Writes Simon Sebag Montefiore in "The Decolonization Narrative Is Dangerous and False/It does not accurately describe either the foundation of Israel or the tragedy of the Palestinians" (The Atlantic).
Much more at the link.
October 29, 2023
"The decolonization narrative has dehumanized Israelis to the extent that otherwise rational people excuse, deny, or support barbarity."
"It holds that Israel is an 'imperialist-colonialist' force, that Israelis are 'settler-colonialists,' and that Palestinians have a right to eliminate their oppressors.... It casts Israelis as 'white' or 'white-adjacent' and Palestinians as 'people of color.' This ideology, powerful in the academy but long overdue for serious challenge, is a toxic, historically nonsensical mix of Marxist theory, Soviet propaganda, and traditional anti-Semitism from the Middle Ages and the 19th century. But its current engine is the new identity analysis, which sees history through a concept of race that derives from the American experience. The argument is that it is almost impossible for the 'oppressed' to be themselves racist, just as it is impossible for an 'oppressor' to be the subject of racism. Jews therefore cannot suffer racism, because they are regarded as 'white' and 'privileged'; although they cannot be victims, they can and do exploit other, less privileged people, in the West through the sins of 'exploitative capitalism' and in the Middle East through 'colonialism.' This leftist analysis, with its hierarchy of oppressed identities—and intimidating jargon, a clue to its lack of factual rigor—has in many parts of the academy and media replaced traditional universalist leftist values, including internationalist standards of decency and respect for human life and the safety of innocent civilians. When this clumsy analysis collides with the realities of the Middle East, it loses all touch with historical facts...."
Writes Simon Sebag Montefiore in "The Decolonization Narrative Is Dangerous and False/It does not accurately describe either the foundation of Israel or the tragedy of the Palestinians" (The Atlantic).
Writes Simon Sebag Montefiore in "The Decolonization Narrative Is Dangerous and False/It does not accurately describe either the foundation of Israel or the tragedy of the Palestinians" (The Atlantic).
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57 comments:
The Palestinians do seem to luxuriate--maybe marinate is the better word--in their hatred of Jews. There's a lot of hatred in the world, but their hatred really seems off the charts. ISIS is famous for raping women and burning their prisoners alive, but, so far as I know, they never beheaded any babies.....What he says of the Palestinians can also be said of the Jews and just about everybody. There's absolutely no evidence that oppression ennobles the human spirit. I've some first hand experience being down trodden. It didn't improve my disposition, wisdom, or character. I'm a much nicer person now that I've accumulated a few perks and privileges.
Wow! The Atlantic departs from the Left’s narrative.
And such is the fate of lefty and new religious movements generation after generation: (1) Push all tough/fair/moderate opposition out of the discussion for clear messaging on a "better" vision for the future. (2) Generate a thick ideological bubble with insider jargon, dogmas, and taboo topics. (3) Uncritically grant everyone on the team equal power merely because they are insiders, even when they suck. (4) Clever tyrants and lunatics then take over, as the strong moderate critics were pushed out in step #1 and as the remaining conformist sheep lack the will and ability to self-correct.
Routine law of nature with predators and prey: Use camouflage to avoid predators and/or be a predator. Evolve toxins and claws and teeth to facilitate killing. Primal. Survivalistic. Non-intellectual. Not even remotely "progressive" -- just random tribal fighting.
I'm happy to see this got the Critical Race Theory tag, despite that term not appearing in the excerpt. The main effect of effect of CRT seems to be creating an emotional justification for otherwise unjust things, like racial discrimination via affirmative action, vilification of people based on racial background, and violence and destruction like the Hamas attack and BLM riots.
War crime trials. Show that the supposedly holy martyrs of Islam are really just rapey asshole murderers, and hang them.
Hmmm… no full-throated defense of rape, torture, mutilation, desecration, necrophilia, beheading?
The day is still young…
It would be sweet poetry if Hamas’ attack on Israel led to the destruction of the radical left throughout the western world by revealing its fetid and decaying underbelly.
