I am in total agreement with your caution about how language is used in considering this disaster. I avoid words like "genocide" or even "apartheid" though the latter really DOES apply to "occupied" areas like the West Bank and East Jerusalem. You only have to look at pictures of the actual walls erected around Palestinian towns and neig…
I am in total agreement with your caution about how language is used in considering this disaster. I avoid words like "genocide" or even "apartheid" though the latter really DOES apply to "occupied" areas like the West Bank and East Jerusalem. You only have to look at pictures of the actual walls erected around Palestinian towns and neighborhoods, and read about the checkpoints, not to mention the settler attacks.
The biggest language issue is saying that "Israel" is doing X. Most people understand that it is the government of Israel running the show, including reports which detail how the government is keeping the major news outlets in Israel from letting the Israeli people know what their troops are doing. (it's hard to ignore the protests over hostages, but it is hard to see whether absent the hostages the Israeli people would object to the actual execution of the war the way so many of us objected to the war in Vietnam.)
I think it is safe to say certain elements of the government support "genocide" in the broadest sense of forcing Palestinians out of Gaza and the West Bank to allow expansion of Israel into their lands. Perhaps "ethnic cleansing" is a marginally less loaded word, not having the -cide syllable that suggests it must be by murder.
What throws me most, as a retired lawyer, is the paucity of EVIDENCE of so many allegations, so that it is impossible to decide how to decipher how they fit into the total picture. IDF claims are rarely supported by WHY they claim what they do, and rarely do they report on the results of the investigations they always say they are making of various issues involving behavior of their soldiers, either in Gaza or the West Bank. When they do release the results, there seems to be counterevidence that they ignore--the recent killing of the American-Turkish woman is an example.
Another such problem involves the pre-October 7th attacks by Hamas. One side says those (suicide bombers included) were reactions to things Israelis did to Palestinians--proximately, not in general. The other side calls it "continuing terror" suggesting mindless hatred. I haven't been able to find any actual accounting of the attacks since Hamas took power and what factors were behind each. Similarly, while Hamas lobs missiles, the Iron Dome does stop most of them. How many Israelis have been killed by such, and (again) what--before the war began--prompted the missiles?
I can certainly understand Israeli fears for their safety, certainly in the past year, but I do have questions
a) How realistic is it to claim Hamas is in fact an "existential" threat to Israel on its own? Before the war it had 40-50 thousand members. How many of those were soldiers and how many were just government functionaries--it IS in fact a coup-established authoritarian government handing out perks to members the same way Tammany Hall did, not to mention trump's dreamworld? Even assuming they were ALL soldiers, The IDF has 160K with 465,000 reserves. And how much of the fear of that is being ginned up in a similar way to trump's rants about immigrants? Again, I haven't seen much evidence of WHY Hamas itself should be seen as an existential threat.
b) How much has the war in Gaza made things worse (from an existential point of view) by activating other groups like Hezbollah and the Houthis? That is one way of wondering whether the prosecution of the war is INCREASING any such threat to Israel. Given the reaction of the world to the decimation of Gaza, one can wonder who exactly is the existential threat to Israel: the terrorists or its own government? Certainly on the eve of the war treaties with the major Arab nations were in progress. How much of the idea that every Arab hates Israel based on, well, outdated data?
c) The history of the Jews is one of endless persecution and, with the Holocaust, extreme killings. I have always supported the IDEA of Israel as a corrective to that. But does the fact that a people have been persecuted give them the right to persecute others? Again, this is not just the major killings in Gaza, but also the treatment of Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
d) As far as rising anti-semitism in the US goes, my own sense is that this is way more the result of trump's allowing people to let their worst sides all hang out. Antisemitism and racism are not DEAD in American by any means, just tamped under by what for a while was a norm of basic civility. I've been reading Rachel Maddow's "Prequel" and the rampant and open antisemitism of the likes of Father Coughlin and his ilk was not all that long ago--it certainly underlay a lot of society during my own childhood. It feels (again, I myself have no hard evidence) that this "let it all hang out" is triggered against certain groups by outside events: The "China virus" and spike of anti-Asian activity; the BLM protests and animus towards blacks even greater than usual; and now, the Gaza war, oversimplified as Arabs vs Jews. The Christian Nationalists in the US certainly don't count Jews as "white."
