Coyote at 7:11 AM on October 1 [8 favorites]
But I am deeply concerned about the weight that is going to be placed on the opinion of one (admittedly intelligent and insightful) person's experience over a ten-day trip in 2023.
Seems pretty straightforward, we are talking about an apartheid state. You either think apartheid is right or it's wrong, it's actually not complicated at all. One didn't have to spend time in South Africa pre-94 to know this and you sure as shit don't have to spend time in Israel or occupied Palestine to know this.
posted by windbox at 7:12 AM on October 1 [72 favorites]
Seems pretty straightforward, we are talking about an apartheid state. You either think apartheid is right or it's wrong, it's actually not complicated at all. One didn't have to spend time in South Africa pre-94 to know this and you sure as shit don't have to spend time in Israel or occupied Palestine to know this.
posted by windbox at 7:12 AM on October 1 [72 favorites]
trying,to draw analogies to American slavery is just impossible.
Because I love in the American west, a more obvious parallel seems to be the treatment of Native Americans. They were displaced from their lands, and whenever they fought back, it was considered violence against the colonists which was meet with retaliation and the further reduction of their land.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 7:15 AM on October 1 [73 favorites]
Because I love in the American west, a more obvious parallel seems to be the treatment of Native Americans. They were displaced from their lands, and whenever they fought back, it was considered violence against the colonists which was meet with retaliation and the further reduction of their land.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 7:15 AM on October 1 [73 favorites]
the destruction of Israel (either literally or as a Jewish state)Placing these on the same level is... not a great look, I feel like. Israel is an apartheid ethnostate, and they justify it with the exact same conflation. It's part of what's allowing them to commit genocide in Palestine - the idea that any change from "Jewish state" is so utterly destructive that it must be resisted via basically unrestrained violence against civilians.
posted by sagc at 7:18 AM on October 1 [47 favorites]
I dare say that Ta-Nehisi has put a little more work into his views then a single ten-day trip, but I get your point.
I think the that CBS interview gives a solid example of the crux of it. I found the example he gives about being against the death penalty, full-stop very clarifying. You're against it even if they murdered a hundred people on camera. You're against it because it's morally wrong.
He's against apartheid, against racial segregation. I think there is a clear bright line between that and American slavery. If racial segregation is wrong, in the same way the death penalty is wrong-- the arguments around that can be pushed aside. You don't get to say 'Apartheid is evil, but...'
posted by Static Vagabond at 7:19 AM on October 1 [28 favorites]
I think the that CBS interview gives a solid example of the crux of it. I found the example he gives about being against the death penalty, full-stop very clarifying. You're against it even if they murdered a hundred people on camera. You're against it because it's morally wrong.
He's against apartheid, against racial segregation. I think there is a clear bright line between that and American slavery. If racial segregation is wrong, in the same way the death penalty is wrong-- the arguments around that can be pushed aside. You don't get to say 'Apartheid is evil, but...'
posted by Static Vagabond at 7:19 AM on October 1 [28 favorites]
a more obvious parallel seems to be the treatment of Native Americans
AKA genocide.
posted by grubi at 7:24 AM on October 1 [44 favorites]
AKA genocide.
posted by grubi at 7:24 AM on October 1 [44 favorites]
I think he lays it out pretty plainly and pretty succinctly. And I can absolutely guess that Democrats and other leftists will strive to pillory a Black journalist for this. If you don't toe the ENTIRE party line, then you're out.
posted by Kitteh at 7:24 AM on October 1 [11 favorites]
posted by Kitteh at 7:24 AM on October 1 [11 favorites]
Seems pretty straightforward, we are talking about an apartheid state. You either think apartheid is right or it's wrong, it's actually not complicated at all. One didn't have to spend time in South Africa pre-94 to know this and you sure as shit don't have to spend time in Israel or occupied Palestine to know this.
Apparently not, if you're just going to repeat other people telling you that it's an apartheid state.
There are currently more Arabs in the Israeli Knesset than there are African-Americans in the Senate. Is the US an apartheid state?
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 7:24 AM on October 1 [7 favorites]
Apparently not, if you're just going to repeat other people telling you that it's an apartheid state.
There are currently more Arabs in the Israeli Knesset than there are African-Americans in the Senate. Is the US an apartheid state?
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 7:24 AM on October 1 [7 favorites]
Ben Trismegistus, sorry if that's a bit too aggressive; I do take your point that this is a scary time for effectively anyone that's not shielded from things at the level of politicians, who truly don't seem to be capable of recognizing even the possibility of consequences.
But, as Static Vagabond says, so much of the complexity you describe goes away if you're willing to draw hard lines and say (for example) "accusations of terrorism don't justify torture in CIA black sites", regardless of what you moral stance on terrorism is.
posted by sagc at 7:25 AM on October 1 [8 favorites]
But, as Static Vagabond says, so much of the complexity you describe goes away if you're willing to draw hard lines and say (for example) "accusations of terrorism don't justify torture in CIA black sites", regardless of what you moral stance on terrorism is.
posted by sagc at 7:25 AM on October 1 [8 favorites]
There are currently more Arabs in the Israeli Knesset than there are African-Americans in the Senate. Is the US an apartheid state?
Wow that's so cool, what about the other 5 million Arabs who's electricity, water, airspace, ports, pretty much entire material lives are controlled by a country in which they have no voting rights, are subject to separate military courts, have to drive down separate roads and walk down separate streets. What would you call this?
posted by windbox at 7:27 AM on October 1 [71 favorites]
Wow that's so cool, what about the other 5 million Arabs who's electricity, water, airspace, ports, pretty much entire material lives are controlled by a country in which they have no voting rights, are subject to separate military courts, have to drive down separate roads and walk down separate streets. What would you call this?
posted by windbox at 7:27 AM on October 1 [71 favorites]
I'd love to see more well-known people speaking up the way Coates is -- or at least people who are getting real coverage in popular media -- to be sure.
But Coates pushes back, meaningfully, on the appeal to complexity. Per the original NY Mag link: "That it was complicated, he now understood, was 'horseshit.' 'Complicated' was how people had described slavery and then segregation. 'It’s complicated,' he said, 'when you want to take something from somebody.'”
posted by Il etait une fois at 7:28 AM on October 1 [33 favorites]
But Coates pushes back, meaningfully, on the appeal to complexity. Per the original NY Mag link: "That it was complicated, he now understood, was 'horseshit.' 'Complicated' was how people had described slavery and then segregation. 'It’s complicated,' he said, 'when you want to take something from somebody.'”
posted by Il etait une fois at 7:28 AM on October 1 [33 favorites]
sagc, I get it. And like I said, I think Israel is way out of line here. The thing about an ethnostate is that there are numerous ethnostates in the world, and many of them exist because other people have tried to kill them. Armenia is an ethnostate for Armenians. There was talk for a long time about an independent Kurdistan because of how the Kurds have been treated. So I think "ethnostate" has been elevated to a boogeyman unnecessary.
Jewish people just want someplace they can feel safe. Maybe Israel's not it. And the point I was making was that, if Israel (and Netanyahu in particular) doesn't change tacks quickly, Jewish people won't be safe anywhere.
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 7:29 AM on October 1 [8 favorites]
Jewish people just want someplace they can feel safe. Maybe Israel's not it. And the point I was making was that, if Israel (and Netanyahu in particular) doesn't change tacks quickly, Jewish people won't be safe anywhere.
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 7:29 AM on October 1 [8 favorites]
The multi-century treatment of Native Americans is also a complicated history.
And yet it can be summed up in one word.
posted by AlSweigart at 7:31 AM on October 1 [39 favorites]
And yet it can be summed up in one word.
posted by AlSweigart at 7:31 AM on October 1 [39 favorites]
Wow that's so cool, what about the other 5 million Arabs who's electricity, water, airspace, ports, pretty much entire material lives are controlled by a country in which they have no voting rights, are subject to separate military courts, have to drive down separate roads and walk down separate streets. What would you call this?
I call it terrible and wrong and something that needs to stop. But labeling it "apartheid" takes all the nuance out of it. Israel has taken bad positions because it is surrounded by organizations who want to destroy it entirely. Justified? No. But over-simplifying the conversation doesn't solve anything. Do you think that if Israel stopped all of this stuff tomorrow, Hamas and Hezbollah would just lay down their arms and live in peace with the Jews? I don't.
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 7:33 AM on October 1 [9 favorites]
I call it terrible and wrong and something that needs to stop. But labeling it "apartheid" takes all the nuance out of it. Israel has taken bad positions because it is surrounded by organizations who want to destroy it entirely. Justified? No. But over-simplifying the conversation doesn't solve anything. Do you think that if Israel stopped all of this stuff tomorrow, Hamas and Hezbollah would just lay down their arms and live in peace with the Jews? I don't.
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 7:33 AM on October 1 [9 favorites]
Do you think that if Israel stopped all of this stuff tomorrow, Hamas and Hezbollah would just lay down their arms and live in peace with the Jews?
"If you stick a knife in my back nine inches and pull it out six inches, there's no progress. If you pull it all the way out that's not progress. Progress is healing the wound that the blow made."
"They won't even admit the knife is there."
-Malcolm X
posted by AlSweigart at 7:41 AM on October 1 [63 favorites]
"If you stick a knife in my back nine inches and pull it out six inches, there's no progress. If you pull it all the way out that's not progress. Progress is healing the wound that the blow made."
"They won't even admit the knife is there."
-Malcolm X
posted by AlSweigart at 7:41 AM on October 1 [63 favorites]
I call it terrible and wrong and something that needs to stop. But labeling it "apartheid" takes all the nuance out of it
Really, what's the nuance getting missed here then - the apartheid government of South Africa also cited things like security measures, maintaining order, avoiding racial conflict, etc as justification for the existence of the apartheid regime.
Literally nothing is getting over-simplified here, this thing you call "terrible and wrong" and liberal-whitewash as a "bad position" actually has a serious, adult name for it that grown ups use and it's called apartheid. You either don't know what apartheid is which is embarrassing, or you do know what it is and you're being obtuse.
posted by windbox at 7:43 AM on October 1 [48 favorites]
Really, what's the nuance getting missed here then - the apartheid government of South Africa also cited things like security measures, maintaining order, avoiding racial conflict, etc as justification for the existence of the apartheid regime.
Literally nothing is getting over-simplified here, this thing you call "terrible and wrong" and liberal-whitewash as a "bad position" actually has a serious, adult name for it that grown ups use and it's called apartheid. You either don't know what apartheid is which is embarrassing, or you do know what it is and you're being obtuse.
posted by windbox at 7:43 AM on October 1 [48 favorites]
OK, but if the decisions are bad decisions, how is it "justified"? I mean, people internally justify heinous things all the time. It doesn't mean we have to agree with those calculations, or agree that things are justified!
posted by sagc at 7:45 AM on October 1 [7 favorites]
posted by sagc at 7:45 AM on October 1 [7 favorites]
A) Just because it's not from Johannesburg doesn't mean it's only sparkling racism.
B) Please do not equate the existence of a Jewish state as being a good thing for the Jews. The current Israeli state and a large chunk of their society is intensely racist towards wide swathes of their own population. Add to that a nasty sense of entitlement and attitude towards diaspora Jews, to the point that the current Diaspora Minister is basically an antisemitic troll worse than you'd find on Truth Social.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 7:45 AM on October 1 [25 favorites]
B) Please do not equate the existence of a Jewish state as being a good thing for the Jews. The current Israeli state and a large chunk of their society is intensely racist towards wide swathes of their own population. Add to that a nasty sense of entitlement and attitude towards diaspora Jews, to the point that the current Diaspora Minister is basically an antisemitic troll worse than you'd find on Truth Social.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 7:45 AM on October 1 [25 favorites]
My biggest concern right now is that Netanyahu has so poisoned public sentiment for Israel in the last 20 years (and recently just to avoid jail time) that the inevitable outcome will be the destruction of Israel (either literally or as a Jewish state) and a new diaspora of Jews.
This.
Natanyahu's goal seems to be to turn Israel into a pariah state. What will become of the Jews when he does this? For anyone who knows or values the Jewish people this is heartbreaking. Never mind he's making it hard for non-Jews to support Israel, the Jewish people I know are in agony. "What are you doing in our name?!"
I am utterly fascinated to see where this will go because I believe some major history is unfolding in front of me but I am choking on my popcorn. I can't look away because this is so major - but it's like sitting here eating ashes.
And that's just the pain I feel for the Jewish people involved with this - add in my grief for the Palestinians and the Lebanese and others, and it makes it feel more like I am eating live cinders.
posted by Jane the Brown at 7:53 AM on October 1 [26 favorites]
This.
Natanyahu's goal seems to be to turn Israel into a pariah state. What will become of the Jews when he does this? For anyone who knows or values the Jewish people this is heartbreaking. Never mind he's making it hard for non-Jews to support Israel, the Jewish people I know are in agony. "What are you doing in our name?!"
I am utterly fascinated to see where this will go because I believe some major history is unfolding in front of me but I am choking on my popcorn. I can't look away because this is so major - but it's like sitting here eating ashes.
And that's just the pain I feel for the Jewish people involved with this - add in my grief for the Palestinians and the Lebanese and others, and it makes it feel more like I am eating live cinders.
posted by Jane the Brown at 7:53 AM on October 1 [26 favorites]
Apparently not, if you're just going to repeat other people telling you that it's an apartheid state.
Coates is not the first to call the situation in Israel apartheid. And he won't be the last because that is in fact an accurate description of the treatment of Palestinians.
the inevitable outcome will be the destruction of Israel (either literally or as a Jewish state) and a new diaspora of Jews.
Jewish people aren't uniquely incapable of living in a multiethnic, multireligious society.
posted by pattern juggler at 7:54 AM on October 1 [26 favorites]
Coates is not the first to call the situation in Israel apartheid. And he won't be the last because that is in fact an accurate description of the treatment of Palestinians.
the inevitable outcome will be the destruction of Israel (either literally or as a Jewish state) and a new diaspora of Jews.
Jewish people aren't uniquely incapable of living in a multiethnic, multireligious society.
posted by pattern juggler at 7:54 AM on October 1 [26 favorites]
Actually I think that slavery and the treatment of Palestinians are strongly parallel in an emotional and moral sense, because in each case, there are actual humans living right there in front of you, having kids, telling stories, getting married, doing ordinary human things, and your whole society is organized around exploiting, controlling, raping and killing them as a normal everyday practice that is justified by their race.
And if they rebel, it's further proof that they are dangerous and need to be put down. It would be natural for you, a full human being, to fight back against violent oppression, but it's sick pathology when enslaved people or people walled up in Gaza do it.
This constant presence of oppression in daily life shapes the consciousness of white people and Israelis - the mental adaptations that you need to make to never, ever see these other people as deserving of equality or as having been wronged, the mental adaptations needed to see them as disposable. This is different, emotionally, from knowing in your head that on the far side of the world your country is doing something despicable. Having the exploitation and violence built into your daily consciousness is the similarity.
Slavery and Native genocide, in their different ways, poisoned the United States, and it has become clearer and clearer that oppression of the Palestinians has poisoned Israel. Having that in front of you every day is poison. It kills your humanity, your normal outward-looking responses.
posted by Frowner at 7:55 AM on October 1 [87 favorites]
And if they rebel, it's further proof that they are dangerous and need to be put down. It would be natural for you, a full human being, to fight back against violent oppression, but it's sick pathology when enslaved people or people walled up in Gaza do it.