We'll have to keep reminding ourselves that we're privileged, as people throughout history try to eliminate us. Thank God for teenaged thinkers deciding who is oppressed and who is 'white'. No questions as to why 'white' people need to be cast out, please. That's another story.
Now for some actual history. Jews are the indigenous people of this area. Not newcomers. The people who have always been there, coming back home to create one single place in the world where we know we are welcome- always. Or...that was the thought. And now...history: How are the indigenous people the colonizer?
It's communism. Envy for prosperous people. it's why people hat America. It's why attacks on Asian people are happening in the US.
It's basic and never changing
"traditional universalist leftist values, including internationalist standards of decency and respect for human life and the safety of innocent civilians."
Huh.
It's a good departure from the rigid dogmatic thinking one normally associates with the left, and it makes a point that Western Civilization seems to have forgotten in these past 75 years: There are still some cultures that are incompatible, in an absolute sense, with enlightened society; incompatible in the sense that they see them as exploitable resources, and act upon those impulses without restraint or any recognizable moral principle. They are existentially incompatible, and must be dealt with using the same sense of terrible, unforgiving, unbending resolve, until the job is done.
Temujin
You can’t use reasoning or logic with these Leftists. Same deal with global warming.
The MSM won't do its job. It never adds or includes details about the last 50 years of the peace process because it's always focused on the part that leads because it bleeds.
They never say that the two-state solution has come up seriously not once, but twice, and twice has it been rejected by Palestinians as a whole or by various factions (which is why the Palestinian groups are politically divided today). They have rejected it twice because for the Palestinians it's an all-or-nothing proposition, which is a ludicrously unserious bargaining position considering realities on the ground.
Choosing eternal enmity and the annihilation of your own race if you don't get all the land back is not a serious or achievable position, and the Palestinian leadership are unserious people.
How are the indigenous people the colonizer?
Indigenous = Non-white for players who haven’t read the rules on the bottom of the box.
Even before the Israeli state was founded, as soon as the United Nations proposed a separate Israeli and Palestinian State solution for the British Palestinian mandate area the Arab world attacked Jews who fought back and defeated the Arabs. I guess after their experience in Eastern Europe during the 20s 30s and 40s, the Jewish people decided that nobody was going to defend them from genocide but themselves.
The problem was that the Arabs thought that they would be able to finish off the Jews in the holy Land and so they were never willing to compromise. However most Islamic culture is a tribal low trust society. This makes them very weak in actual combat with a United enemy.
Now that Israel has become the most powerful military industrial complex in the middle east, their excuse is "oh we are so weak, innocent and helpless against the all-powerful zionists our only recourse is the intentional targeting to rape, torture and murder defenseless civilians."
"This leftist analysis ... has in many parts of the academy and media replaced traditional universalist leftist values, including internationalist standards of decency and respect for human life and the safety of innocent civilians."
That seems a little, um, charitable. Lots of leftists had no problem excusing Stalin and Che Guevara and lots of other people who had no use for "internationalist standards of decency and respect for human life and the safety of innocent civilians."
There's a lot more continuity than the author lets on. But I suspect he is trying to split "good leftists" from these modern leftists by giving them a warm and fuzzy heritage.
I have been amazed at this story for exactly this reason and will probably not look at responses after this one time (7 am PDT). Because we ALL KNOW where the thread will go. Minds are made up.
Now for some actual history. Jews are the indigenous people of this area. Not newcomers.
To be fair, "indigenous" is at best relative--according to the Bible, at least, Jews conquered the Canaanites, but certainly preceded the Arabs, and have been there and nearby for thousands of years. And as far as I'm aware, the only self-governing sovereign states over the past 3,000 years were Jewish; otherwise it's been a succession of conquering outsiders (Babylonians, Romans, Egyptians, Turks, etc.).
"clumsy analysis"
Not clumsy at all. It works well, proves attractive to the ignorant, mobilizes support for radical causes, and conveniently applies to many places outside the Middle East--especially America. The real telos of decolonization is to destroy America. The Jews behind the tree are just the first to get the bullet from the jihadist vanguard.
Why after many decades do the Palestinians not have water or electricity. Too busy digging tunnels
""The decolonization narrative has dehumanized Israelis to the extent that otherwise rational people excuse, deny, or support barbarity."
