“What I’m seeing on campuses is what I think of as illiberal leftism,” he told me. “I worry about Gen Z. Colleges are increasingly illiberal, and there is a rise of illiberal progressivism that is hostile to the concept of individual rights, free expression, free enterprise, free inquiry.” Too many young activists, he said, view the conf…
“What I’m seeing on campuses is what I think of as illiberal leftism,” he told me. “I worry about Gen Z. Colleges are increasingly illiberal, and there is a rise of illiberal progressivism that is hostile to the concept of individual rights, free expression, free enterprise, free inquiry.” Too many young activists, he said, view the conflict through the academic lens of colonialism. “It collapses all of the context of and history of the Middle East into the binary of oppressor vs oppressed.”
The problem with young activists viewing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through colonialism is that it’s a false equivalency.
Jews were expelled from Judea by the Romans. And Jews never controlled a country or settled in Israel on behalf of any nation. Jews had no nation, and were never even treated as citizens in Europe, Asia, The Middle East or Africa.
They didn’t colonize Israel as part of a foreign conquest. The Zionist movement didn’t pay tribute to foreign sovereigns, Prime Ministers or kings and modern day Israel is its own country. They can’t be colonists based on the definition of colonialism itself:
Colonialism: “the policy or practice of acquiring full or partial political control over another country, occupying it with settlers, and exploiting it economically.”
Jews moved away from Israel because of the Diaspora or because they were forcefully being expelled. And they came back when they could. And while Palestinians can make a claim to the land, so can the Jews.
I’d prefer all debates about the future of Israel and Palestinian be focused on reality, and living in the present, not the past; which is riddled with misconceptions, misinformation and lies. Social media and state sponsored misinformation doesn’t help either.
There’s a shallow lens, inspired by Marxism and common on campus, that views everything as oppressor/oppressor relationships regardless of details. In this milieu, Israel is the oppressor and the bad guy.
However, you don’t have to be hard leftist throwing around rhetoric about “colonialism” to see problems with Israel. If you apply the lens of Anglo-American liberalism and consider principles like ‘equality under the law’, Israel is lacking. Places like the West Bank and Gaza have rock-bottom Freedom House scores largely due to a lack of political rights.
Israel currently resists giving Palestinians a true state and also rejects the multi-ethnic pluralism of a one state solution.
All young people have seen is a series of far right governments, always led by the same crook and Trump / Putin ass-kiser, Bibi. They see young people in Israel protesting a creeping authoritarianism. They see Israeli officials refusing to help Ukraine and even resisting the idea that Israel should be considered a ‘western country’. They see Israel building West Bank settlements and calling a Palestinian state “dead”. They see a state that is sliding away from from liberalism, that does not have any plan for the rights of Palestinians, and really does have some parallels to apartheid South Africa. All that has consequences for public opinion - not just on American campuses but globally.
And yet, at the Bulwark - those who criticize Israeli illiberalism are considered “illiberal”.
Fair enough and I agree. My point about colonialism had nothing to do with the right-wing government and Netanyahu; who I despise...:)
That said, Bibi has been paying only lip service to a two state solution. Yet, we’re still missing one ingredient to a practical solution; a legitimate partner. The PA is weak and despised by the average Palestinian, and Hamas is a terrorist organization committed to the destruction of the state.
Fatah and Hamas have all sorts of deficiencies and derangements. But I think that even if Thomas Jefferson and the Continental Congress were leading the Palestinians, Israel would still find a way not to make a two state deal. The longstanding goal of the Israeli right, and now just the de facto trajectory, is to expand settlements and ultimately annex jewish dominated areas, leaving Palestinians in the same citizenship limbo - just in smaller geographic enclaves. I think the Israeli polity today prefers this outcome - even if it comes with more Palestinian grievance, reduced security, and lower international support.
I don’t disagree with anything you are saying. But something has to give. Every two to three years it’s the same, except technology gets more sophisticated and deadly; and the violent and even more unpredictable.
How many more cycles of this will the world tolerate before it gives up and just lets them kill each other? It’s a never ended cycle of intransigence and stupidity!
It's an incredibly complicated history but at least part of the reason why Israel was created was because Britain took over that part of the world, which was obviously colonialism.
But Jews weren’t allowed to return under British rule, the reason Zionists went to war with the British in Palestine prior to WW2.
I agree with your assessment, but Jews didn’t go on behalf of the British government, and after WW2, it was the UN, not the British that partitioned a two state solution.
And quite frankly, the Europeans divided the entire ME. Saudi Arabia, Iraq and modern day Iran weren’t nations until the European’s installed monarchs until the fall of the Ottoman Empire after WW1.
My point, you can’t call Jews colonialists; it defies logic..:)
IIRC, Iran doesn't fall into the same category as Iraq and the like since it wasn't part of the Ottoman Empire. To be sure, there was a lot of European meddling (Russia and UK), but not created by European map-makers in the same way.