This constant presence of oppression in daily life shapes the consciousness of white people and Israelis - the mental adaptations that you need to make to never, ever see these other people as deserving of equality or as having been wronged, the mental adaptations needed to see them as disposable. This is different, emotionally, from knowing in your head that on the far side of the world your country is doing something despicable. Having the exploitation and violence built into your daily consciousness is the similarity.
Slavery and Native genocide, in their different ways, poisoned the United States, and it has become clearer and clearer that oppression of the Palestinians has poisoned Israel. Having that in front of you every day is poison. It kills your humanity, your normal outward-looking responses.
posted by Frowner at 7:55 AM on October 1 [87 favorites]
(Here's a WaPo article about the teacher in Chapin, South Carolina who's been pressured to not teach Between the World and Me, and a video about Gorée Island and the Door of No Return in Dakar, Senegal.)
posted by box at 7:56 AM on October 1 [3 favorites]
posted by box at 7:56 AM on October 1 [3 favorites]
Jewish people aren't uniquely incapable of living in a multiethnic, multireligious society.
Yep, although one of the biggest gulfs between Israeli and diaspora Jews is that so many of the former see the existence of the latter as evidence of Jewish blood and faith somehow being dissolute and weakened, precisely because of things like intermarriage and a relatively high level of participation in progressive and social justice movements.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 8:04 AM on October 1 [6 favorites]
Yep, although one of the biggest gulfs between Israeli and diaspora Jews is that so many of the former see the existence of the latter as evidence of Jewish blood and faith somehow being dissolute and weakened, precisely because of things like intermarriage and a relatively high level of participation in progressive and social justice movements.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 8:04 AM on October 1 [6 favorites]
Mod note: One comment removed for being a bit flippant in its response, please keep the Guidelines in mind.
Otherwise, this is a contentious topic, with a lot of very understandable emotions surrounding it. Please be kind to each other, avoid taking each other, and remember you don't have to engage or respond in this thread if you find it's making you incredibly angry.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 8:06 AM on October 1 [3 favorites]
Otherwise, this is a contentious topic, with a lot of very understandable emotions surrounding it. Please be kind to each other, avoid taking each other, and remember you don't have to engage or respond in this thread if you find it's making you incredibly angry.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 8:06 AM on October 1 [3 favorites]
The thing about “it’s complex / nuanced” is that it is an argument that I have seen being used over and over on social media, but mainly to shut down people who are bringing up the conditions under which Palestinians are being made to live. It does not seem to function as a way of introducing complexity to the conversation — at least, not in a way that attempts to reckon with what people are observing in Palestine — but rather as a way of disqualifying potential critics.
The other thing is that political and historical complexity is not the same thing as moral ambiguity. The history of the region is certainly politically complex; a similar statement would apply to America or South Africa. I think TNC speaks to this distinction very powerfully in his CBS interview.
posted by en forme de poire at 8:38 AM on October 1 [44 favorites]
The other thing is that political and historical complexity is not the same thing as moral ambiguity. The history of the region is certainly politically complex; a similar statement would apply to America or South Africa. I think TNC speaks to this distinction very powerfully in his CBS interview.
posted by en forme de poire at 8:38 AM on October 1 [44 favorites]
Israel has taken bad positions because it is surrounded by organizations who want to destroy it entirely
No, Israel has committed to ethnic cleansing and genocide because it's a settler-colonial apartheid ethnostate founded on the idea that Jews have some special divine right to the land of biblical Israel and that the other inhabitants of the territory can be disregarded or displaced. Israel's closest allies in the '70's were apartheid South Africa (which Israel at one point was going to help get nukes) and Rhodesia, which ought to tell you something about what sort of country it is and has always been, and it's been engaged in war crimes and violations of international human rights law pretty much since its inception (including collective punishment, the building of settlements in occupied territory, etc). If Israel's neighbours want to destroy it? It's honestly no wonder.
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 8:41 AM on October 1 [33 favorites]
No, Israel has committed to ethnic cleansing and genocide because it's a settler-colonial apartheid ethnostate founded on the idea that Jews have some special divine right to the land of biblical Israel and that the other inhabitants of the territory can be disregarded or displaced. Israel's closest allies in the '70's were apartheid South Africa (which Israel at one point was going to help get nukes) and Rhodesia, which ought to tell you something about what sort of country it is and has always been, and it's been engaged in war crimes and violations of international human rights law pretty much since its inception (including collective punishment, the building of settlements in occupied territory, etc). If Israel's neighbours want to destroy it? It's honestly no wonder.
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 8:41 AM on October 1 [33 favorites]
There are currently more Arabs in the Israeli Knesset than there are African-Americans in the Senate.
There are 57 members of the Congressional Black Caucus. 57 / 535 = 10.7%.
Black population of the US in 2022: 12.6%
There are 10 Arab members of the Knesset (not all of whom are Muslim). 10 / 120 = 8.3%.
Arab population of Israel in 2023: 21.1%.
posted by McBearclaw at 9:53 AM on October 1 [33 favorites]
There are 57 members of the Congressional Black Caucus. 57 / 535 = 10.7%.
Black population of the US in 2022: 12.6%
There are 10 Arab members of the Knesset (not all of whom are Muslim). 10 / 120 = 8.3%.
Arab population of Israel in 2023: 21.1%.
posted by McBearclaw at 9:53 AM on October 1 [33 favorites]
Cory Booker, Laphonza Butler, Tim Scott, and Raphael Warnock 4/100 = 4%
Not sure how meaningful I find the comparison, but I do enjoy being pedantic.
posted by box at 10:13 AM on October 1 [5 favorites]
Not sure how meaningful I find the comparison, but I do enjoy being pedantic.
posted by box at 10:13 AM on October 1 [5 favorites]
Since the Knesset is unicameral, it makes more sense to compare to both the house and the senate combined, but sure, yes, the US is also racist as fuck. This is whataboutism.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 10:17 AM on October 1 [24 favorites]
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 10:17 AM on October 1 [24 favorites]
My understanding is over half of Israeli jews formerly lived in the Arab World and were subject to explosion and discrimination that forced them to move to Israel. This seems different enough to the colonial projects of Europe that calling it settler-colonialism seems wrong.
posted by hermanubis at 10:19 AM on October 1 [4 favorites]
posted by hermanubis at 10:19 AM on October 1 [4 favorites]
Metafilter: "[E]njoy being pedantic."
posted by riverlife at 10:37 AM on October 1 [2 favorites]
posted by riverlife at 10:37 AM on October 1 [2 favorites]
It turns out that Rania Khalek was the one who pushed Coates to look more deeply into Palestine:
I was the woman who yelled on the mic about Palestine and got shouted down at his event with Jeffrey Goldberg, it was at the Sixth & I synagogue in DC I think in 2014.
That was really hard to do, I remember being very nervous about saying what I said. I’m so proud I did it.
If anyone reading this knows Ta-Nehisi, please tell him thank you for listening and for his willingness to learn and speak out.
posted by toastyk at 10:44 AM on October 1 [20 favorites]
I was the woman who yelled on the mic about Palestine and got shouted down at his event with Jeffrey Goldberg, it was at the Sixth & I synagogue in DC I think in 2014.
That was really hard to do, I remember being very nervous about saying what I said. I’m so proud I did it.
If anyone reading this knows Ta-Nehisi, please tell him thank you for listening and for his willingness to learn and speak out.
posted by toastyk at 10:44 AM on October 1 [20 favorites]
What is the dispute re: current Black members of Congress? I'm not US-ian, so if I refer to Wikipedia and it lists 57 current members, how is that not accurate?
I think it's kind of gross to argue with numbers, but sometimes I see that a number can be a clear piece of information where otherwise people just can't agree on anything.. "here is a number" at least it's something most people can agree on. So is there an argument to the number 57 as it pertains to current Black members of the US Congress? Thanks, from a non-USian
posted by ginger.beef at 10:45 AM on October 1 [2 favorites]
I think it's kind of gross to argue with numbers, but sometimes I see that a number can be a clear piece of information where otherwise people just can't agree on anything.. "here is a number" at least it's something most people can agree on. So is there an argument to the number 57 as it pertains to current Black members of the US Congress? Thanks, from a non-USian
posted by ginger.beef at 10:45 AM on October 1 [2 favorites]
This seems different enough
TNC's point is that is that the history, missed opportunities for peace, arguments about the definitions, analogies to European colonialism, etc. are not actually relevant to the question of whether the Israeli government's actions in Gaza and the West Bank are moral. His conclusion (and mine) is that it is never moral to indefinitely subjugate an entire population - that generations of people cannot be born into a class without rights.
posted by McBearclaw at 10:56 AM on October 1 [35 favorites]
TNC's point is that is that the history, missed opportunities for peace, arguments about the definitions, analogies to European colonialism, etc. are not actually relevant to the question of whether the Israeli government's actions in Gaza and the West Bank are moral. His conclusion (and mine) is that it is never moral to indefinitely subjugate an entire population - that generations of people cannot be born into a class without rights.
posted by McBearclaw at 10:56 AM on October 1 [35 favorites]
So is there an argument to the number 57 as it pertains to current Black members of the US Congress?
There are 57 Black members of Congress, which includes the House of Representatives and the Senate. The assertion was "There are currently more Arabs in the Israeli Knesset than there are African-Americans in the Senate." There are four Black Senators.
posted by kirkaracha at 11:05 AM on October 1 [4 favorites]
There are 57 Black members of Congress, which includes the House of Representatives and the Senate. The assertion was "There are currently more Arabs in the Israeli Knesset than there are African-Americans in the Senate." There are four Black Senators.
posted by kirkaracha at 11:05 AM on October 1 [4 favorites]
TNC's point is that is that the history, missed opportunities for peace, arguments about the definitions, analogies to European colonialism, etc. are not actually relevant to the question of whether the Israeli government's actions in Gaza and the West Bank are moral. His conclusion (and mine) is that it is never moral to indefinitely subjugate an entire population - that generations of people cannot be born into a class without rights.
TNC even goes so far as to empathize with the IDF and Israeli government, understanding how they could arrive at the worldview they are currently espousing. It isn't like he is being blindly partisan - he is looking at the entire situation, and coming to the conclusion that it is morally reprehensible, even if he can see how it got there.
posted by grumpybear69 at 11:09 AM on October 1 [11 favorites]
TNC even goes so far as to empathize with the IDF and Israeli government, understanding how they could arrive at the worldview they are currently espousing. It isn't like he is being blindly partisan - he is looking at the entire situation, and coming to the conclusion that it is morally reprehensible, even if he can see how it got there.
posted by grumpybear69 at 11:09 AM on October 1 [11 favorites]
over half of Israeli jews formerly lived in the Arab World and were subject to explosion and discrimination that forced them to move to Israel
As a direct result of Israel's ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in 1948. If Israel hadn't existed in the first place that wouldn't have happened (and Mizrahi Jews have been subject to discrimination and expectations to conform to a dominant Ashkenazi culture in Israel while largely supplanting the expelled Palestinians as a labouring underclass).
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 11:29 AM on October 1 [10 favorites]
As a direct result of Israel's ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in 1948. If Israel hadn't existed in the first place that wouldn't have happened (and Mizrahi Jews have been subject to discrimination and expectations to conform to a dominant Ashkenazi culture in Israel while largely supplanting the expelled Palestinians as a labouring underclass).
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 11:29 AM on October 1 [10 favorites]
ginger.beef, this comment was written to imply that because there are more Arabs in Israel's legislature (10) than African-Americans in one chamber of the United States legislature (4) that America was somehow even higher on the apartheid scale than Israel. That's either ignorant or intentionally misleading because:
1. the 10 vs 4 comparison means *literally nothing* without reference to the number of members and the relevant population.
2. the Senate is only one chamber of the US legislature, and it is by design the least-representative and slowest-changing part of the US government (besides our lifetime-appointed Supreme Court which is currently 2/9 = 22% Black). Conversely, the Knesset is elected by proportional representation and yet is still less representative (in this one way) than the US legislature taken as a whole.
3. it considers only the representation of the 2 million Arabs who are Israeli citizens, who are only subject to run-of-the-mill racism, without regard for the 5 million Arabs living in Gaza and the West Bank, who don't live within Israel proper but are nonetheless kinda relevant to the discussion at hand.
4. as Joakim Ziegler said: who cares? TNC is explicitly drawing an analogy to America's centuries as an apartheid state, which only officially ended within living memory and continues to be perpetuated by racist governments all over the US. I'd argue that a strength of American perspectives on this issue is that we've been there. Apartheid: several times! Wrecking your economy, military, and international standing while causing the deaths of countless civilians so that you could "be safe" from terrorism? Check!
posted by McBearclaw at 11:30 AM on October 1 [27 favorites]
1. the 10 vs 4 comparison means *literally nothing* without reference to the number of members and the relevant population.
2. the Senate is only one chamber of the US legislature, and it is by design the least-representative and slowest-changing part of the US government (besides our lifetime-appointed Supreme Court which is currently 2/9 = 22% Black). Conversely, the Knesset is elected by proportional representation and yet is still less representative (in this one way) than the US legislature taken as a whole.
3. it considers only the representation of the 2 million Arabs who are Israeli citizens, who are only subject to run-of-the-mill racism, without regard for the 5 million Arabs living in Gaza and the West Bank, who don't live within Israel proper but are nonetheless kinda relevant to the discussion at hand.
4. as Joakim Ziegler said: who cares? TNC is explicitly drawing an analogy to America's centuries as an apartheid state, which only officially ended within living memory and continues to be perpetuated by racist governments all over the US. I'd argue that a strength of American perspectives on this issue is that we've been there. Apartheid: several times! Wrecking your economy, military, and international standing while causing the deaths of countless civilians so that you could "be safe" from terrorism? Check!
posted by McBearclaw at 11:30 AM on October 1 [27 favorites]
I appreciate the discussion. Thank you, all.
edit to add: a good example of how numbers can be deceptively clear, and context is everything
posted by ginger.beef at 11:37 AM on October 1 [6 favorites]
edit to add: a good example of how numbers can be deceptively clear, and context is everything
posted by ginger.beef at 11:37 AM on October 1 [6 favorites]
That's either ignorant or intentionally misleading
You silently changed "Senate" to "Congress" and it seems you understand the bicameral thing so it was done not out of ignorance.
posted by Press Butt.on to Check at 11:46 AM on October 1
You silently changed "Senate" to "Congress" and it seems you understand the bicameral thing so it was done not out of ignorance.
posted by Press Butt.on to Check at 11:46 AM on October 1
I don't think you can actually "silently" "change" a word (that you're the author of!) that links to a wikipedia article :)
posted by sagc at 11:49 AM on October 1 [5 favorites]
posted by sagc at 11:49 AM on October 1 [5 favorites]
No, I'm arguing that comparing one chamber of a legislature to another entire legislature makes no sense. If it was silent, then it was only out of an American-centric assumption that people would understand, for which I apologize.
posted by McBearclaw at 11:51 AM on October 1 [1 favorite]
posted by McBearclaw at 11:51 AM on October 1 [1 favorite]
Thanks for posting this, I didn't know about his new book and have now ordered it.
TNC's Captain America and Black Panther runs were OK. I get that he's a big comics nerd and so writing for Marvel was a dream of his but from my selfish perspective I wish he had kept on writing his essays and putting out non-fiction books instead.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 12:12 PM on October 1 [2 favorites]
TNC's Captain America and Black Panther runs were OK. I get that he's a big comics nerd and so writing for Marvel was a dream of his but from my selfish perspective I wish he had kept on writing his essays and putting out non-fiction books instead.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 12:12 PM on October 1 [2 favorites]
As a direct result of Israel's ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in 1948.