I don't think anyone has to "excuse, deny, or support barbarity," to say Zionism was a bad idea that's caused a level of misery, for the world, unseen since the Holocaust. It's that "twist" to the extreme that supporters of Israel do now, where they HAVE to accuse you of antisemitism - hating ALL Jews - or they HAVE to call people "animals" and "savages" and then accuse you of LOVING them, or they HAVE to accuse you of being evil - just because you want to tell the truth they can't refute and usually won't bother to try - that's where they're making their biggest mistakes.
The first words from Dave Chappelle's heckler were (reportedly) "Shut up, Dave." That's not a good look for Israel supporters. I saw a debate between Mark Lamont Hill and Alan Dershowitz. But Dershowitz kept interrupting during the entire debate while Hill was patient and gracious. That's not a good look for Israel. I told you about the two Jewish kids at Cambridge University, who were asking where they should go, without explaining why a Palestinian's house is the answer. That's not a good look. Right here on this blog, when somebody challenges the narrative, they get called an antisemite. That's not a good look for Israel, because the people who support Israel continually choose to look like people they're trying to avoid being associated with.
These are the tactics of people who fail to persuade.
I’m a white colonizer! Fuck all of you darkies! Be grateful we suffer you to live.
Embrace your role! If you are going g to be an oppressor, be a GOOD one! Make them suffer!
Reject guilt! Oppress or exploit the feeble races.
Embrace your role! If you are going g to be an oppressor, be a GOOD one! Make them suffer!
Arabs are Semites. Just different tribes from the Israelis. They are as White as the Israelis. The Arabs are just fulfilling what the Quran tells them to do: Kill all the Jews. The Quran was created by a barbarian Arab, who never missed a chance to raid his neighbors.
"Why after many decades do the Palestinians not have water or electricity. Too busy digging tunnels"
Because they take 8" water line and cut it into 20ft sections and fill 3/4 with rocket fuel and the rest with homemade hexogen (aka RDX) and the wiring is used for the electrical ignition system and detonating fuze components.
And literally everyone who gives money to 'help them' have water and electricity has knowingly or unknowingly financed their raw materials. They couldn't have done better if they'd opened a Lowe's in Rafah.
“How are the indigenous people the colonizer?”
“Indigenous = Non-white for players who haven’t read the rules on the bottom of the box.”
Since when are the Palestinians not White too? Are they honorary Darkies because of their self imposed repression?
But this does tie in a bit with another thought. Went to a church service with my daughter and SIL in the PRB (People’s Republic of Boulder). Beautiful outdoors service, marred, in my mind, with their indigenous appropriation affirmation, or some such. They all, in unison, affirmed that we, white people mostly, had stolen the land they were on from a bunch of Indian tribes. huh? We have probably held the land longer than those tribes supposedly did - their dominance on those lands, as little as it was, was really only for maybe a century, starting about the time this country was founded. Power, and thus population, in the western Plains, was very much a result of how quickly different tribes were able to gain horses (that then had killed for food 10k years earlier), allowing them to follow the bison, causing a population explosion, that allowed the tribes we fought for that territory to push out the previous tribes controlling it. We have controlled the land for a century and a half, and most of those tribes for less than a single century. And their control over it was less than marginal, with maybe a handful of people per 1k sq miles, a tiny fraction of even the least densely populated state in the Continental US (WY) today. It was called the Great American Desert for a reason. Our history is filled with very similar stories, of one population pushing out another, which often pushed out another, through population pressure resulting from some innovation. The only difference here was how explosive the growth of some of these tribes was, with horses allowing them to convert from a meager Hunter gatherer diet to one rich in meat, and how quickly it ended.
Yet, the right thinking liberal whack jobs in the PRB (with many times the population of all of the western Plains tribes combined) seemingly want to return this land to the Indian tribes that so marginally occupied it for such a short time. But that is little different from the situation in Israel and the land around it. Just like our settlers were able to turn our Great American Desert into the Breadbasket of America, the Jews, returning to their historical homeland, were able to turn an arid region, with a very low population density, into a garden spot, that now supports millions of Jews, as well as millions of Palestinians and millions of Arabs.
