Cory Booker is so cancelled.
Let’s hope every day that Netanyahu is easily reelected and crushes the spirit of the liberal Zionists. His value is priceless for helping American Jews break up with Israel. The centrists won’t change anything, true, but they would give enough lip service to a doomed peace process that the world, and liberal Zionists, will sigh in relief, normalize the government and end all pressure.
In Portnoy’s Complaint, he fails a vocabulary test in school by failing to identify a spatula even though he knew the word. (He says he thought it was Yiddish word for it.) I was just pointing out how certain words recur when these issues are debated
Thanks Annie! I have a quiet account for reading. I could fight them to get reinstated, but honestly I just didn’t have the passion for a big battle with Twitter.
Someday someone can explain how words like “canard” became so entrenched in the Israel conversation that they’re like “spatula” in Portnoy’s Complaint, words you think are Jewish. Why are Zionists always “ardent” and anti-Zionists always “virulent”?
This is totally correct and I’m strongly hoping for a Netanyahu victory, as last time, and am pretty confident he will pull it off again. He is an invaluable symbol of Israeli racism, corruption, and boorishness.
Warren is abysmal and we need to unite to defeat her. Sanders has many shortcomings on foreign policy, which I called out 3 years ago on this site, but he has improved considerably since then and most importantly, he has Matt Duss. Of course I wish he backed BDS, but he will rearrange our relationship with Israel and no other candidate will.
Ben White may be too optimistic but this is a little too pessimistic. Our task is to change things and we have a lot to work with here. If centrist Jews want a two-state solution that really just extends the occupation, young Jews who are the future don’t necessarily agree.
Yes, Nadler has been elevated and is very pro-Israel, but he shows some nuance – for example he has avoided co-sponsoring the Israel Anti-Boycott Act. As for Engel, we should Ocasio him in the next election. If we can claim some scalps and defeat some bad Dems in 2020 primaries over Israel (and if we mount a sustained campaign to defeat Jumaane Williams for NYC public advocate for palling around with AIPAC) it will change the climate. https://twitter.com/peterfeld/status/1065098163005075457
Also, Sanders has a decent chance to be elected president in 2020 and despite some problematic things he has said about Israel and BDS, he refused to go to AIPAC, he knows his base is livid against Israel, and if he wins he’ll be bringing Matt Duss with him to the WH. (This is why I have no interest in any other Dem running for president.)
We need to look at this landscape and use what it offers us to change it.
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I agree with you but Salaita isn’t saying anything that would exclude Chomsky or Goldman. He is talking about groups that come to left protests as Zionists, to cloak Zionism in progressivism. (“Redwashing,” maybe.) Groups that “frequently wave Israeli flags (or pinkwashed facsimiles).” When Chomsky or Goldman or Avneri or If Not Now come into these progressive spaces, they come not waving their Zionism, as trolls or for redwashing, but as critics of what Israel is doing.
He says explicitly: “‘No Zionists’ isn’t necessarily an individual litmus test. Protest leaders cannot vet the opinions of each participant, nor should they desire that kind of power, but they do influence messaging and sense of community. And in these areas Zionism is a hindrance.”
And he continues: “Plenty of people are opposed to the Israeli occupation but still consider themselves Zionist. Views change all the time, often when we engage new communities. Protest doesn’t exist simply to make a point. It creates an environment in which people can search, debate, and, ideally, grow. I have no problem sharing a picket line with folks whose views on Palestine differ from mine. [Emphasis mine] The problem arises when those with a messianic attachment to the fantasy that Israel and justice are compatible perform displays of Zionism in order to aggravate or proselytize. Lest we forget, Zionism is an expansionist ideology that endeavors to dominate its opponents, so it is difficult to accept the presence of its advocates in good faith.”
Unless I’m very wrong (?) it seems pretty clear from that this last statement is not meant to exile Noam Chomsky from the progressive movement. He means astroturf trolls like Zioness.