The phrase you're grasping for is "collective punishment." The Arab world collectively punished their Jewish populations, most of whom had nothing to do with the foundation of the State of Israel, by robbing them of their property and stripping them of their citizenship, if not outright then by engaging in de facto and de jure discrimination against them until they had no choice but to flee. All were oppressed. Some were oppressed to death.
Yes, these Jews experienced discrimination when they arrived in then-majority Ashkenazi Israel. Today this same group is a majority or a plurality (depending on who and how you count) of Israeli Jews. Most of them, like all Israeli citizens, hold no other nationality, and the suggestion that they should go "back" to the countries that kicked them out as a "solution" to anything is monstrous.
posted by 1adam12 at 12:30 PM on October 1 [9 favorites]
The phrase you're grasping for is "collective punishment." The Arab world collectively punished their Jewish populations, most of whom had nothing to do with the foundation of the State of Israel, by robbing them of their property and stripping them of their citizenship, if not outright then by engaging in de facto and de jure discrimination against them until they had no choice but to flee. All were oppressed. Some were oppressed to death.
Yes, these Jews experienced discrimination when they arrived in then-majority Ashkenazi Israel. Today this same group is a majority or a plurality (depending on who and how you count) of Israeli Jews. Most of them, like all Israeli citizens, hold no other nationality, and the suggestion that they should go "back" to the countries that kicked them out as a "solution" to anything is monstrous.
posted by 1adam12 at 12:30 PM on October 1 [9 favorites]
The phrase you're grasping for is "collective punishment." The Arab world collectively punished their Jewish populations, most of whom had nothing to do with the foundation of the State of Israel
Sure, just like the nascent State of Israel collectively punished Palestinians who had nothing whatever to do with the Holocaust.
the suggestion that they should go "back"
No-one has suggested that, actually.
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 12:39 PM on October 1 [22 favorites]
Sure, just like the nascent State of Israel collectively punished Palestinians who had nothing whatever to do with the Holocaust.
the suggestion that they should go "back"
No-one has suggested that, actually.
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 12:39 PM on October 1 [22 favorites]
All large migrations of people wind up becoming genocides, either of the people migrating, or of the people who alraedy live at the destination, but often both.
posted by jeffburdges at 12:48 PM on October 1
posted by jeffburdges at 12:48 PM on October 1
IMO we probably way overestimate the impact of individuals on the general sweep of history. But I often wonder how the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin by a settler changed what might have been, vis a vis peaceful recognition of both Israel and Palestine. None of that is meant to minimize current or former Israeli government actions. But it seems that he was the last leader of the Israeli 'left' with any kind of ability to 'make peace'.
Given the current Israeli government and the position held by the vast majority of its population, without outside intervention, the abject misery the Palestinians will continue without end.
David Shulman and his compatriot and supporters are the only Israelis I believe:
posted by WatTylerJr at 12:52 PM on October 1 [7 favorites]
Given the current Israeli government and the position held by the vast majority of its population, without outside intervention, the abject misery the Palestinians will continue without end.
David Shulman and his compatriot and supporters are the only Israelis I believe:
posted by WatTylerJr at 12:52 PM on October 1 [7 favorites]
I don't think that generalization holds universally if you look at history, but I do think it's a good encapsulation of the us-or-them xenophobia that animated early Zionist settlers.
posted by jy4m at 12:56 PM on October 1 [2 favorites]
posted by jy4m at 12:56 PM on October 1 [2 favorites]
I admit to ignorance when I ask: in practical terms, what does a two-state solution look like? Partition?
I look to South Africa, post-Apartheid, and see a couple of small states entirely enclosed within its borders -- Lesotho and Eswatini (a.k.a. Swaziland). Being enclosed in your neighbor seems like a rough go unless there are very clear easements to the sea, etc.
If the land of Israel-the-state was divided among current Israelis and Palestinians, according to population (or some other metric), would that give them each room to exist more peacefully? Or am I misunderstanding what "two-state" means when people use the term?
posted by wenestvedt at 1:07 PM on October 1 [2 favorites]
I look to South Africa, post-Apartheid, and see a couple of small states entirely enclosed within its borders -- Lesotho and Eswatini (a.k.a. Swaziland). Being enclosed in your neighbor seems like a rough go unless there are very clear easements to the sea, etc.
If the land of Israel-the-state was divided among current Israelis and Palestinians, according to population (or some other metric), would that give them each room to exist more peacefully? Or am I misunderstanding what "two-state" means when people use the term?
posted by wenestvedt at 1:07 PM on October 1 [2 favorites]
I admit to ignorance when I ask: in practical terms, what does a two-state solution look like? Partition?
You could at least try to inform yourself of some very basic particulars first?
If the land of Israel-the-state was divided among current Israelis and Palestinians
You are aware that Gaza and the West Bank and East Jerusalem are designated as "occupied territory", yes? Those territories are already Palestinian, hence "occupied". Israel has been building settlements in the occupied territory of the West Bank and East Jerusalem in an ongoing effort to turn them into de facto Israeli territory through adverse possession.
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 1:19 PM on October 1 [23 favorites]
You could at least try to inform yourself of some very basic particulars first?
If the land of Israel-the-state was divided among current Israelis and Palestinians
You are aware that Gaza and the West Bank and East Jerusalem are designated as "occupied territory", yes? Those territories are already Palestinian, hence "occupied". Israel has been building settlements in the occupied territory of the West Bank and East Jerusalem in an ongoing effort to turn them into de facto Israeli territory through adverse possession.
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 1:19 PM on October 1 [23 favorites]
Also the Golan Heights, although that belongs to Syria rather than Palestine!
posted by adrienneleigh at 1:28 PM on October 1 [7 favorites]
posted by adrienneleigh at 1:28 PM on October 1 [7 favorites]
You could at least try to inform yourself of some very basic particulars first?
Aaaaaand I am shown out of another MeFi thread for asking passionate people to help me understand what they're so passionate about, because self-teaching has already fallen short.
posted by wenestvedt at 1:49 PM on October 1 [27 favorites]
Aaaaaand I am shown out of another MeFi thread for asking passionate people to help me understand what they're so passionate about, because self-teaching has already fallen short.
posted by wenestvedt at 1:49 PM on October 1 [27 favorites]
Aaaaaand I am shown out of another MeFi thread
Sorry, but it's not our job to educate you, and asking "what would a two-state solution even look like" betrays the kind of profound ignorance of the subject that's honestly equivalent to a flat earther inserting themselves into a conversation about orbital mechanics.
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 1:54 PM on October 1 [8 favorites]
Sorry, but it's not our job to educate you, and asking "what would a two-state solution even look like" betrays the kind of profound ignorance of the subject that's honestly equivalent to a flat earther inserting themselves into a conversation about orbital mechanics.
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 1:54 PM on October 1 [8 favorites]
It's geographically possible, wenestvedt. Gaza has boarders with Egypt and the Mediterranean sea. The West Bank has a boarder with Jordan. The Palestinian's war with Jordan was way back in 1970-1971, but afaik they have respectful relations lately.
If the US abandonded Israel, then Israel would attack the Palestinians in progressively less advanced ways, and Arab nations would progressively arm the Palestinians better, which eventually becomes a genocide going both directions. It sounds bad, but at least then it's not us paying anymore.
Ask, why do we discuss Israel's genocide in Palestine so much, but ignore Sudan and others? It's mostly just moral proximity, because we're paying for Israel, while Sudan is being paid for by actors everyone accepts as evil, like oil companies and Saudia Arabia.
Ask next, what would America do if Israel just disapeared? Imagine the whole nation immigrated to Canada and Russia or whatever, nevermind that'd inevitably turn into genocide, but what would America do? We actually have an answer:
"If there were not an Israel, we’d have to invent one" - President Joe Biden
I suppose the US might heavily arm Lebanese and/or Sudanese Christians, or maybe develop a really close relationship with Egypt, or maybe American evangelical Christians would occupy the holy land to bring about their end times, or whatever. It's also clear the Middle East would not become peaceful without US involvement, but the US does benefits from limited destabilization of oil producing regions.
posted by jeffburdges at 1:56 PM on October 1 [5 favorites]
If the US abandonded Israel, then Israel would attack the Palestinians in progressively less advanced ways, and Arab nations would progressively arm the Palestinians better, which eventually becomes a genocide going both directions. It sounds bad, but at least then it's not us paying anymore.
Ask, why do we discuss Israel's genocide in Palestine so much, but ignore Sudan and others? It's mostly just moral proximity, because we're paying for Israel, while Sudan is being paid for by actors everyone accepts as evil, like oil companies and Saudia Arabia.
Ask next, what would America do if Israel just disapeared? Imagine the whole nation immigrated to Canada and Russia or whatever, nevermind that'd inevitably turn into genocide, but what would America do? We actually have an answer:
"If there were not an Israel, we’d have to invent one" - President Joe Biden
I suppose the US might heavily arm Lebanese and/or Sudanese Christians, or maybe develop a really close relationship with Egypt, or maybe American evangelical Christians would occupy the holy land to bring about their end times, or whatever. It's also clear the Middle East would not become peaceful without US involvement, but the US does benefits from limited destabilization of oil producing regions.
posted by jeffburdges at 1:56 PM on October 1 [5 favorites]
No way! Don't leave, wenestvedt, just because some preachy mope gets all arm-wavey and better-than. I prefer ppl who are willing to ask questions, not others who attempt to shut them down.
This is an educated community and one which is generally willing to share what it knows.
posted by dancestoblue at 1:57 PM on October 1 [22 favorites]
This is an educated community and one which is generally willing to share what it knows.
posted by dancestoblue at 1:57 PM on October 1 [22 favorites]
Sorry, but it's not our job to educate you, and asking "what would a two-state solution even look like" betrays the kind of profound ignorance of the subject that's honestly equivalent to a flat earther inserting themselves into a conversation about orbital mechanics.
I've been pro-Palestine since first learning about the PLO as a child in the seventies. Guess what: you're not helping.
If you're unable to answer someone's beginner questions, move on to the next post. Step two is to get some humility.
posted by dobbs at 2:01 PM on October 1 [58 favorites]
I've been pro-Palestine since first learning about the PLO as a child in the seventies. Guess what: you're not helping.
If you're unable to answer someone's beginner questions, move on to the next post. Step two is to get some humility.
posted by dobbs at 2:01 PM on October 1 [58 favorites]
All large migrations of people wind up becoming genocides, either of the people migrating, or of the people who alraedy live at the destination, but often both.
Often true, but hardly a universal rule like some immutable law of physics. It might be instructive to look at counterexamples and see what differentiates them (hint: it's the lack of colonialism or conquest).
posted by mstokes650 at 2:04 PM on October 1 [6 favorites]
Often true, but hardly a universal rule like some immutable law of physics. It might be instructive to look at counterexamples and see what differentiates them (hint: it's the lack of colonialism or conquest).
posted by mstokes650 at 2:04 PM on October 1 [6 favorites]
Jeff, I don't think it's true that other Arab nations would arm the Palestinian resistance.(or indeed that the goal of the Palestinian resistence is genocide). The other pole of regional influence is Saudi Arabia, which has every reason to continue its opposition to Hamas, and which may actually try to fill the diplomatic void left by the US. Unfortunately it's not the 70s anymore, and Pan-Arabism simply is not a vital political movement.
posted by jy4m at 2:15 PM on October 1 [5 favorites]
posted by jy4m at 2:15 PM on October 1 [5 favorites]
It's very different within nations, mstokes650. Also 6 million people moving within one of the least densly populated nations on earth, and gradually over 60 years, leaves considerable time and space.
It's take 20 years or so, jy4m, but Israel provides too juicy an external enemy for Arab leaders, and Arab nations only accept Israel because the US continually pays them off. A priori, we should expect those payments stop before the US stops arming Israel, but sure other routes might be possible.
Anyways, we do not need to have answers for everything, but we should raise objections, protest, etc when we're actually paying for genocide ourselves.
posted by jeffburdges at 2:35 PM on October 1 [5 favorites]
It's take 20 years or so, jy4m, but Israel provides too juicy an external enemy for Arab leaders, and Arab nations only accept Israel because the US continually pays them off. A priori, we should expect those payments stop before the US stops arming Israel, but sure other routes might be possible.
Anyways, we do not need to have answers for everything, but we should raise objections, protest, etc when we're actually paying for genocide ourselves.
posted by jeffburdges at 2:35 PM on October 1 [5 favorites]
Sorry wenestvedt, for those of us trying to be informed, those types of questions are really helpful in thinking through answers and further equations. Thank you so much for asking.
posted by WatTylerJr at 2:36 PM on October 1 [9 favorites]
posted by WatTylerJr at 2:36 PM on October 1 [9 favorites]
My apologies I didnt link correctly to the most recent David Shulman article in the NYRB. The reason I only believe him and folks like him is they collaborate and cohabitate with Gazans and esp. West Bank Palestinians. They are all friends and colleagues. And since Shulman et al are Israelis they put their actual bodies between the IDF and Palestinians so their Palestinian friends and associates arent killed by the IDF and the settlers. They usually only get berated, harassed, physically manhandled and also beaten, while the Palestinians get much worse. I find Shulman et al immensely brave and inspiring.
posted by WatTylerJr at 2:40 PM on October 1 [8 favorites]
posted by WatTylerJr at 2:40 PM on October 1 [8 favorites]
When Jimmy Carter said that Israel was a nation that had adopted apartheid, he was attacked. But Carter never wavered, and he pointed out the obvious: this was not a sustainable situation -- sooner or later it would collapse or be brought down.
posted by CCBC at 3:12 PM on October 1 [15 favorites]
posted by CCBC at 3:12 PM on October 1 [15 favorites]
There are currently more Arabs in the Israeli Knesset than there are African-Americans in the Senate. Is the US an apartheid state?
YES. Next question?
posted by turbowombat at 3:18 PM on October 1 [7 favorites]
YES. Next question?
posted by turbowombat at 3:18 PM on October 1 [7 favorites]
Two thoughts:
Sorry, but it's not our job to educate you
This particular approach was developed by members of oppressed groups being asked to explain basic things and doing the emotional work of trying to educate people about their personal identity and experience. This is exhausting, draining to people already drained by society, and, especially on the internet, giving time to people who may not be serious about their questions. If you are Palestinian, I apologize for assuming; if you are someone who is rightly outraged by a terrible situation, I assume you came to that understanding somehow and might be able to share some of the things that got you there, much the way that Ta-Nehisi Coates described the trip that helped form his current stance.
Maybe you have a couple of books that you read that laid out the situation in a way that was accessible. Maybe there is a podcast or a movie or even a speaker/writer/whatever you find especially enlightening on the history and current situation. Maybe you don't have time or the inclination, in which case, fine, you don't have to respond, someone else might take up the gauntlet. I'm here mostly for the links and perspectives, which is why I rarely post in these threads. Granting other members a little grace, even if it's only your silence at an embarrassing or ignorant question, is something MetaFilter could use more of.
Seems pretty straightforward, we are talking about an apartheid state. You either think apartheid is right or it's wrong, it's actually not complicated at all.
One of the problems with this line of discussion is that there are a lot of meanings of the word "complicated." In a moral sense, yes, it's really simple -- you either accept that Israel is an apartheid state or you don't, and the lines are drawn. However, I think a lot of people use "complicated" in the sense that the situation is a terrible historical knot, and there isn't a super clear way (in the actual world we are living in right now) to see a way out of it, especially when the Israeli government clearly has no interest in any settlement except their complete victory. And that is complicated. Another sense of "complicated" is that a lot of people are having to seriously reevaluate their ideas about Israel. As an American, I was taught a very simplified version of history, and unwinding decades of propaganda is project, especially in a time when everything seems to be on fire.