“Arabs are Semites. Just different tribes from the Israelis. They are as White as the Israelis. The Arabs are just fulfilling what the Quran tells them to do: Kill all the Jews. The Quran was created by a barbarian Arab, who never missed a chance to raid his neighbors.”
It’s not just the Jews that Mohammed ordered his faithful to kill or subjugate, but also the Christians. It’s just that the Jews were not nearly as numerous, or concentrated until recent years. Much of our last 1300 years is the story, in the west, of this fight, only really ending, for less than a century, with the fall of the Turkish empire, at the end of WW I. Interesting to me, is that Constantinople fell only a half century before the Moors were finally evicted from Spain (1492). And the Turks stopped at the Gates of Vienna (1683) not quite two centuries later. That means less than 300 years of quasi peace from Muslim attacks on Christendom.
The "tragedy of the Palestinians" is that their Arab brethren have turned Gaza into a concentration camp to justify jihad against Israeli Jews. The Arabs of "Palestine" should have been assimilated by Arab nations decades ago.
It is not Israelis who confine them.
Crack: "That's not a good look for Israel.... These are the tactics of people who fail to persuade."
Bad, bad Jooz (and Joo lovers). Everything confirms!
The "good look", persuasive tactic is to defend terrorists and their atrocities.
Good, good Hamas. It's only "retribution."
Unbelievable!
Mike of Snoqualmie said...
"The Arabs are just fulfilling what the Quran tells them to do"
Commenters on this blog are funny. They can talk about "the Arabs" - as a group - with no complaints. They can definitely talk about black Americans, as a group, with no complaints - unless when asked for a compliment - then American blacks are "too diverse" for them to say anything (Remember: we're talking about their fellow countrymen now). But they don't want "white people" talked about for the same reason: they think they're waaay "too diverse" for anyone else to see as a group. But "the Arabs" and blacks aren't "too diverse," as groups, for them to speak of.
We simply can't be.
So it all comes back to, '...and everybody hates the Jews.'
Billions funneled into Gaza over decades and they still live in squalor yet have money to build tunnels and rockets.
If they wanted to give the middle finger to Israel they'd build a thriving economy and lift themselves up.
What am I thinking?
"I always wondered about the leftist intellectuals who supported Stalin, and those aristocratic sympathizers and peace activists who excused Hitler. Today’s Hamas apologists and atrocity-deniers, with their robotic denunciations of “settler-colonialism,” belong to the same tradition but worse: They have abundant evidence of the slaughter of old people, teenagers, and children, but unlike those fools of the 1930s, who slowly came around to the truth, they have not changed their views an iota. The lack of decency and respect for human life is astonishing: Almost instantly after the Hamas attack, a legion of people emerged who downplayed the slaughter, or denied actual atrocities had even happened, as if Hamas had just carried out a traditional military operation against soldiers. October 7 deniers, like Holocaust deniers, exist in an especially dark place."
Indeed.
Raise your hand if you're not a colonizer.
Anyone? Bueller?
@Crack Emcee
You don't like the hyperbolic language of Israel's defenders, I get that. But why make a ridiculous claim like "Zionism has caused the most misery since the Holocaust?" Such a claim doesn't persuade either, it's an immediate turn off.
Zionism was a movement of its time, a response to the wave of nationalist sentiment all over Europe and the Middle East as well as a reaction to the prevalence of antisemitism in Europe. As such it was one of many such nationalisms. The Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires were declining and then collapsing, and new political entities were springing up everywhere. This process resulted in immense suffering all over Central and Eastern Europe and the Middle East. In every respect Zionism was not an anomaly.
The charge of antisemitism, I think, comes from people treating a movement that was, for better and for worse, a product of its time as if it were a unique evil. Almost all the nationalisms and the states they made and the suffering they caused pass without comment, but the nationalism of the Jewish people is subject to constant critique. You don't have to agree but you hopefully can at least understand why that makes some defenders of Israel suspicious.