As to Colonialism, I think it depends on how the term is being used. Personally I think it is way too broad to use it both for things like Jamestown on one end and the protectorates established after WWI from the former Ottoman Empire. Sure, maybe they both fit under imperialism, and I really don't want to whitewash things, but colonialism to me applies much more to places established from the 1500's through the late 1800's. Maybe its a distinction without a difference though.
I didn’t. But one could make a link from colonialism to the founding of Israel. It’s not crazy. And obviously the Europeans dividing up the ME was colonialism too.
You can make the link if you change the definition, but it wasn’t a form of colonialism. That said, no point in arguing because it’s a distinction without a difference.
Additionally, I would think the European model of dividing the ME would be closer to imperialism. They didn’t occupy the country, they just installed monarchs for economic control over their resources.
Of course it was imperialism. Why are you making such a big distinction with colonialism? No, Brits didn't move to Palestine en masse to settle it. Yes, it's a distinction without a difference. They're basically the same thing.
If of course it was imperialism then just say so. I only said it’s a distinction without a difference because I constantly hear people confuse the two. There is a difference, yet to our youth, they make no distinction...:)
"Colonizer" "oppressed/oppressor" are the terms of art in critical theories (race, etc) that are popular in lefty humanities. Actual definitions also don't apply, because they create new ones to match their arguments/points of view.
The Jews are people, they don’t have a single will that makes a decision en masses, so they didn’t move back ‘when they could.’ Jewish moral and economic entrepreneurs looked at the Holocaust (and the past pogroms in Russia and Eastern Europe) said ‘never again’, and decided a Jewish State was the solution. As for the definition above for colonialism is pretty much how the Jewish state began. I’m not interested in ‘misconceptions, misinformation and lies’ either.
I never said that Jews, of which I am one, went back in masses, but during the Zionist movement, many returned on their own accord.
And how can you claim that Israel began as a colonialist state? Exactly who or which country did they represent? Secondly, Jews lived in Palestine during the Ottoman Empire dating back to the 1500’s and made up approximately 5-7% of the population. Far from colonialists. So I’m not sure of the disconnect here.
My point is they didn’t leave Israel willingly during the diaspora, or when being expelled during Roman rule, when many were enslaved and sent to Rome to build their great cities, and others expelled from Israel completely, resettling in Europe, Asia and Africa.
And during the Zionist period, Jews initially bought land from Palestinians during in the late 1800’s? They didn’t immigrate by force or takeover the government.
That said, when did the Palestinians ever rule the country? It went from the Ottoman’s to the British and Egyptians after WW1. Palestine never existed as a sovereign nation. It was a mandate after the fall of the Ottoman’s (after WWI), and remained a mandate until the UN created two separate homelands.
“What I’m seeing on campuses is what I think of as illiberal leftism,” he told me. “I worry about Gen Z. Colleges are increasingly illiberal, and there is a rise of illiberal progressivism that is hostile to the concept of individual rights, free expression, free enterprise, free inquiry.” Too many young activists, he said, view the conflict through the academic lens of colonialism. “It collapses all of the context of and history of the Middle East into the binary of oppressor vs oppressed.”
The problem with young activists viewing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through colonialism is that it’s a false equivalency.
Jews were expelled from Judea by the Romans. And Jews never controlled a country or settled in Israel on behalf of any nation. Jews had no nation, and were never even treated as citizens in Europe, Asia, The Middle East or Africa.
They didn’t colonize Israel as part of a foreign conquest. The Zionist movement didn’t pay tribute to foreign sovereigns, Prime Ministers or kings and modern day Israel is its own country. They can’t be colonists based on the definition of colonialism itself:
Colonialism: “the policy or practice of acquiring full or partial political control over another country, occupying it with settlers, and exploiting it economically.”
Jews moved away from Israel because of the Diaspora or because they were forcefully being expelled. And they came back when they could. And while Palestinians can make a claim to the land, so can the Jews.
I’d prefer all debates about the future of Israel and Palestinian be focused on reality, and living in the present, not the past; which is riddled with misconceptions, misinformation and lies. Social media and state sponsored misinformation doesn’t help either.
Just a thought!
There’s a shallow lens, inspired by Marxism and common on campus, that views everything as oppressor/oppressor relationships regardless of details. In this milieu, Israel is the oppressor and the bad guy.
However, you don’t have to be hard leftist throwing around rhetoric about “colonialism” to see problems with Israel. If you apply the lens of Anglo-American liberalism and consider principles like ‘equality under the law’, Israel is lacking. Places like the West Bank and Gaza have rock-bottom Freedom House scores largely due to a lack of political rights.
Israel currently resists giving Palestinians a true state and also rejects the multi-ethnic pluralism of a one state solution.
All young people have seen is a series of far right governments, always led by the same crook and Trump / Putin ass-kiser, Bibi. They see young people in Israel protesting a creeping authoritarianism. They see Israeli officials refusing to help Ukraine and even resisting the idea that Israel should be considered a ‘western country’. They see Israel building West Bank settlements and calling a Palestinian state “dead”. They see a state that is sliding away from from liberalism, that does not have any plan for the rights of Palestinians, and really does have some parallels to apartheid South Africa. All that has consequences for public opinion - not just on American campuses but globally.