None of which excuses people who use "it's complicated" as shorthand for "this is uncomfortable, and I don't want to think about it, and I just will ignore the news, lalala." Not too many of whom show up in these threads, but enough, and I certainly encounter them in my daily life a lot.
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:37 PM on October 1 [34 favorites]
Sorry, but it's not our job to educate you
This particular approach was developed by members of oppressed groups being asked to explain basic things and doing the emotional work of trying to educate people about their personal identity and experience. This is exhausting, draining to people already drained by society, and, especially on the internet, giving time to people who may not be serious about their questions. If you are Palestinian, I apologize for assuming; if you are someone who is rightly outraged by a terrible situation, I assume you came to that understanding somehow and might be able to share some of the things that got you there, much the way that Ta-Nehisi Coates described the trip that helped form his current stance.
Maybe you have a couple of books that you read that laid out the situation in a way that was accessible. Maybe there is a podcast or a movie or even a speaker/writer/whatever you find especially enlightening on the history and current situation. Maybe you don't have time or the inclination, in which case, fine, you don't have to respond, someone else might take up the gauntlet. I'm here mostly for the links and perspectives, which is why I rarely post in these threads. Granting other members a little grace, even if it's only your silence at an embarrassing or ignorant question, is something MetaFilter could use more of.
Seems pretty straightforward, we are talking about an apartheid state. You either think apartheid is right or it's wrong, it's actually not complicated at all.
One of the problems with this line of discussion is that there are a lot of meanings of the word "complicated." In a moral sense, yes, it's really simple -- you either accept that Israel is an apartheid state or you don't, and the lines are drawn. However, I think a lot of people use "complicated" in the sense that the situation is a terrible historical knot, and there isn't a super clear way (in the actual world we are living in right now) to see a way out of it, especially when the Israeli government clearly has no interest in any settlement except their complete victory. And that is complicated. Another sense of "complicated" is that a lot of people are having to seriously reevaluate their ideas about Israel. As an American, I was taught a very simplified version of history, and unwinding decades of propaganda is project, especially in a time when everything seems to be on fire.
None of which excuses people who use "it's complicated" as shorthand for "this is uncomfortable, and I don't want to think about it, and I just will ignore the news, lalala." Not too many of whom show up in these threads, but enough, and I certainly encounter them in my daily life a lot.
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:37 PM on October 1 [34 favorites]
Yeah, i mean, on the one hand it is ultimately everyone's job to educate everyone. On the other hand, though, it does help if you've done some of the work yourself first? idk.
wenestvedt: A "two-state" solution (which is not what most Palestinians want, fwiw) would probably look, in practice, similar to the breakup of Yugoslavia into successor states. Israel and Palestine would agree on borders that include the land that their respective populations actually live on, with some negotiation, and formally split up. Which is also a big chunk of the problem, because those successor states have had all sorts of problems (Kosovo, for instance, still has only partial diplomatic recognition and therefore only partially counts as a "state" to the rest of the world). There would probably be ongoing border conflict! But at the point where both states are legally recognized and have diplomatic recognition and the right to maintain a military force, the rest of the world has, at least in theory, more levers to use against bad actors in their governments.
The thing is, there isn't actually a thing in international law where it says "we'll only give you your own state if you promise to do things in a way we like and remain dependent on our goodwill", and that is fundamentally the only thing that Palestinians have ever been offered under the guise of a "two-state solution". We call that a Bantustan, it's extremely characteristic of Apartheid South Africa, and it's not actually a two-state solution because a "demilitarized state" is fundamentally not a state. (Especially as the offers to Palestine have also disallowed Palestinian control over their own borders, trade, and monetary policy.)
What most Palestinians and their allies want, on the contrary, is a one-state solution, where everyone in the territory has full legal & civil rights, equal protection, and a right of return. In practice, at least in the near-term, this would probably look a lot like Northern Ireland, with some sort of binational power-sharing setup and checks and balances to make sure that one ethnic group didn't decide to use the power of the state to constantly do pogroms on the other one.
posted by adrienneleigh at 4:12 PM on October 1 [37 favorites]
wenestvedt: A "two-state" solution (which is not what most Palestinians want, fwiw) would probably look, in practice, similar to the breakup of Yugoslavia into successor states. Israel and Palestine would agree on borders that include the land that their respective populations actually live on, with some negotiation, and formally split up. Which is also a big chunk of the problem, because those successor states have had all sorts of problems (Kosovo, for instance, still has only partial diplomatic recognition and therefore only partially counts as a "state" to the rest of the world). There would probably be ongoing border conflict! But at the point where both states are legally recognized and have diplomatic recognition and the right to maintain a military force, the rest of the world has, at least in theory, more levers to use against bad actors in their governments.
The thing is, there isn't actually a thing in international law where it says "we'll only give you your own state if you promise to do things in a way we like and remain dependent on our goodwill", and that is fundamentally the only thing that Palestinians have ever been offered under the guise of a "two-state solution". We call that a Bantustan, it's extremely characteristic of Apartheid South Africa, and it's not actually a two-state solution because a "demilitarized state" is fundamentally not a state. (Especially as the offers to Palestine have also disallowed Palestinian control over their own borders, trade, and monetary policy.)
What most Palestinians and their allies want, on the contrary, is a one-state solution, where everyone in the territory has full legal & civil rights, equal protection, and a right of return. In practice, at least in the near-term, this would probably look a lot like Northern Ireland, with some sort of binational power-sharing setup and checks and balances to make sure that one ethnic group didn't decide to use the power of the state to constantly do pogroms on the other one.
posted by adrienneleigh at 4:12 PM on October 1 [37 favorites]
(If i have the energy later i'll try to pull up some good links/resources for folks in here. But i figured at least some groundwork/analogies might help a bit?)
posted by adrienneleigh at 4:33 PM on October 1 [2 favorites]
posted by adrienneleigh at 4:33 PM on October 1 [2 favorites]
If nothing else, the CBS interview is a really good example of one of the points Coates brings up, how news organizations lack Palestinian representation in their newsrooms. The interview shows pretty clearly that the Zionist view has such strong representation in media that it can comfortably portray itself as the norm, and that any contrasting view can expect all manner of bad faith in the rare occasions it's allowed airtime.
posted by Ghidorah at 4:34 PM on October 1 [16 favorites]
posted by Ghidorah at 4:34 PM on October 1 [16 favorites]
I realized that i should have specified that i meant post-GFA Northern Ireland, in the above comment! Sorry about that! (Nobody, least of all the Northern Irish, wants another pre-GFA Northern Ireland.)
posted by adrienneleigh at 5:19 PM on October 1 [6 favorites]
posted by adrienneleigh at 5:19 PM on October 1 [6 favorites]
Haven't been to Lesotho, but I've been to Eswatini, via Johannesburg - but just for the sake of thinking through the raised analogy I'm not sure if it's necessarily the appropriate one. They're not the bantustans of apartheid South Africa but they also show (some) limitations of the postcolonial model of self-determination. Still, in practical terms, the two countries share a currency union with SA for example (1:1 with the rand, but while it means you can use the rand in Eswatini as-is, good luck finding the same experience with the emalengi) as well as fairly relaxed (ground) borders but otoh the politics is made quiet by 'small' things like hired mercenaries from SA (and just the fact that historical and cultural linkages from Zululand folks so for a while they had the economic advantage. These days it may be different - Ironically because of existing agreements, the load shedding issue faced by SA didn't impact Eswatini at all - they had their electricity as already determined regardless).
Could this be a similar fate for the West Bank side of Palestine especially? I wonder sometimes. But you know, for all the grief I did manage to pick up I barely hear any wish to return to before (and they do have some of that discourse but it seems only regarding their old name Swaziland). And that's why there's still value in the nation-state as the platform/container/method to deliver rights to people. Which also goes back to if Israel has a right to exist. It's an irrelevant question. It exists. But its existence obligates the state to deliver and execute certain rights and obligations. Just like other states, Israel isn't perfect, but good lord, since its inception this imperfection is practiced at magnitudes higher at rates only seen in countries left in the dustbin of history. But the injustice of its inception doesn't guarantee it's eradication. The United States is still standing, isn't it? Native Americans still exist? In the glaring injustice and imperfections of the state, people both indigenous and otherwise, are still working to at least make sure the state delivers its obligations despite the history. "Are you saying Israel doesn't have the right etc etc" rhetoric keeps wanting to change the subject by shifting the rightholders from people to the state. People have rights. States are obliged to deliver them.
posted by cendawanita at 6:14 PM on October 1 [18 favorites]
Could this be a similar fate for the West Bank side of Palestine especially? I wonder sometimes. But you know, for all the grief I did manage to pick up I barely hear any wish to return to before (and they do have some of that discourse but it seems only regarding their old name Swaziland). And that's why there's still value in the nation-state as the platform/container/method to deliver rights to people. Which also goes back to if Israel has a right to exist. It's an irrelevant question. It exists. But its existence obligates the state to deliver and execute certain rights and obligations. Just like other states, Israel isn't perfect, but good lord, since its inception this imperfection is practiced at magnitudes higher at rates only seen in countries left in the dustbin of history. But the injustice of its inception doesn't guarantee it's eradication. The United States is still standing, isn't it? Native Americans still exist? In the glaring injustice and imperfections of the state, people both indigenous and otherwise, are still working to at least make sure the state delivers its obligations despite the history. "Are you saying Israel doesn't have the right etc etc" rhetoric keeps wanting to change the subject by shifting the rightholders from people to the state. People have rights. States are obliged to deliver them.
posted by cendawanita at 6:14 PM on October 1 [18 favorites]
if you are someone who is rightly outraged by a terrible situation, I assume you came to that understanding somehow and might be able to share some of the things that got you there
The assassination of Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, and the coming to power of Likud and Netanyahu (who was obviously an extremist, even then), gave me an interest in the subject (I was in my late teens and only really starting to become politically aware, I suppose); I discovered Edward Said, and Christopher Hitchens (before 9/11 pushed him off the deep end), and much else besides; learning about the supposedly "complicated" history of the region led me to the conclusion that Israel was fundamentally a colonial state (whose founders described it in those terms), founded on ethnic cleansing and even then practising what could only be described as apartheid. The intervening nearly 30 years have only strengthened those views, especially now that Israel has moved on to full-blown genocide.
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 6:18 PM on October 1 [9 favorites]
The assassination of Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, and the coming to power of Likud and Netanyahu (who was obviously an extremist, even then), gave me an interest in the subject (I was in my late teens and only really starting to become politically aware, I suppose); I discovered Edward Said, and Christopher Hitchens (before 9/11 pushed him off the deep end), and much else besides; learning about the supposedly "complicated" history of the region led me to the conclusion that Israel was fundamentally a colonial state (whose founders described it in those terms), founded on ethnic cleansing and even then practising what could only be described as apartheid. The intervening nearly 30 years have only strengthened those views, especially now that Israel has moved on to full-blown genocide.
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 6:18 PM on October 1 [9 favorites]
>As a direct result of Israel's ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in 1948.
This is not true. There were pogroms in Syria, Libya, Iran, Iraq and Turkey between 1900 and 1947.
posted by bq at 6:39 PM on October 1 [4 favorites]
This is not true. There were pogroms in Syria, Libya, Iran, Iraq and Turkey between 1900 and 1947.
posted by bq at 6:39 PM on October 1 [4 favorites]
There were also mass killings of Palestinians inside the Mandate, by Zionists, between 1900-1947.
posted by adrienneleigh at 7:10 PM on October 1 [5 favorites]
posted by adrienneleigh at 7:10 PM on October 1 [5 favorites]
And in any case from yesterday, per the Jordan Foreign Ministry account:
DPM & FM @AymanHsafadi in a joint press statement held by the Arab Islamic ministerial committee, yesterday:
- We are members of the Muslim Arab Committee, mandated by 57 Arab and Muslim countries, and I can tell you unequivocally that all of us are willing, right now, to guarantee the security of Israel in the context of Israel ending the occupation and allowing for the emergence of a Palestinian state.
- Ask any Israeli official what is their plan for peace, you'll get nothing.
- We have a plan, we have no partner for peace in Israel there is a partner for peace in the Arab world and that's why the international community needs to move.
One of the unfair things, like encountered by Coates here, is how little airtime is given to actual overtures to peace on the ground in US/western media, so trying to talk about things that shouldn't be brand new, is treated as such. What I've quoted isn't even a new position. Does this speak for Palestinians though? Worth a debate but it's certainly not true that Israel is surrounded by aggressive enemies at all times. Cynically speaking, as a function of the same authoritarian political cultures that led to the Arab Spring was very much the same conditions that could've ensured a peace for an Israel that could save face and accept its 1967 borders and removed itself from (what is now considered) Palestine (and Syria). But it continues to become belligerent and worse, the rest of us have been compelled to deform the language of human rights and international law to justify this because it's even more unacceptable to consider the Arab states to also have rational actors deserving of rights.
posted by cendawanita at 8:10 PM on October 1 [11 favorites]
DPM & FM @AymanHsafadi in a joint press statement held by the Arab Islamic ministerial committee, yesterday:
- We are members of the Muslim Arab Committee, mandated by 57 Arab and Muslim countries, and I can tell you unequivocally that all of us are willing, right now, to guarantee the security of Israel in the context of Israel ending the occupation and allowing for the emergence of a Palestinian state.
- Ask any Israeli official what is their plan for peace, you'll get nothing.
- We have a plan, we have no partner for peace in Israel there is a partner for peace in the Arab world and that's why the international community needs to move.
One of the unfair things, like encountered by Coates here, is how little airtime is given to actual overtures to peace on the ground in US/western media, so trying to talk about things that shouldn't be brand new, is treated as such. What I've quoted isn't even a new position. Does this speak for Palestinians though? Worth a debate but it's certainly not true that Israel is surrounded by aggressive enemies at all times. Cynically speaking, as a function of the same authoritarian political cultures that led to the Arab Spring was very much the same conditions that could've ensured a peace for an Israel that could save face and accept its 1967 borders and removed itself from (what is now considered) Palestine (and Syria). But it continues to become belligerent and worse, the rest of us have been compelled to deform the language of human rights and international law to justify this because it's even more unacceptable to consider the Arab states to also have rational actors deserving of rights.
posted by cendawanita at 8:10 PM on October 1 [11 favorites]
The assassination of Yitzhak Rabin in 1995
Pseudonymous Cognomen, it's interesting to me to hear someone say that was the event that made them interested, and it sounds like we are close in terms of age. I remember exactly where I was when I saw the news (at a friend's off campus house in university, all of us getting ready to go out for the evening), and that I wept for roughly half an hour, utterly unable to speak.
I grew up in a solidly midwestern Jewish community, following Conservative Judaism. We were very definitely indoctrinated from an early age, to the point that my first lesson about bias in media came in an after school Hebrew school class. We were taught that Israel was constantly in danger, and really, really raised with the idea that Israel should be allowed to do anything it felt necessary to maintain its presence. There was never any kind of hint that the heroes of Israeli independence might have been viewed by others as anything less than paragons of virtue.
Later, in junior high, I was exposed to two different views, the solid mainstream United Synagogue Youth, and a more leftish, less orthodoxly Conservative Habonim. Even in Habonim, where there was considerably more discussion about how to achieve peace, it was always and only with the first principle that Israel was always in the right.