f) how many Jewish students actually felt unsafe during the protests and how much were they TOLD they were unsafe, in particular by one rabbi in New York. How many of the "slogans" of the protestors were actually antisemitic? "Free Palestine" can mean just that--not the destruction of Israel but basic ideas of equal rights in light of the West Bank settlers, for example. You don't have to get into the rhetoric of "colonialism" to know that the "settlers" are indeed taking over Palestinian lands by force, nor to recognize the effects on Gaza of the blockade by the Israeli government that has lasted for years. "Gee, settlers were removed from Gaza in 2005" isn't really an answer to the effects of the blockade.
Similarly, stating you are "antizionist" is only antisemitic if you accept the idea that to do so is to deny the right of Israel to exist. That's only one definition: language changes no matter how one protests the fact. Most people refer to the "Zionists" now as those in government and their supporters who DO want to actually take over Palestinian lands.
Even "from the river to the sea" is fraught with ambiguity. It is the least defendable chant, but it can mean "from the river to the sea there must be peace." And one should not forget that Likud in 1977 had an actual manifesto: "Between the sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty." And Netanyahu has used (last January) the actual phrase in relation to his government's aims.
When the war started I spent a LOT of time looking into the background. The Palestinians have been given short shrift since 1947--the best lands were divided back then primarily to the benefit of Israel. After that the 1968 war ate more territory and the Oslo Accords even divided the West Bank into enclaves in what was formally considered all Palestinians. I have subscribed to Haaretz. Admittedly it is left wing, but it is also Israeli, and it regularly brings out things the normal news ignores.
What I am seeing a lot is a bunch of people on both sides who haven't bothered to get educated on the total picture. We are in a war, here, of talking points with no examination of their truth or whether they rely on overgeneralization the same way anti-immigrant paranoia is stoked up.
I am in total agreement with your caution about how language is used in considering this disaster. I avoid words like "genocide" or even "apartheid" though the latter really DOES apply to "occupied" areas like the West Bank and East Jerusalem. You only have to look at pictures of the actual walls erected around Palestinian towns and neighborhoods, and read about the checkpoints, not to mention the settler attacks.
The biggest language issue is saying that "Israel" is doing X. Most people understand that it is the government of Israel running the show, including reports which detail how the government is keeping the major news outlets in Israel from letting the Israeli people know what their troops are doing. (it's hard to ignore the protests over hostages, but it is hard to see whether absent the hostages the Israeli people would object to the actual execution of the war the way so many of us objected to the war in Vietnam.)
I think it is safe to say certain elements of the government support "genocide" in the broadest sense of forcing Palestinians out of Gaza and the West Bank to allow expansion of Israel into their lands. Perhaps "ethnic cleansing" is a marginally less loaded word, not having the -cide syllable that suggests it must be by murder.
What throws me most, as a retired lawyer, is the paucity of EVIDENCE of so many allegations, so that it is impossible to decide how to decipher how they fit into the total picture. IDF claims are rarely supported by WHY they claim what they do, and rarely do they report on the results of the investigations they always say they are making of various issues involving behavior of their soldiers, either in Gaza or the West Bank. When they do release the results, there seems to be counterevidence that they ignore--the recent killing of the American-Turkish woman is an example.
Another such problem involves the pre-October 7th attacks by Hamas. One side says those (suicide bombers included) were reactions to things Israelis did to Palestinians--proximately, not in general. The other side calls it "continuing terror" suggesting mindless hatred. I haven't been able to find any actual accounting of the attacks since Hamas took power and what factors were behind each. Similarly, while Hamas lobs missiles, the Iron Dome does stop most of them. How many Israelis have been killed by such, and (again) what--before the war began--prompted the missiles?