And yet, at the Bulwark - those who criticize Israeli illiberalism are considered “illiberal”.
Fair enough and I agree. My point about colonialism had nothing to do with the right-wing government and Netanyahu; who I despise...:)
That said, Bibi has been paying only lip service to a two state solution. Yet, we’re still missing one ingredient to a practical solution; a legitimate partner. The PA is weak and despised by the average Palestinian, and Hamas is a terrorist organization committed to the destruction of the state.
Fatah and Hamas have all sorts of deficiencies and derangements. But I think that even if Thomas Jefferson and the Continental Congress were leading the Palestinians, Israel would still find a way not to make a two state deal. The longstanding goal of the Israeli right, and now just the de facto trajectory, is to expand settlements and ultimately annex jewish dominated areas, leaving Palestinians in the same citizenship limbo - just in smaller geographic enclaves. I think the Israeli polity today prefers this outcome - even if it comes with more Palestinian grievance, reduced security, and lower international support.
I don’t disagree with anything you are saying. But something has to give. Every two to three years it’s the same, except technology gets more sophisticated and deadly; and the violent and even more unpredictable.
How many more cycles of this will the world tolerate before it gives up and just lets them kill each other? It’s a never ended cycle of intransigence and stupidity!
Yep! https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/10/israel-settlers-violence-netanyahu-government/675755/
It's an incredibly complicated history but at least part of the reason why Israel was created was because Britain took over that part of the world, which was obviously colonialism.
But Jews weren’t allowed to return under British rule, the reason Zionists went to war with the British in Palestine prior to WW2.
I agree with your assessment, but Jews didn’t go on behalf of the British government, and after WW2, it was the UN, not the British that partitioned a two state solution.
And quite frankly, the Europeans divided the entire ME. Saudi Arabia, Iraq and modern day Iran weren’t nations until the European’s installed monarchs until the fall of the Ottoman Empire after WW1.
My point, you can’t call Jews colonialists; it defies logic..:)
IIRC, Iran doesn't fall into the same category as Iraq and the like since it wasn't part of the Ottoman Empire. To be sure, there was a lot of European meddling (Russia and UK), but not created by European map-makers in the same way.
As to Colonialism, I think it depends on how the term is being used. Personally I think it is way too broad to use it both for things like Jamestown on one end and the protectorates established after WWI from the former Ottoman Empire. Sure, maybe they both fit under imperialism, and I really don't want to whitewash things, but colonialism to me applies much more to places established from the 1500's through the late 1800's. Maybe its a distinction without a difference though.
Agreed and well said..:)
I didn’t. But one could make a link from colonialism to the founding of Israel. It’s not crazy. And obviously the Europeans dividing up the ME was colonialism too.
You can make the link if you change the definition, but it wasn’t a form of colonialism. That said, no point in arguing because it’s a distinction without a difference.
Additionally, I would think the European model of dividing the ME would be closer to imperialism. They didn’t occupy the country, they just installed monarchs for economic control over their resources.
Of course it was imperialism. Why are you making such a big distinction with colonialism? No, Brits didn't move to Palestine en masse to settle it. Yes, it's a distinction without a difference. They're basically the same thing.
If of course it was imperialism then just say so. I only said it’s a distinction without a difference because I constantly hear people confuse the two. There is a difference, yet to our youth, they make no distinction...:)
"Colonizer" "oppressed/oppressor" are the terms of art in critical theories (race, etc) that are popular in lefty humanities. Actual definitions also don't apply, because they create new ones to match their arguments/points of view.
The Jews are people, they don’t have a single will that makes a decision en masses, so they didn’t move back ‘when they could.’ Jewish moral and economic entrepreneurs looked at the Holocaust (and the past pogroms in Russia and Eastern Europe) said ‘never again’, and decided a Jewish State was the solution. As for the definition above for colonialism is pretty much how the Jewish state began. I’m not interested in ‘misconceptions, misinformation and lies’ either.
I never said that Jews, of which I am one, went back in masses, but during the Zionist movement, many returned on their own accord.
And how can you claim that Israel began as a colonialist state? Exactly who or which country did they represent? Secondly, Jews lived in Palestine during the Ottoman Empire dating back to the 1500’s and made up approximately 5-7% of the population. Far from colonialists. So I’m not sure of the disconnect here.
My point is they didn’t leave Israel willingly during the diaspora, or when being expelled during Roman rule, when many were enslaved and sent to Rome to build their great cities, and others expelled from Israel completely, resettling in Europe, Asia and Africa.
And during the Zionist period, Jews initially bought land from Palestinians during in the late 1800’s? They didn’t immigrate by force or takeover the government.
That said, when did the Palestinians ever rule the country? It went from the Ottoman’s to the British and Egyptians after WW1. Palestine never existed as a sovereign nation. It was a mandate after the fall of the Ottoman’s (after WWI), and remained a mandate until the UN created two separate homelands.
So I’m not sure you’re point!