Rabin, who might have been the last, best chance for peace in our lifetime (as we have certainly moved much, much further away from it now, even before we begin the necessary discussion of what, exactly, peace must entail to have any kind of meaning) was murdered by a Jew. While that might have sparked your interest, for me, it was kind of the final straw, and the probably the moment where I realized, if I couldn't articulate it at the time, that any kind of just peace will certainly never be granted by Israel. As we're watching Israel invade Lebanon (again), it's apparent, even if it goes against everything in my upbringing, that more than anything, Israel has declared itself an enemy of peace. I'm embarrassed at my naivety and that it took me so long to come to that realization, and even longer to say it openly.
posted by Ghidorah at 8:13 PM on October 1 [16 favorites]
Pseudonymous Cognomen, it's interesting to me to hear someone say that was the event that made them interested, and it sounds like we are close in terms of age. I remember exactly where I was when I saw the news (at a friend's off campus house in university, all of us getting ready to go out for the evening), and that I wept for roughly half an hour, utterly unable to speak.
I grew up in a solidly midwestern Jewish community, following Conservative Judaism. We were very definitely indoctrinated from an early age, to the point that my first lesson about bias in media came in an after school Hebrew school class. We were taught that Israel was constantly in danger, and really, really raised with the idea that Israel should be allowed to do anything it felt necessary to maintain its presence. There was never any kind of hint that the heroes of Israeli independence might have been viewed by others as anything less than paragons of virtue.
Later, in junior high, I was exposed to two different views, the solid mainstream United Synagogue Youth, and a more leftish, less orthodoxly Conservative Habonim. Even in Habonim, where there was considerably more discussion about how to achieve peace, it was always and only with the first principle that Israel was always in the right.
Rabin, who might have been the last, best chance for peace in our lifetime (as we have certainly moved much, much further away from it now, even before we begin the necessary discussion of what, exactly, peace must entail to have any kind of meaning) was murdered by a Jew. While that might have sparked your interest, for me, it was kind of the final straw, and the probably the moment where I realized, if I couldn't articulate it at the time, that any kind of just peace will certainly never be granted by Israel. As we're watching Israel invade Lebanon (again), it's apparent, even if it goes against everything in my upbringing, that more than anything, Israel has declared itself an enemy of peace. I'm embarrassed at my naivety and that it took me so long to come to that realization, and even longer to say it openly.
posted by Ghidorah at 8:13 PM on October 1 [16 favorites]
There were also mass killings of Palestinians inside the Mandate, by Zionists, between 1900-1947.
and I did not lie about that.
posted by bq at 8:39 PM on October 1 [1 favorite]
and I did not lie about that.
posted by bq at 8:39 PM on October 1 [1 favorite]
and I remember there was a woman who got on the mic and yelled about the role of Palestinians in that article,” he told me. “And I couldn’t quite understand what she was saying. I mean, I heard her, but I literally could not understand it. She got shouted down. And I’ve thought about that a lot, man. I’ve thought about that a lot.”This feeling
I mean, I heard her, but I literally could not understand it
is so specifically diagnostic of there being something deeply important to find and listen to, and so damn hard to push through the resistance to act on.
Coates did it.
posted by away for regrooving at 11:46 PM on October 1 [10 favorites]
Saw this twt thread, and I wonder how much of it is holding true elsewhere too: I see relatively apolitical people I know on facebook asking if "Israel really has jim crow?", that Coates interview is escaping gravity.
The idea of generic apolitical white people I know questioning literally anything about Israel in any form was unthinkable to me like 5 years ago
An insane amount of palestinians have died trying to do outreach and get Americans to pay attention for decades through peaceful resistance, and literally the first thing moving the dial in the above 40 crowd is a public intellectual pointing out they're wildly racist.
posted by cendawanita at 2:04 AM on October 2 [12 favorites]
The idea of generic apolitical white people I know questioning literally anything about Israel in any form was unthinkable to me like 5 years ago
An insane amount of palestinians have died trying to do outreach and get Americans to pay attention for decades through peaceful resistance, and literally the first thing moving the dial in the above 40 crowd is a public intellectual pointing out they're wildly racist.
posted by cendawanita at 2:04 AM on October 2 [12 favorites]
I'm not going to try to speak for Coates, but regarding "it's not complicated", I notice that a lot of the time when people say "it's complicated" what they actually MEAN is "talking about this would require me to admit things I don't want to".
It's complicated can mean "Jews get Israel because God said so and I don't care about Palestinians".
It's complicated can mean "It doesn't matter if the people living on stolen land today weren't the ones who stole it, I don't care about what happens to the Jews occupying that land once we evict them."
It's complicated can mean "I don't really think Palestinians are people so I don't care what happens to them".
It's complicated can mean "I don't really think Jews are people so I don't care what happens to them."
It's complicted can mean "I don't think it's possible to have a good answer so I just want Israel to finish killing all the Palestinians quickly so I can stop thinking about it."
It's complicated can mean "This is depressing, there is no answer, everyone sucks, and I hope the entire place just vanishes someday so I can stop thinking about it."
What "it's complicated" almost never means is "thare actually are serious issues to talk about here and I can start by....."
But also? It's really not complicated.
There are exactly two possible outcomes:
1) Eventually Jewish Israelis finish their self appointed task of ethnically cleansing the region via genocide, crimes against humnaity, and atrocity.
2) Jewish Israelis give up something big and important in order to obtain peace.
I'm sure you've noticed that both of those possible outcomes are ENTIRELY up to the Israeli Jews and that Palestinians aren't actually involved. That's one of those uncomofrtable realities that "it's complicated" gets used to cover up. In Israel Jews have 100% of the power and are the only people who can actually decide which way this will end. Palestinians are going to have thier future determined by Isreali Jews and there's nothing they can do about it.
And I'm pretty sure that right now the most likely option is #1. Jewish organizations worldwide are hardening thier positions, ousting non-maximal Zionist Jewish staffers, Israel is increasing it's regional beligerance and America is clearly setting up to send soldiers over to play Vietnam 2: Desert Vietnam and help Israel eradicate the Palestinian population.
I'm not saying it's hopeless, and I'm encouraged by how Coates' book does at least seem to be causing some minor shift in the discourse in the US, but any outcome except Palesitnian eradication is looking less likely with each passing day.
I can definitely understand the desire to say "It's complicated" and use that as an excuse to stop talking.
posted by sotonohito at 6:25 AM on October 2 [48 favorites]
It's complicated can mean "Jews get Israel because God said so and I don't care about Palestinians".
It's complicated can mean "It doesn't matter if the people living on stolen land today weren't the ones who stole it, I don't care about what happens to the Jews occupying that land once we evict them."
It's complicated can mean "I don't really think Palestinians are people so I don't care what happens to them".
It's complicated can mean "I don't really think Jews are people so I don't care what happens to them."
It's complicted can mean "I don't think it's possible to have a good answer so I just want Israel to finish killing all the Palestinians quickly so I can stop thinking about it."
It's complicated can mean "This is depressing, there is no answer, everyone sucks, and I hope the entire place just vanishes someday so I can stop thinking about it."
What "it's complicated" almost never means is "thare actually are serious issues to talk about here and I can start by....."
But also? It's really not complicated.
There are exactly two possible outcomes:
1) Eventually Jewish Israelis finish their self appointed task of ethnically cleansing the region via genocide, crimes against humnaity, and atrocity.
2) Jewish Israelis give up something big and important in order to obtain peace.
I'm sure you've noticed that both of those possible outcomes are ENTIRELY up to the Israeli Jews and that Palestinians aren't actually involved. That's one of those uncomofrtable realities that "it's complicated" gets used to cover up. In Israel Jews have 100% of the power and are the only people who can actually decide which way this will end. Palestinians are going to have thier future determined by Isreali Jews and there's nothing they can do about it.
And I'm pretty sure that right now the most likely option is #1. Jewish organizations worldwide are hardening thier positions, ousting non-maximal Zionist Jewish staffers, Israel is increasing it's regional beligerance and America is clearly setting up to send soldiers over to play Vietnam 2: Desert Vietnam and help Israel eradicate the Palestinian population.
I'm not saying it's hopeless, and I'm encouraged by how Coates' book does at least seem to be causing some minor shift in the discourse in the US, but any outcome except Palesitnian eradication is looking less likely with each passing day.
I can definitely understand the desire to say "It's complicated" and use that as an excuse to stop talking.
posted by sotonohito at 6:25 AM on October 2 [48 favorites]
Flagged as Fantastic, sotonohito.
posted by whuppy at 6:36 AM on October 2 [2 favorites]
posted by whuppy at 6:36 AM on October 2 [2 favorites]
America is clearly setting up to send soldiers over to play Vietnam 2: Desert Vietnam and help Israel eradicate the Palestinian population
[CITATION NEEDED]
posted by grumpybear69 at 7:37 AM on October 2 [3 favorites]
[CITATION NEEDED]
posted by grumpybear69 at 7:37 AM on October 2 [3 favorites]
Mod note: Comment removed. Please keep the Guidelines in mind and avoid interpreting others remarks in an inflammatory way.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 7:45 AM on October 2 [1 favorite]
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 7:45 AM on October 2 [1 favorite]
I have always taken "it's complicated" to mean "I want to maintain my liberal credibility without fully criticizing an apartheid state" which is pretty much an impossible thing to do, so it's another tactic for people to launder their views through layers of bullshit: it's complicated, it's complex, people so hastily criticizing haven't spent real time in the region, they don't support Netanyahu, they support a two-state solution, and other meaningless nonsense to try and make them feel like they are liberal nuance-understanders instead of apartheid apologists on the wrong side of history.
posted by windbox at 8:21 AM on October 2 [15 favorites]
posted by windbox at 8:21 AM on October 2 [15 favorites]
grumpybear69 per AP news:
The U.S. is sending a “few thousand” troops to the Middle East to bolster security and to defend Israel if necessary, the Pentagon said Monday.
My emphasis.
posted by sotonohito at 8:27 AM on October 2 [7 favorites]
The U.S. is sending a “few thousand” troops to the Middle East to bolster security and to defend Israel if necessary, the Pentagon said Monday.
My emphasis.
posted by sotonohito at 8:27 AM on October 2 [7 favorites]
Coates posted his bibliography for this book.
I came home with questions. My approach to big stories is always to first ground myself in history. Part of this grounding had already been accomplished. I’d read Benny Morris’ Righteous Victims some years earlier and there found my earliest exposure to, as Professor Morris writes, the idea of Zionism as a “colonizing and expansionist ideology and movement.” I am aware that Professor Morris has since argued that Zionism was not, in fact, a form of colonialism. I am not exactly sure what accounts for this new outlook. Certainly scholars have the right to change their minds, and I would love to read an account of Professor Morris’ own shift. I would hope that this account would also examine how, and why, Professor Morris came to advocate for colonial solutions himself, as when he approvingly invoked the establishment of America through “the annihilation of the Indians.”
Rashid Khalidi’s The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine was the first narrative history of the region I’d read that was written by a Palestinian. Moreover, it is written by a scholar whose ancestors recorded their own interactions with Zionism’s exponents and its subsequent implementation. On my return, I sent a rather pleading note to Professor Khalidi: “It’s very hard to capture what happened to me. I feel like I walked through a door into another world, and when I looked back, I saw that the door had disappeared.”
posted by toastyk at 8:32 AM on October 2 [11 favorites]
I came home with questions. My approach to big stories is always to first ground myself in history. Part of this grounding had already been accomplished. I’d read Benny Morris’ Righteous Victims some years earlier and there found my earliest exposure to, as Professor Morris writes, the idea of Zionism as a “colonizing and expansionist ideology and movement.” I am aware that Professor Morris has since argued that Zionism was not, in fact, a form of colonialism. I am not exactly sure what accounts for this new outlook. Certainly scholars have the right to change their minds, and I would love to read an account of Professor Morris’ own shift. I would hope that this account would also examine how, and why, Professor Morris came to advocate for colonial solutions himself, as when he approvingly invoked the establishment of America through “the annihilation of the Indians.”
Rashid Khalidi’s The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine was the first narrative history of the region I’d read that was written by a Palestinian. Moreover, it is written by a scholar whose ancestors recorded their own interactions with Zionism’s exponents and its subsequent implementation. On my return, I sent a rather pleading note to Professor Khalidi: “It’s very hard to capture what happened to me. I feel like I walked through a door into another world, and when I looked back, I saw that the door had disappeared.”
posted by toastyk at 8:32 AM on October 2 [11 favorites]
Ngl, sending a few thousand troops to the Middle East is giving me the willies.
posted by Kitteh at 8:34 AM on October 2 [6 favorites]
posted by Kitteh at 8:34 AM on October 2 [6 favorites]
Somebody said it's the first October Surprise that's come from the candidate's own party.
posted by box at 8:53 AM on October 2 [6 favorites]
posted by box at 8:53 AM on October 2 [6 favorites]
And of course the party and base won't accept any responsibility, they'll just blame those of us who have been speaking up for whatever happens.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 9:03 AM on October 2 [6 favorites]
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 9:03 AM on October 2 [6 favorites]
Regarding the "educate yourself" mini-thread above, perhaps one of the ways someone who is interested in learning about a thing might do so is to ask questions of people in their online community. Perhaps even in the context of a discussion of the issue they're trying to learn more about.
I'm not sure this whole "learn from your community" concept will catch on, but I think it might be worth a try at least!
posted by ChrisR at 11:06 AM on October 2 [11 favorites]
I'm not sure this whole "learn from your community" concept will catch on, but I think it might be worth a try at least!
posted by ChrisR at 11:06 AM on October 2 [11 favorites]
The U.S. is sending a “few thousand” troops to the Middle East to bolster security and to defend Israel if necessary, the Pentagon said Monday.
I understand that to mean defending Israel against military attacks from Lebanon et al, not sending our troops into Gaza or the West Bank to murder Palestinians with the IDF.
posted by grumpybear69 at 2:52 PM on October 2
I understand that to mean defending Israel against military attacks from Lebanon et al, not sending our troops into Gaza or the West Bank to murder Palestinians with the IDF.
posted by grumpybear69 at 2:52 PM on October 2
on which side of the Lebanon border do you think they will be stationed in order to "defend" the IDF from "attack"?
posted by adrienneleigh at 3:02 PM on October 2 [3 favorites]
posted by adrienneleigh at 3:02 PM on October 2 [3 favorites]
I understand that to mean defending Israel against military attacks from Lebanon et al, not sending our troops into Gaza or the West Bank to murder Palestinians with the IDF.
I don't see why American troops should be used to do either, honestly. If Israel can't defend itself from military attacks from Lebanon then maybe they shouldn't be launching air strikes against Lebanese civilians? Just a thought.
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 3:03 PM on October 2 [17 favorites]
I don't see why American troops should be used to do either, honestly. If Israel can't defend itself from military attacks from Lebanon then maybe they shouldn't be launching air strikes against Lebanese civilians? Just a thought.
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 3:03 PM on October 2 [17 favorites]
I understand that to mean defending Israel against military attacks from Lebanon et al, not sending our troops into Gaza or the West Bank to murder Palestinians with the IDF.
what motivated you to post this distinction? and why would the US send troops to murder Palestinians when the bombs they send are doing the job handily
posted by ginger.beef at 3:33 PM on October 2 [5 favorites]
what motivated you to post this distinction? and why would the US send troops to murder Palestinians when the bombs they send are doing the job handily
posted by ginger.beef at 3:33 PM on October 2 [5 favorites]
I guessed elsewhere that "defend Israel if necessary" means exploit any excuse to destroy Irans' ports and weapons production, more because of Irans support for Russian in Ukraine than because of Israel.