I can certainly understand Israeli fears for their safety, certainly in the past year, but I do have questions
a) How realistic is it to claim Hamas is in fact an "existential" threat to Israel on its own? Before the war it had 40-50 thousand members. How many of those were soldiers and how many were just government functionaries--it IS in fact a coup-established authoritarian government handing out perks to members the same way Tammany Hall did, not to mention trump's dreamworld? Even assuming they were ALL soldiers, The IDF has 160K with 465,000 reserves. And how much of the fear of that is being ginned up in a similar way to trump's rants about immigrants? Again, I haven't seen much evidence of WHY Hamas itself should be seen as an existential threat.
b) How much has the war in Gaza made things worse (from an existential point of view) by activating other groups like Hezbollah and the Houthis? That is one way of wondering whether the prosecution of the war is INCREASING any such threat to Israel. Given the reaction of the world to the decimation of Gaza, one can wonder who exactly is the existential threat to Israel: the terrorists or its own government? Certainly on the eve of the war treaties with the major Arab nations were in progress. How much of the idea that every Arab hates Israel based on, well, outdated data?
c) The history of the Jews is one of endless persecution and, with the Holocaust, extreme killings. I have always supported the IDEA of Israel as a corrective to that. But does the fact that a people have been persecuted give them the right to persecute others? Again, this is not just the major killings in Gaza, but also the treatment of Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
d) As far as rising anti-semitism in the US goes, my own sense is that this is way more the result of trump's allowing people to let their worst sides all hang out. Antisemitism and racism are not DEAD in American by any means, just tamped under by what for a while was a norm of basic civility. I've been reading Rachel Maddow's "Prequel" and the rampant and open antisemitism of the likes of Father Coughlin and his ilk was not all that long ago--it certainly underlay a lot of society during my own childhood. It feels (again, I myself have no hard evidence) that this "let it all hang out" is triggered against certain groups by outside events: The "China virus" and spike of anti-Asian activity; the BLM protests and animus towards blacks even greater than usual; and now, the Gaza war, oversimplified as Arabs vs Jews. The Christian Nationalists in the US certainly don't count Jews as "white."
f) how many Jewish students actually felt unsafe during the protests and how much were they TOLD they were unsafe, in particular by one rabbi in New York. How many of the "slogans" of the protestors were actually antisemitic? "Free Palestine" can mean just that--not the destruction of Israel but basic ideas of equal rights in light of the West Bank settlers, for example. You don't have to get into the rhetoric of "colonialism" to know that the "settlers" are indeed taking over Palestinian lands by force, nor to recognize the effects on Gaza of the blockade by the Israeli government that has lasted for years. "Gee, settlers were removed from Gaza in 2005" isn't really an answer to the effects of the blockade.
Similarly, stating you are "antizionist" is only antisemitic if you accept the idea that to do so is to deny the right of Israel to exist. That's only one definition: language changes no matter how one protests the fact. Most people refer to the "Zionists" now as those in government and their supporters who DO want to actually take over Palestinian lands.
Even "from the river to the sea" is fraught with ambiguity. It is the least defendable chant, but it can mean "from the river to the sea there must be peace." And one should not forget that Likud in 1977 had an actual manifesto: "Between the sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty." And Netanyahu has used (last January) the actual phrase in relation to his government's aims.
When the war started I spent a LOT of time looking into the background. The Palestinians have been given short shrift since 1947--the best lands were divided back then primarily to the benefit of Israel. After that the 1968 war ate more territory and the Oslo Accords even divided the West Bank into enclaves in what was formally considered all Palestinians. I have subscribed to Haaretz. Admittedly it is left wing, but it is also Israeli, and it regularly brings out things the normal news ignores.
What I am seeing a lot is a bunch of people on both sides who haven't bothered to get educated on the total picture. We are in a war, here, of talking points with no examination of their truth or whether they rely on overgeneralization the same way anti-immigrant paranoia is stoked up.