During the '92 L.A. riots, I attended a campus meeting called to lessen tensions. A tall black student rose to speak and informed everyone that he was incapable of being racist, by definition, and that they were going to 'have a revolution.' The word 'decolonize' wasn't in vogue yet then, but the ideas were germinating.
"A level of misery unseen since the Holocaust"?
Let's forget the Pakistan-India-Bangladesh conflict of 1971, with its mass murders and rapes numbering in the hundreds of thousands (some estimates go as high as 3 million).
Not in combat ops, which cost some few tens of thousands of soldiers on all sides, but in the deliberate campaigns against civilians ('Hindus' and 'rebels') mounted by the Islamist . . . no, the -insane- Islamist leaders of Pakistan.
Wonderful, wonderful, Muslims.
Anyone heard from the Uighurs lately? I thought suffering Muslims were all the rage this season, but it seems some are more deserving of than others.
They have the bad luck not to be oppressed by Zionists.
"[The nations in the censorship regime] are going to define anybody who takes up the side of Palestinians as a terrorist supporter or an aider of Hamas - even if they vocally condemned the attack by Hamas."
- Matt Taibbi, speaking with Glenn Greenwald, who's first big tech censorship article was about the efforts of Israel.
Confused said...
@Crack Emcee
If you think defenders of Israel are hyperbolic, why say something as absurd as "Zionism has caused a level of misery unseen since the Holocaust?" You can argue that Zionism was a mistake without saying ridiculous things like that.
I don't know how old you are but I'm 62 and this killing has been going on my whole life. That's a lot of death, blood, and misery, culminating in this last attack, which everybody seems extra boosted about. Maybe killing doesn't move you as much. Israel is now killed over 8000 people in retaliation, including thousands of kids. 13 Hamas fighters, last I heard. Here's Matt Taibbi, describing Israel's effort to censor people BEFORE the attacks. That's no good. Taibbi says their mechanations have now been adopted by other countries, including mine. That's not a good thing either. BTW - How much misery do you need, exactly, to make the cut?
"We cannot be both against occupation, and for it. We cannot be both for freedom, and against it. And we cannot be for a better world, while contributing to one that is materially worse”
- Josh Paul Reveals The Truth Behind US Arms Supply to Israel
Narr said...
"A level of misery unseen since the Holocaust"?
"Let's forget the Pakistan-India-Bangladesh conflict of 1971,..."
Yeah, let's - You guys are either really stupid or you think I'm really stupid. I can't be sure which it is. You never understand anything I write: I was talking about events surrounding Zionism and the Jews. Not just any bullshit that occurred anywhere in the history of world.
How did you not know that? How did logic not lead you there? How did it not occur to you that I might know about other events that were bigger than what happened on the seventh? Again: are you THAT stupid or am I?
Aha. So "Hate Whitey!" is not such a great idea, now that Jews have discovered they are white? They have been pumping that firehose of hate for over sixty years, but now their shoes are getting wet, so they want to shut it off? I gotta tell ya', fellas, it doesn't shut off that easy. It was one thing to sit around the faculty lounge, dreaming up rationalizations for black and brown people to hate white people, and teach them to the black and brown people, so that you could use them as junior partners in your political coalition, against the Christian majority you despised. The problem is, they aren't going to stop using those rationalizations just because you've decided not to validate them any longer. They aren't even going to save you for dessert. Ain't that bitch zero?
The Crack Emcee,
I was talking about events surrounding Zionism and the Jews. Not just any bullshit that occurred anywhere in the history of world.
Forgive us for not understanding that. When you wrote "A level of misery unseen since the Holocaust," many of us thought that you were referring to all historical events, not just the ones that had Jews in them. Our bad :-(
I don't think the India/Pakistan war of '71 was even the worst, btw. Mao's "Great Leap Forward" wins the prize, with Pol Pot as runner-up, only because he had fewer citizens to slaughter. Present-day, I think Yemen takes the prize (such as it is). But the people concerned about the Palestinians don't give a flying fuck about Yemen, for the most part.
@Crack Emcee
I'm sorry to see that you are living in a parallel universe. Only 13 Hamas fighters? You are out of your mind. I regret wasting time engaging with your delusions.