I'm maybe wrong there, like clearly the US cares more about Israel than about Ukraine. Yet, Israel only needs money and weapons against their neighbors, not actual millitary help, while Iran presents a much bigger threat to Israel, but maybe the US targets tells us their priorities.
If Trump wins then Biden could leave Trump in discussions for a ground invasion of Gaza, where Trump wanted to build hotels, as well as a raging hot war against Russian interests in Iran, so then the GOP and Trump get blamed for genocide, while complicating Trumps relationship with Putin.
posted by jeffburdges at 4:10 PM on October 2 [1 favorite]
I'm maybe wrong there, like clearly the US cares more about Israel than about Ukraine. Yet, Israel only needs money and weapons against their neighbors, not actual millitary help, while Iran presents a much bigger threat to Israel, but maybe the US targets tells us their priorities.
If Trump wins then Biden could leave Trump in discussions for a ground invasion of Gaza, where Trump wanted to build hotels, as well as a raging hot war against Russian interests in Iran, so then the GOP and Trump get blamed for genocide, while complicating Trumps relationship with Putin.
posted by jeffburdges at 4:10 PM on October 2 [1 favorite]
Sorry, but it's not our job to educate you, and asking "what would a two-state solution even look like"
it looks like nothing
the middle east and perhaps the world is degenerating into warlord city-states and small regions
it will not be a solution to anything
posted by pyramid termite at 4:57 PM on October 2
it looks like nothing
the middle east and perhaps the world is degenerating into warlord city-states and small regions
it will not be a solution to anything
posted by pyramid termite at 4:57 PM on October 2
Israel has been studying declining support for them among the diaspora since the first intifada and realized they need to dramatically increase, best case, fear of antisemitism, or cynically, actual antisemitism, outside of Israel to drive the diaspora to Israel. They're actually pretty open about this in books about Israeli-Diaspora relations written by Israeli academics, but are smart enough to never say this in the mainstream where an inattentive average person would encounter it. The more gruesome and repulsive Zionism appears to normal people, which the past year has really accelerated, the more Israel, AIPAC, and related surrogates tie Zionism to the Jewish people and Judaism itself. It's a deliberate project.
posted by Iax at 9:30 PM on October 2 [7 favorites]
posted by Iax at 9:30 PM on October 2 [7 favorites]
Lax: this is a remarkable comment. Are you seriously suggesting that there is some significant part of Israel’s government that has a secret plan to whip up anti-Semitism with an ultimate goal of driving all the Jews in the world to Israel? The mask is off when you explain how “gruesome and repulsive” Zionism appears to “normal people,” I guess.
posted by PaulVario at 6:26 AM on October 3 [2 favorites]
posted by PaulVario at 6:26 AM on October 3 [2 favorites]
It's not particularly secret, here's the guy Israelis put in charge of diaspora outreach:
After Musk’s anti-Soros remarks, Diaspora minister calls Twitter chief a ‘role model’
After Musk’s anti-Soros remarks, Diaspora minister calls Twitter chief a ‘role model’
Musk said on Twitter on Monday that Soros “hates humanity” and compared the philanthropist to a comic book villain.posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 6:43 AM on October 3 [11 favorites]
[. . .] Chikli joined the fray on Thursday by coming to Musk’s defense, saying, “As Israel’s minister who’s entrusted on combating anti-Semitism, I would like to clarify that the Israeli government and the vast majority of Israeli citizens see Elon Musk as an amazing entrepreneur and a role model.”
“Criticism of Soros – who finances the most hostile organizations to the Jewish people and the state of Israel is anything but anti-Semitism, quite the opposite!” Chikli wrote on Twitter.
Soros is a billionaire and Holocaust survivor who supports progressive causes and is a common target of antisemitic conspiracy theories.
Iax. Even if this were true (why not? there are plenty of ridiculous schemes in the minds of power- hungry men) - saying "Israel" has been doing this is like blaming Project 25 on "the US" instead of the wacko right wing which does not represent "the US".
posted by Glinn at 6:44 AM on October 3 [3 favorites]
posted by Glinn at 6:44 AM on October 3 [3 favorites]
Ta-Nehisi Coates interview with Chris Hayes is worth watching.
posted by toastyk at 6:58 AM on October 3 [3 favorites]
posted by toastyk at 6:58 AM on October 3 [3 favorites]
saying "Israel" has been doing this is like blaming Project 25 on "the US" instead of the wacko right wing which does not represent "the US"
I can't appreciate the nuance here. If, over a sustained period, the entity people call "Israel" or "United States" or "Russia" or whatever, behaves in a certain way consistently, then I'm not taking someone to task for failing to be precise in their online comments. I do blame Project 2025 on the US, if by blame I recognize this as a natural result of decades of shit national politics leading to a nailbiter of an election between one candidate (A Woman of Colour! Amazing!) who we can scarcely expect to be any different about the genocide in Gaza, and a White Man who is remarkable in comparison to his predecessors mainly in how cartoonishly more awful and transparently shitty he is. The others hid it better? The US invades Iraq, Russia invades Ukraine. Israel bombs the shit out of Gaza. But no, let's not confuse 'Israel' with the criminals leading its government. I am sure a plurality of the people of Israel are poised to end the geocide happening in their country's name.
If pearl clutching isn't acceptable, what is the term we're using now
posted by ginger.beef at 7:49 AM on October 3 [5 favorites]
I can't appreciate the nuance here. If, over a sustained period, the entity people call "Israel" or "United States" or "Russia" or whatever, behaves in a certain way consistently, then I'm not taking someone to task for failing to be precise in their online comments. I do blame Project 2025 on the US, if by blame I recognize this as a natural result of decades of shit national politics leading to a nailbiter of an election between one candidate (A Woman of Colour! Amazing!) who we can scarcely expect to be any different about the genocide in Gaza, and a White Man who is remarkable in comparison to his predecessors mainly in how cartoonishly more awful and transparently shitty he is. The others hid it better? The US invades Iraq, Russia invades Ukraine. Israel bombs the shit out of Gaza. But no, let's not confuse 'Israel' with the criminals leading its government. I am sure a plurality of the people of Israel are poised to end the geocide happening in their country's name.
If pearl clutching isn't acceptable, what is the term we're using now
posted by ginger.beef at 7:49 AM on October 3 [5 favorites]
So far in this thread I have seen lies about Jews being responsible for anti-Jewish violence and now Israel is to blame for antisemitism. I’m sickened. Happy New Year.
posted by bq at 7:53 AM on October 3 [4 favorites]
posted by bq at 7:53 AM on October 3 [4 favorites]
saying "Israel" has been doing this is like blaming Project 25 on "the US" instead of the wacko right wing which does not represent "the US".
At some point the government, the establishment, the military, and the ones who have resources and leverage, do in fact pursue this in the service of representing Israel. If Iraqis and Afghans and Vietnamese and Liberians and Filipinos and indigenous Hawaiians don't make distinction on which Americans ruined their country, if Muslims around the world don't make the distinction on which Saudis and Iranians poured resources to shift their local religious communities rightwing, if diaspora Chinese don't make the distinction which China is trying to claim that its acting on their behalf, why is it exactly that Israel escapes a pretty commonly used and understood formula?
Also, I previously shared in one of the Palestine threads, this 2018 Washington Post article - which centres more on the American side of things (from the 1950s forward), but yes, in service of whitewashing Israel's crimes. Even in this year, one of the major exposes about how the NYT reporting about systematic rapes on Oct 7 was on shaky journalism (at best; and since even the Israeli public health NGO whose work was cited retracted their public statements because they were being abused) exposed me to a media watchdog called CAMERA, per the Intercept.
now Israel is to blame for antisemitism
I find this to be an uncharitable reading. The Israel Minister of Diaspora visibly and explicitly courts and supports European right-wing movements as shared above as an example. That is a fact, not hearsay. {edited} When I read about China taking advantage of anti-Asian Western sentiment (a visible thing I see here), I do not conclude that China is creating sinophobia. {/edited}
the silver lining of being potentially harmed by extant imperial forces while being only a domestic majority but not a global one is that I am capable of understanding that no group is essentially anything. Anti-war Israelis I follow seem to understand this too.
posted by cendawanita at 8:04 AM on October 3 [14 favorites]
At some point the government, the establishment, the military, and the ones who have resources and leverage, do in fact pursue this in the service of representing Israel. If Iraqis and Afghans and Vietnamese and Liberians and Filipinos and indigenous Hawaiians don't make distinction on which Americans ruined their country, if Muslims around the world don't make the distinction on which Saudis and Iranians poured resources to shift their local religious communities rightwing, if diaspora Chinese don't make the distinction which China is trying to claim that its acting on their behalf, why is it exactly that Israel escapes a pretty commonly used and understood formula?
Also, I previously shared in one of the Palestine threads, this 2018 Washington Post article - which centres more on the American side of things (from the 1950s forward), but yes, in service of whitewashing Israel's crimes. Even in this year, one of the major exposes about how the NYT reporting about systematic rapes on Oct 7 was on shaky journalism (at best; and since even the Israeli public health NGO whose work was cited retracted their public statements because they were being abused) exposed me to a media watchdog called CAMERA, per the Intercept.
now Israel is to blame for antisemitism
I find this to be an uncharitable reading. The Israel Minister of Diaspora visibly and explicitly courts and supports European right-wing movements as shared above as an example. That is a fact, not hearsay. {edited} When I read about China taking advantage of anti-Asian Western sentiment (a visible thing I see here), I do not conclude that China is creating sinophobia. {/edited}
the silver lining of being potentially harmed by extant imperial forces while being only a domestic majority but not a global one is that I am capable of understanding that no group is essentially anything. Anti-war Israelis I follow seem to understand this too.
posted by cendawanita at 8:04 AM on October 3 [14 favorites]
(even the columnists on Haaretz, even if with the rare exception I don't consider that paper to be particularly anti-war either)
posted by cendawanita at 8:05 AM on October 3 [4 favorites]
posted by cendawanita at 8:05 AM on October 3 [4 favorites]
cendawanita, good point. I guess my comment is more my feeling* about it (i.e. horrified/sickened by Project 25 & everything Trump, let alone clinging to power through genocide), and I imagine a majority of Israelis equally sickened by acts committed in their name. As I said, I know some people here believe a majority of Israelis are fine with Gaza. I don't. My brother has been to Israel several times in the last year and has only found heartsick Israelis who are 100% against all the continued violence. I realize this is just one account.
*I also realize my "feelings" about any of this are inconsequential. I am Jewish but very far removed from any of this.
posted by Glinn at 8:22 AM on October 3 [3 favorites]
*I also realize my "feelings" about any of this are inconsequential. I am Jewish but very far removed from any of this.
posted by Glinn at 8:22 AM on October 3 [3 favorites]
When a supposed march against antisemitism brings a vicious antisemite to share the stage with every major Jewish org in the US, Jewish and gentile members of both parties, and members of the Israeli government while simultaneously shitting on the Jewish left, yeah, that's Jews being responsible for violence against other Jews.
When the leader of the largest Jewish org claiming to defend Jewish civil rights praises Elon Musk, suggests the US use lethal state violence to break up protests with thousands of Jewish attendees, and treats Trump with kid gloves after he claims he will blame Jews for his failures, yeah, that's Jews being responsible for violence against other Jews.
When the biggest pro-Israel organization in the US is funding antisemitic insurrectionists, especially in service of defeating Jews who are Zionist but liberal, yeah, that's Jews being responsible for violence against other Jews.
When Israeli government ministers are appointed specifically to incite anger towards members of the diaspora, even those that are themselves Zionists, because they will not bow down to an increasingly fascist and ethnonationalist definition of Zionism, yeah, that's...well you get the picture.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 8:24 AM on October 3 [14 favorites]
When the leader of the largest Jewish org claiming to defend Jewish civil rights praises Elon Musk, suggests the US use lethal state violence to break up protests with thousands of Jewish attendees, and treats Trump with kid gloves after he claims he will blame Jews for his failures, yeah, that's Jews being responsible for violence against other Jews.
When the biggest pro-Israel organization in the US is funding antisemitic insurrectionists, especially in service of defeating Jews who are Zionist but liberal, yeah, that's Jews being responsible for violence against other Jews.
When Israeli government ministers are appointed specifically to incite anger towards members of the diaspora, even those that are themselves Zionists, because they will not bow down to an increasingly fascist and ethnonationalist definition of Zionism, yeah, that's...well you get the picture.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 8:24 AM on October 3 [14 favorites]
Al Jazeera interview with "foremost Jewish antisemite Norman Finkelstein" from earlier this year
posted by ginger.beef at 8:30 AM on October 3 [2 favorites]
posted by ginger.beef at 8:30 AM on October 3 [2 favorites]
saying "Israel" has been doing this is like blaming Project 25 on "the US"
Project 25 isn't an official policy of the US government. Use of the name of a country to mean "the government of" is a common synecdoche that most adults are capable of understanding.
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 10:02 AM on October 3 [3 favorites]
Project 25 isn't an official policy of the US government. Use of the name of a country to mean "the government of" is a common synecdoche that most adults are capable of understanding.
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 10:02 AM on October 3 [3 favorites]
Dunno if anyone else has been seeing the various attempts to besmirch Coates' credibility (rather than trying to actually grapple with what he's saying), but this article speaks to that: (The New Republic) The Appalling Attack on Ta-Nehisi Coates Is a Massive Media Failing -
It is not antisemitic to defend Palestinian human rights. And it’s past time for more American Jews to say so to correct a media that’s lost the thread.
It is extremely disorienting to find yourself in the season of personal accountability described above while also reckoning with the total abdication of accountability from the institutions that hold the actual power to grapple with and correct the utter destruction this past year has wrought—from establishment Judaism to American politics and the mainstream media. We have watched Israel kill civilians, parents, children, doctors, aid workers, journalists, and many more, ostensibly in the name of Judaism but more likely in the furtherance of Benjamin Netanyahu’s craven political career—and ultimately in the abandonment of every value our religion and basic human rights should uphold.
We have witnessed antisemitism get stripped of its meaning and used as a tool to silence legitimate criticism of these very structures and their failure to stop the killing. We are told consistently that there is no right way to speak out against a clear wrong because systematically every method of protest, from campus demonstrations to essays to books to social media posts to peaceful marches on the streets, is framed as an amorphous attack on Jews everywhere as opposed to focused critiques of a specific wrong being perpetrated by a few powerful individuals.
The piece also ties the treatment he's received with what Rashida Tlaib received from media people such as Jake Tapper and Dana Bash.
posted by cendawanita at 10:13 AM on October 3 [13 favorites]
It is not antisemitic to defend Palestinian human rights. And it’s past time for more American Jews to say so to correct a media that’s lost the thread.
It is extremely disorienting to find yourself in the season of personal accountability described above while also reckoning with the total abdication of accountability from the institutions that hold the actual power to grapple with and correct the utter destruction this past year has wrought—from establishment Judaism to American politics and the mainstream media. We have watched Israel kill civilians, parents, children, doctors, aid workers, journalists, and many more, ostensibly in the name of Judaism but more likely in the furtherance of Benjamin Netanyahu’s craven political career—and ultimately in the abandonment of every value our religion and basic human rights should uphold.
We have witnessed antisemitism get stripped of its meaning and used as a tool to silence legitimate criticism of these very structures and their failure to stop the killing. We are told consistently that there is no right way to speak out against a clear wrong because systematically every method of protest, from campus demonstrations to essays to books to social media posts to peaceful marches on the streets, is framed as an amorphous attack on Jews everywhere as opposed to focused critiques of a specific wrong being perpetrated by a few powerful individuals.
The piece also ties the treatment he's received with what Rashida Tlaib received from media people such as Jake Tapper and Dana Bash.
posted by cendawanita at 10:13 AM on October 3 [13 favorites]
Yeah, I don't think we've had a single discussion on the invasion of Ukraine that isn't dominated by references to "Russia" and "Russians," even in discussions specifically about the intersection of disinformation and antisemitism.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 10:19 AM on October 3 [4 favorites]
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 10:19 AM on October 3 [4 favorites]
rather than trying to actually grapple
look I know this is an emotional topic but there's a type of comment that shows up and it's very how-dare-they with an abrupt departure, either from the thread or the site, but little to no grappling with the information shared
grappling and discussing what is happening is not pleasant. people get angry, people disagree, and we often attack what makes us uncomfortable. but the alternative: not grappling, avoiding, or worse: seeking confirmation and some sort of comfort in false things, or outrage in things that miss the point, well.
posted by ginger.beef at 10:24 AM on October 3 [5 favorites]
look I know this is an emotional topic but there's a type of comment that shows up and it's very how-dare-they with an abrupt departure, either from the thread or the site, but little to no grappling with the information shared
grappling and discussing what is happening is not pleasant. people get angry, people disagree, and we often attack what makes us uncomfortable. but the alternative: not grappling, avoiding, or worse: seeking confirmation and some sort of comfort in false things, or outrage in things that miss the point, well.
posted by ginger.beef at 10:24 AM on October 3 [5 favorites]
The mask is off when you explain how “gruesome and repulsive” Zionism appears to “normal people,” I guess
Zionism is built on the dispossession and displacement of the Palestinian population; ethnic cleansing is an integral part of the project. If the Holocaust had never happened no-one would have any problem calling out Zionism for what it very obviously is, and even so quite a lot of people are capable of understanding that whatever the Jews may have suffered, it can never justify visiting the same horrors on another people.
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 10:38 AM on October 3 [4 favorites]
Zionism is built on the dispossession and displacement of the Palestinian population; ethnic cleansing is an integral part of the project. If the Holocaust had never happened no-one would have any problem calling out Zionism for what it very obviously is, and even so quite a lot of people are capable of understanding that whatever the Jews may have suffered, it can never justify visiting the same horrors on another people.
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 10:38 AM on October 3 [4 favorites]
what motivated you to post this distinction? and why would the US send troops to murder Palestinians when the bombs they send are doing the job handily
Suffice it to say that I regret saying anything at all, but I do draw a distinction between sending arms to a state that then uses them for horrific purposes, sending troops and arms to defend an ally against other military forces (like Lebanon and Iran) and actually sending real human beings to enact horror on behalf of that state. It's all horrible, but actual US soldiers physically mutilating and murdering Palestinians with their own hands and guns is IMO magnitudes of orders worse, and that is what was implied. It is clear that I am alone in believing this distinction exists, so whatever.
posted by grumpybear69 at 10:43 AM on October 3 [1 favorite]
Suffice it to say that I regret saying anything at all, but I do draw a distinction between sending arms to a state that then uses them for horrific purposes, sending troops and arms to defend an ally against other military forces (like Lebanon and Iran) and actually sending real human beings to enact horror on behalf of that state. It's all horrible, but actual US soldiers physically mutilating and murdering Palestinians with their own hands and guns is IMO magnitudes of orders worse, and that is what was implied. It is clear that I am alone in believing this distinction exists, so whatever.
posted by grumpybear69 at 10:43 AM on October 3 [1 favorite]
Daniel Denvir:
The muted response in the United States to a Jewish woman becoming the president of Mexico—a Jewish woman who is a leftist and supports Palestinian liberation—it tells you everything you need to know about the cynical weaponization of antisemitism to silence and repress the left.posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 11:26 AM on October 3 [7 favorites]
actual US soldiers physically mutilating and murdering Palestinians with their own hands and guns is IMO magnitudes of orders worse
Don't see how that's actually worse than the US sending Israel the weapons to do it with and providing military backup in the name of "defence" so they can keep doing it. Seems like a distinction without much real difference.
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 11:40 AM on October 3 [4 favorites]
Don't see how that's actually worse than the US sending Israel the weapons to do it with and providing military backup in the name of "defence" so they can keep doing it. Seems like a distinction without much real difference.
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 11:40 AM on October 3 [4 favorites]
I think you guys should read the book. I just did, and it is a beautiful love letter to both writing, and writing for a purpose - with an eye towards changing/saving the world. In the book, Coates talks about something that he touches on with both Hayes and Stewart in their interviews - "oppression will not save you", and that he could have easily seen black people following the logic of Israel, that ability and desire to wield power over others because you were once powerless, is very attractive. It's not right, and it will never get you the safety or security that you desire.
To quote from the book directly:
The Trump years amazed a certain kind of white person; they had no reference for national vulgarity, for such broad corruption and venality, until it was too late. The least reflective of them say, "This is not America." But some of them suspect that it is America, and there is great pain in understanding that, without your consent, you are complicit in a great crime, in learning that the whole game was rigged in your favor, that there are nations within your nation who have spent all of their collective lives in the Trump years. The pain is in the discovery of your own illegitimacy - that whiteness is power and nothing else. I could hear that same pain in Avner's and Guy's (former IDF soldiers) words. They were raised under the story that the Jewish people were the ultimate victims of history. But they had been confronted with an incredible truth - that there was no ultimate victim, that victims and victimizers were ever flowing.
posted by toastyk at 12:19 PM on October 3 [35 favorites]
To quote from the book directly:
The Trump years amazed a certain kind of white person; they had no reference for national vulgarity, for such broad corruption and venality, until it was too late. The least reflective of them say, "This is not America." But some of them suspect that it is America, and there is great pain in understanding that, without your consent, you are complicit in a great crime, in learning that the whole game was rigged in your favor, that there are nations within your nation who have spent all of their collective lives in the Trump years. The pain is in the discovery of your own illegitimacy - that whiteness is power and nothing else. I could hear that same pain in Avner's and Guy's (former IDF soldiers) words. They were raised under the story that the Jewish people were the ultimate victims of history. But they had been confronted with an incredible truth - that there was no ultimate victim, that victims and victimizers were ever flowing.
posted by toastyk at 12:19 PM on October 3 [35 favorites]
The muted response in the United States to a Jewish woman becoming the president of Mexico—a Jewish woman who is a leftist and supports Palestinian liberation—it tells you everything you need to know about the cynical weaponization of antisemitism to silence and repress the left.
I wouldn't trust some doofus from Jacobin on this (or much else). While it's true that Sheinbaum is a Jewish woman, and that she nominally supports Palestine, there are many negatives about the supposedly leftist government here in Mexico during the previous six years and now continuing into a new presidential period, including increasing militarization and centralized control, as well as a worryingly ambivalent posture in international politics, for instance concerning Russia/Ukraine, but as usual Jacobin kneejerks to just being against whatever the US is for and vice versa, with no nuance or analysis beyond that.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 12:40 PM on October 3 [2 favorites]
I wouldn't trust some doofus from Jacobin on this (or much else). While it's true that Sheinbaum is a Jewish woman, and that she nominally supports Palestine, there are many negatives about the supposedly leftist government here in Mexico during the previous six years and now continuing into a new presidential period, including increasing militarization and centralized control, as well as a worryingly ambivalent posture in international politics, for instance concerning Russia/Ukraine, but as usual Jacobin kneejerks to just being against whatever the US is for and vice versa, with no nuance or analysis beyond that.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 12:40 PM on October 3 [2 favorites]
not to derail, but you could be making a valid point about Denvir and Jacobin and failing to address the thrust of the earlier comment. It does seem historic that Mexico elected its first woman president with Jewish heritage, and in general I would say there has been a muted response from western media so far. This is regardless of what the Jacobin has to say about anything.
posted by ginger.beef at 2:12 PM on October 3 [10 favorites]
posted by ginger.beef at 2:12 PM on October 3 [10 favorites]
If it helps, and for the record, that Denvir tweet was quoting Lex Rofeburg who was more directly talking about: Claudia Sheinbaum is the first woman, and first Jewish, president of Mexico. She was sworn in yesterday. There are over 90 articles that come up on Google News discussing it. 0 are in a Jewish publication.
I get that it's Rosh Hashanah tonight, but am also just really confused.
In a reply, he added: I am aware that Sheinbaum has taken stances in support of Palestinian rights. Jewish publications write pieces about Jewish, pro-Palestine politicians regularly. I do happen to really like Sheinbaum, but any-article-in-a-Jewish-publication-at-all is not the same as "endorsement."
---
I think you guys should read the book. I just did, and it is a beautiful love letter to both writing, and writing for a purpos
I haven't yet but as it so happens The Palestinian Festival of Literature account just posted a video of a bit from the trip that Coates was on. The video wasn't just quoting him though but also Maave Mengiste (who, being Ethiopian-American was pained by her interactions with Ethiopian Jewish soldiers) and Eve L. Ewing who, like Coates, saw it and phrased it in a way that reminded me of the discourse about Black American cops (recently for me via this FD Signifier video). He's said this elsewhere since but I think this video saw him first articulate this idea that he's seeing an alternate timeline for what could be for his community. And I was thinking, as a global southie (and in this I have said before I don't find Israel unique and in fact has more in common with my bloc's experience) that I'm living that timeline for my country - and if anything Malaysians and Singaporeans point at each other as their respective looking glasses in terms of both settler colonialism and postcolonialism, where like Israel and the invention of "Jewish Supremacy" became relevant, over here it's "Chinese Supremacy" in Singapore and "Malay Supremacy" in Malaysia.
I've said it before but it really bears repeating as it relates to western diaspora - being a minority in one context doesn't give you moral invincibility, but it's even more urgent to practice breaking this mental connection because there are majoritarians sharing one element of your identity who wants to keep this elliding this point because it's convenient for them, not you. (I think about this when I see travel videos from Western Muslims visiting here and about how it's so safe and it's so freeing being able to practice their religion etc and I'm like, so like, have you looked into it deeper? But it's not as urgent of a feeling since my country is many things but it hasn't made state policy to export terrorism and leaning on those Muslims to run diplomatic cover.)
posted by cendawanita at 5:24 PM on October 3 [11 favorites]
I get that it's Rosh Hashanah tonight, but am also just really confused.
In a reply, he added: I am aware that Sheinbaum has taken stances in support of Palestinian rights. Jewish publications write pieces about Jewish, pro-Palestine politicians regularly. I do happen to really like Sheinbaum, but any-article-in-a-Jewish-publication-at-all is not the same as "endorsement."
---
I think you guys should read the book. I just did, and it is a beautiful love letter to both writing, and writing for a purpos
I haven't yet but as it so happens The Palestinian Festival of Literature account just posted a video of a bit from the trip that Coates was on. The video wasn't just quoting him though but also Maave Mengiste (who, being Ethiopian-American was pained by her interactions with Ethiopian Jewish soldiers) and Eve L. Ewing who, like Coates, saw it and phrased it in a way that reminded me of the discourse about Black American cops (recently for me via this FD Signifier video). He's said this elsewhere since but I think this video saw him first articulate this idea that he's seeing an alternate timeline for what could be for his community. And I was thinking, as a global southie (and in this I have said before I don't find Israel unique and in fact has more in common with my bloc's experience) that I'm living that timeline for my country - and if anything Malaysians and Singaporeans point at each other as their respective looking glasses in terms of both settler colonialism and postcolonialism, where like Israel and the invention of "Jewish Supremacy" became relevant, over here it's "Chinese Supremacy" in Singapore and "Malay Supremacy" in Malaysia.
I've said it before but it really bears repeating as it relates to western diaspora - being a minority in one context doesn't give you moral invincibility, but it's even more urgent to practice breaking this mental connection because there are majoritarians sharing one element of your identity who wants to keep this elliding this point because it's convenient for them, not you. (I think about this when I see travel videos from Western Muslims visiting here and about how it's so safe and it's so freeing being able to practice their religion etc and I'm like, so like, have you looked into it deeper? But it's not as urgent of a feeling since my country is many things but it hasn't made state policy to export terrorism and leaning on those Muslims to run diplomatic cover.)
posted by cendawanita at 5:24 PM on October 3 [11 favorites]
Via this tweet that mentioned that this article was read out in their Rosh Hashanah services: We Charge Genocide: The Shofar Calls Us to Account on Rosh Hashanah -
In the Jewish new year, we must confront the carnage that Zionism has wrought.
posted by cendawanita at 6:19 PM on October 3 [8 favorites]
In the Jewish new year, we must confront the carnage that Zionism has wrought.
posted by cendawanita at 6:19 PM on October 3 [8 favorites]
I think what “it’s complicated” means is: be very careful about saying that Israel is more or less another South Africa, or that the USA is more or less an apartheid ethnostate, or that Israelis and Palestinians are more or less situated like whites and blacks in the 1950s, or that a 1960s American suburb is more or less a concentration camp. Because — even though it is a labor-saving device to let analogies do your thinking for you — none of these things are true in any helpful or explanatory way. Coates writes about how his anti-Semitic father taught him how Jews are white and Palestinians are black. I worry that he has learned the wrong lesson from this experience.
posted by PaulVario at 6:56 PM on October 3 [3 favorites]
posted by PaulVario at 6:56 PM on October 3 [3 favorites]
I just finished Coates’ book yesterday and you’re wrong. Very wrong.
posted by flamk at 7:17 PM on October 3 [8 favorites]
posted by flamk at 7:17 PM on October 3 [8 favorites]
Flamk: maybe you should read the book again. This time, pay more attention to Coates’s description of what he learned from his father: “a dull sense that the Israelis were ‘white’ and the Palestinians were ‘Black,’ which is to say that the former were the oppressors and the latter the oppressed.” Also, don’t miss Coates’s discussion of the book his father gave him, entitled “Born Palestinian, Born Black.” I mean, this isn’t hard.
posted by PaulVario at 7:40 PM on October 3 [1 favorite]
posted by PaulVario at 7:40 PM on October 3 [1 favorite]
I mean you can keep asserting something in different ways… that doesn’t make it any truer.
posted by flamk at 7:46 PM on October 3 [9 favorites]
posted by flamk at 7:46 PM on October 3 [9 favorites]
be very careful about saying that Israel is more or less another South Africa, or that the USA is more or less an apartheid ethnostate, or that Israelis and Palestinians are more or less situated like whites and blacks in the 1950s, or that a 1960s American suburb is more or less a concentration camp
Way to make a whole lot of utter nonsense assertions that aren't actually what anyone has been saying! Calling Israel's treatment of Palestinians "apartheid" (which most international human rights groups agree with) or "Jim Crow" is saying it's an institutionalised system of laws designed to oppress a particular group, not to say that it's just like the southern US before 1964, or like pre-1994 South Africa.
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 8:09 PM on October 3 [12 favorites]
Way to make a whole lot of utter nonsense assertions that aren't actually what anyone has been saying! Calling Israel's treatment of Palestinians "apartheid" (which most international human rights groups agree with) or "Jim Crow" is saying it's an institutionalised system of laws designed to oppress a particular group, not to say that it's just like the southern US before 1964, or like pre-1994 South Africa.
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 8:09 PM on October 3 [12 favorites]
Here's just a small taste of prominent Israelis, including several who lived in South Africa and/or worked with South African governments before and after apartheid fell, as well as experts on genocide and ethnic cleansing, who don't feel it's "complicated":
Israel-Palestine: Former Israeli ambassadors to South Africa call occupation 'apartheid'
Saying Israel is guilty of apartheid isn't antisemitic. Just ask these Israeli leaders.
Amnesty says Israel is an apartheid state. Many Israeli politicians agree.
A former Mossad chief says Israel is enforcing an apartheid system in the West Bank
‘Accusing Israel of apartheid is not anti-Semitic’: Holocaust historian. A growing number of Jewish academics are using the term apartheid to describe Israel’s treatment of Palestinians.
I have long rejected claims that Israel is an apartheid state. Now I believe that is where it is heading
Top Israelis Have Warned of Apartheid, so Why the Outrage at a UN Report? Pressure from the U.S. and Israel forced out a United Nations official, but plenty of Israelis have spoken about their country becoming an apartheid state.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 3:44 AM on October 4 [11 favorites]
Israel-Palestine: Former Israeli ambassadors to South Africa call occupation 'apartheid'
Saying Israel is guilty of apartheid isn't antisemitic. Just ask these Israeli leaders.
Amnesty says Israel is an apartheid state. Many Israeli politicians agree.
A former Mossad chief says Israel is enforcing an apartheid system in the West Bank
‘Accusing Israel of apartheid is not anti-Semitic’: Holocaust historian. A growing number of Jewish academics are using the term apartheid to describe Israel’s treatment of Palestinians.
I have long rejected claims that Israel is an apartheid state. Now I believe that is where it is heading
Top Israelis Have Warned of Apartheid, so Why the Outrage at a UN Report? Pressure from the U.S. and Israel forced out a United Nations official, but plenty of Israelis have spoken about their country becoming an apartheid state.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 3:44 AM on October 4 [11 favorites]
I haven't yet but as it so happens The Palestinian Festival of Literature account just posted a video of a bit from the trip that Coates was on.
Thank you for sharing this. It's a small thing but I'm always moved by seeing graffiti in Palestine. The video includes a quick pan of a wall. It reminds me of so many places I have been. Elia Suleiman was right when he said the world today has become a global Palestine.
posted by ftrtts at 6:30 AM on October 4 [5 favorites]
Thank you for sharing this. It's a small thing but I'm always moved by seeing graffiti in Palestine. The video includes a quick pan of a wall. It reminds me of so many places I have been. Elia Suleiman was right when he said the world today has become a global Palestine.
posted by ftrtts at 6:30 AM on October 4 [5 favorites]
I re-read the passage about "“a dull sense that the Israelis were ‘white’ and the Palestinians were ‘Black,’ which is to say that the former were the oppressors and the latter the oppressed.” - This part describes what Coates was taught in his childhood. The next part goes on to describe how out of sorts he felt in his adulthood as the messages he received from his peers were your standard Zionist talking points - "the situation is complex" "Israel has the right to exist" "Israel has the right to defend itself", etc. And how he let those things slide and didn't think any deeper of it for a long time because he thought of those peers as more knowledgeable and smarter than himself and he was insecure about his ignorance.
posted by toastyk at 7:46 AM on October 4 [11 favorites]
posted by toastyk at 7:46 AM on October 4 [11 favorites]
grumpybear69 I think you make a reasonable distinction, I just don't think that if American soldiers are on the ground "defending Israel" that distinction is going to stay in place.
How long do you think it's going to be between "defending Israel" by staying on the Israeli side of the border and "defending Israel" more proactively by crossing going into Lebanon? Five minutes? Ten?
And of course Hamas will launch missiles towards the American soldiers, do how long after that before American soldiers are in Gaza to "defend themselves" against Hamas?
In my ongoing journey in learning that no matter how cynical I am it will be enough, I am floored that it took me this long to realize that putting US soldiers on the ground in Israel is like the platonic ideal example of the wars America loves.
posted by sotonohito at 12:12 PM on October 4 [5 favorites]
How long do you think it's going to be between "defending Israel" by staying on the Israeli side of the border and "defending Israel" more proactively by crossing going into Lebanon? Five minutes? Ten?
And of course Hamas will launch missiles towards the American soldiers, do how long after that before American soldiers are in Gaza to "defend themselves" against Hamas?
In my ongoing journey in learning that no matter how cynical I am it will be enough, I am floored that it took me this long to realize that putting US soldiers on the ground in Israel is like the platonic ideal example of the wars America loves.
posted by sotonohito at 12:12 PM on October 4 [5 favorites]
I just finished the book today. It's weird to read about his observations of the genocidal nature of the occupation of Palestine in May 2023, they wanted the dowry and not the bride, at a time when Israel is doing its level best to destroy Palestinian cities and displace the Palestinian people. It feels prescient but at the same time it was already happening at a slower pace and I'd expect that current events would work their way back into his understanding of his experiences in Palestine and Israel as he was writing it.
On another note, when he describes how his professor at Howard taught one class as "Dr. Shockley" and made extremely racist statements to the class I felt like he was able to describe the need for safe spaces in a way that was clear and persuasive. I think I'm closer to getting it now.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 1:59 PM on October 4 [3 favorites]
On another note, when he describes how his professor at Howard taught one class as "Dr. Shockley" and made extremely racist statements to the class I felt like he was able to describe the need for safe spaces in a way that was clear and persuasive. I think I'm closer to getting it now.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 1:59 PM on October 4 [3 favorites]
TBH, Israel doing double taps in Lebanon is making me sick to my stomach.
sotonohito As unlikely as I believe it to be that US troops will actively engage across the Lebanese border (and doubly so across the Gaza border) it is, of course, not out of the question, because things can always get worse, and the way things have been going they probably will. And I am no doubt being naive in my worldview.
What a horroshow.
posted by grumpybear69 at 2:13 PM on October 4 [5 favorites]
sotonohito As unlikely as I believe it to be that US troops will actively engage across the Lebanese border (and doubly so across the Gaza border) it is, of course, not out of the question, because things can always get worse, and the way things have been going they probably will. And I am no doubt being naive in my worldview.
What a horroshow.
posted by grumpybear69 at 2:13 PM on October 4 [5 favorites]
Notably, the ranking Palestinian-Israeli (aka '48-Israeli; the usual term used by Western and Israeli media, "Arab-Israeli", is widely disliked by the people being referenced) in the Knesset also also says quite clearly that the treatment of Palestinians by Israel is apartheid.
posted by adrienneleigh at 7:37 PM on October 4 [5 favorites]
posted by adrienneleigh at 7:37 PM on October 4 [5 favorites]
Coates on Christiane Amanpour's show.
Appropriate tweet: they got Ta-Nehisi Coates on every channel going “is apartheid GOOD or BAD?” a candle in this abyss
posted by cendawanita at 9:42 PM on October 4 [5 favorites]
Appropriate tweet: they got Ta-Nehisi Coates on every channel going “is apartheid GOOD or BAD?” a candle in this abyss
posted by cendawanita at 9:42 PM on October 4 [5 favorites]
In case anyone was wondering, CBS has determined that the interview did not meet CBS' editorial standards (oh I guess Bari Weiss got the recording of the call) - prompting some pushback from staff:
“We will still ask tough questions. We will still hold people accountable. But we will do so objectively, which means checking our biases and opinions at the door,” Roark told staff, according to a recording of the meeting published by Bari Weiss’ The Free Press (it is worth noting that Weiss, a former New York Times columnist, has made mainstream media outlets a frequent target of her venture). It is also worth noting that the comments came on Oct. 7, the one year anniversary of the Hamas attacks, a case of extraordinarily unfortunate timing.
Ultimately, the executives also received pushback from CBS chief legal correspondent Jan Crawford, who said, “It sounds like we are calling out one of our anchors in a somewhat public setting on this call for failing to meet editorial standards for, I’m not even sure what.
“I thought our commitment was to truth. And when someone comes on our air with a one-sided account of a very complex situation, as Coates himself acknowledges that he has, it’s my understanding that as journalists we are obligated to challenge that worldview so that our viewers can have that access to the truth or a fuller account, a more balanced account,” Crawford continued. “And, to me, that is what Tony did.”
Zeteo discussed the interview with Ta-Nehisi Coates; as of now the full interview is behind a paywall.
posted by toastyk at 4:15 PM on October 7 [2 favorites]
“We will still ask tough questions. We will still hold people accountable. But we will do so objectively, which means checking our biases and opinions at the door,” Roark told staff, according to a recording of the meeting published by Bari Weiss’ The Free Press (it is worth noting that Weiss, a former New York Times columnist, has made mainstream media outlets a frequent target of her venture). It is also worth noting that the comments came on Oct. 7, the one year anniversary of the Hamas attacks, a case of extraordinarily unfortunate timing.
Ultimately, the executives also received pushback from CBS chief legal correspondent Jan Crawford, who said, “It sounds like we are calling out one of our anchors in a somewhat public setting on this call for failing to meet editorial standards for, I’m not even sure what.
“I thought our commitment was to truth. And when someone comes on our air with a one-sided account of a very complex situation, as Coates himself acknowledges that he has, it’s my understanding that as journalists we are obligated to challenge that worldview so that our viewers can have that access to the truth or a fuller account, a more balanced account,” Crawford continued. “And, to me, that is what Tony did.”
Zeteo discussed the interview with Ta-Nehisi Coates; as of now the full interview is behind a paywall.
posted by toastyk at 4:15 PM on October 7 [2 favorites]
CBS News says heated Ta-Nehisi Coates interview did not meet editorial standards after criticism (cnn.com)
Multiple correspondents and producers felt that Dokoupil betrayed bias toward Coates, and some suggested Dokoupil had a history of charged on-air comments about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Dokoupil has written publicly about converting to Judiasm and has said publicly that two of his children along with his ex-wife live in Israel.posted by adrienneleigh at 9:37 PM on October 7 [4 favorites]
In wake of the criticism, CBS News and Stations president and CEO Wendy McMahon and her top deputy Adrienne Roark enlisted the network’s standards and practices unit to conduct a review of the discussion, according to sources familiar with the matter. The news division’s race and culture unit was involved as well.
if Israel (and Netanyahu in particular) doesn't change tacks quickly, Jewish people won't be safe anywhere.
a) 1200 Israelis were killed by an attack their own security forces tried to warn the government about, so i’m not sure we are safer there now than anywhere else.
b) if it were really true that israel were the only safe place for jews, a lot more fuckin people would have already made aliyah and moved there, including some of the biggest scaremongers on social media. they feel perfectly safe where they are.
posted by knock my sock and i'll clean your clock at 9:33 PM on October 8 [5 favorites]
a) 1200 Israelis were killed by an attack their own security forces tried to warn the government about, so i’m not sure we are safer there now than anywhere else.
b) if it were really true that israel were the only safe place for jews, a lot more fuckin people would have already made aliyah and moved there, including some of the biggest scaremongers on social media. they feel perfectly safe where they are.
posted by knock my sock and i'll clean your clock at 9:33 PM on October 8 [5 favorites]
when someone comes on our air with a one-sided account of a very complex situation, as Coates himself acknowledges that he has, it’s my understanding that as journalists we are obligated
ohh boy
posted by away for regrooving at 12:03 AM on October 9 [3 favorites]
ohh boy
posted by away for regrooving at 12:03 AM on October 9 [3 favorites]
In this trailer for Trevor Noah's interview with Ta-Nehisi Coates, the full episode of which will drop tomorrow, Coates makes the point that Tony Dokoupil's barrage of questioning completely sidelined Gayle King, who had showed him that she had her own questions to ask about the book.
Anyway, according to the NY Post, Tony Dokoupil offered "regrets" at a teary staff meeting but did not back down from his "incisive questioning" (NY Post wording) of Coates.
posted by toastyk at 9:56 AM on October 9 [6 favorites]
Anyway, according to the NY Post, Tony Dokoupil offered "regrets" at a teary staff meeting but did not back down from his "incisive questioning" (NY Post wording) of Coates.
posted by toastyk at 9:56 AM on October 9 [6 favorites]
Tony Dokoupil truly is the gift that keeps on giving, Zeteo reports: It was the sitdown with Coates, who was promoting his new book The Message, that was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Due to the fraught nature of the book, which features an essay on the “apartheid” Coates witnessed in the occupied West Bank, the network went through its standard protocol of vetting questions through its legal, standards, and race and culture departments. The properly vetted questions were then included on what’s known as a “one-sheet,” from which everyone within the show works.
As newsroom staffers pointed out to Zeteo, the “one-sheet is done for a reason,” which is to work within editorial standards. Hosts or reporters can push back and discuss what is on the sheet and whether it has been properly fact-checked, but one has to be working within that process to begin with.
While co-host Nate Burleson stuck to the plan with his first question, Dokoupil immediately deviated from the script. The anchor said that Coates’ book “would not be out of place in the backpack of an extremist,” wondered if the author was “offended by the Jewish state,” and questioned why he didn’t include “appropriate” context about the Palestinians’ role in their own oppression. Dokoupil’s ex-wife and two children live in Israel, by the way, something he did not disclose in the interview.
posted by toastyk at 3:59 PM on October 9 [9 favorites]
As newsroom staffers pointed out to Zeteo, the “one-sheet is done for a reason,” which is to work within editorial standards. Hosts or reporters can push back and discuss what is on the sheet and whether it has been properly fact-checked, but one has to be working within that process to begin with.
While co-host Nate Burleson stuck to the plan with his first question, Dokoupil immediately deviated from the script. The anchor said that Coates’ book “would not be out of place in the backpack of an extremist,” wondered if the author was “offended by the Jewish state,” and questioned why he didn’t include “appropriate” context about the Palestinians’ role in their own oppression. Dokoupil’s ex-wife and two children live in Israel, by the way, something he did not disclose in the interview.
posted by toastyk at 3:59 PM on October 9 [9 favorites]
The full interview with Trevor Noah has dropped this morning. The CBS interview is only about a minute of it; the rest is an hour-long exploration of the rest of the book, and wrestling with difficult questions. Well worth your time.
posted by toastyk at 9:48 AM on October 10 [12 favorites]
posted by toastyk at 9:48 AM on October 10 [12 favorites]
That's a great interview/conversation, thanks for posting the link!
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 6:41 PM on October 10 [3 favorites]
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 6:41 PM on October 10 [3 favorites]
Ta-Nehisi Coates has been doing quite the press tour, and I've collected a few worth checking out:
NYT Interview with Ezra Klein (Transcript ungated)
MSNBC interview with Ayman Mohyeldin, worth watching for Coates' expression at some of the criticism levelled at this book.
Haaretz interview ungated: "The question I would ask is: Can you ever truly be safe through guns? Can you ever truly be safe through the need to exercise incredible violence against people and their children? Are you actually safe? Is your soul safe? Do you really feel safe?"
posted by toastyk at 11:49 AM on October 14 [4 favorites]
NYT Interview with Ezra Klein (Transcript ungated)
MSNBC interview with Ayman Mohyeldin, worth watching for Coates' expression at some of the criticism levelled at this book.
Haaretz interview ungated: "The question I would ask is: Can you ever truly be safe through guns? Can you ever truly be safe through the need to exercise incredible violence against people and their children? Are you actually safe? Is your soul safe? Do you really feel safe?"
posted by toastyk at 11:49 AM on October 14 [4 favorites]
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posted by Larry David Syndrome at 5:50 AM on October 1 [12 favorites]