I'm not proposing 1971 as the worst since Whenever, just throwing out a murderous campaign that took a very short time and is practically unknown to most--especially those whose vocation is outrage on behalf of suffering Muslims. (Hence my reminder of the Uyghurs, until recently a favorite cause for many.)
The statement was that Zionism yadda yadda "on the world," when in reality as others have demonstrated that's complete bullshit. More deaths and refugees can be counted from any number of wars and cleansings than what has transpired in one corner of the ME since '48.
Who made the Shiite Iranians the protectors of Sunni Arabs (and the odd Christian) from Palestine? The Zionists didn't do a thing to the Iranians except take the Iranian Jews that the mullahs were glad to get rid of--to the benefit of Israel and the detriment of Persia.
Even the designation of Jerusalem as a holy site of Islam is based on a late tradition that Muhammed the Magical Camel Rustler and Child-bedder stopped there briefly on his way to Paradise.
Confused said...
"Only 13 Hamas fighters? You are out of your mind. I regret wasting time engaging with your delusions."
Yes, of course you're right, what was I thinking? Saying "13 Hamas fighters, last I heard." was truly an insane thing to say. [Rolls eyes] So stupid I deserve for you to stop engaging with me. So stop it. Now. Not another fucking word from your dumb ass.
Whatever you're thinking, from now on, just spare me.
Narr said...
Anyone heard from the Uighurs lately? I thought suffering Muslims were all the rage this season, but it seems some are more deserving of than others.
They have the bad luck not to be oppressed by Zionists.
No, they had the bad luck not to be repressed by anybody: “I Saw ZERO Evidence Of Uyghur Repression In China” – Don DeBar, on the Jimmy Dore Show, after a fact-finding mission. Like the decapitated babies, and the bombed hospital, most people are running around, forming opinions, fueled by misinformation. Watch the video. Chinese citizens wonder why our media does us this way.
Michelle Dulak Thomson said...
"Forgive us for not understanding that."
No, I won't. That's too stupid for forgiveness.
"When you wrote "A level of misery unseen since the Holocaust," many of us thought that you were referring to all historical events, not just the ones that had Jews in them. Our bad :-("
Like I said before, logic should've led you to understand that that could not have been what I meant. But you are obviously incapable of using logic in conversation. You're like Louis CK's daughter and the 9/11 deniers. But you're adults. I feel sorry for you.
"I don't think the India/Pakistan war of '71 was even the worst..."
Jesus, it's like I'm trapped with Cliff Claven on Cheers. The stupidity, and narcissism, just never ends,...
Really, Crack. Some Western lefty gets a guided tour from the ChiComs and that's your evidence? Not that you actually care about the Uyghurs any more than I do, of course.
But it's true, your stupidity and narcissism never end.
Do you get much traffic on your stupid, narcissistic blog when you come here to shit?
I like how Crack is always referencing movies and sitcoms. He was watching movies and sitcoms when he could have been expanding his mental horizons.
Narr said...
"Really, Crack. Some Western lefty gets a guided tour from the ChiComs and that's your evidence?"
The Jimmy Dore Show are independent voters.
" Not that you actually care about the Uyghurs any more than I do, of course."
Yeah, that's why I watched a whole video on the subject. Because I didn't care. My goodness, you guys are so determined to attack me that you just say stupid shit.
"But it's true, your stupidity and narcissism never end."
That was so inventive, you must hang out with Bumble Bee.
"Do you get much traffic on your stupid, narcissistic blog when you come here to shit?"
What difference does that make? Especially to a moron like you? Looking for something else to hit me with as you claim you're not a racist? Remember, I'm just minding my own business while you assholes are fucking with me. If the Zionists were smart, they would be like me and get away from assholes like you, sometimes, too. Go someplace where people like them.
They should start a blog.
Narr said...
"Really, Crack. Some Western lefty gets a guided tour from the ChiComs and that's your evidence?"
Then - immediately afterwards - Narr said...
"I like how Crack is always referencing movies and sitcoms. He was watching movies and sitcoms when he could have been expanding his mental horizons."
So, first, Narr disses me for looking at something that is NOT a movie or a sitcom. Then, Narr disses me for watching movies and sitcoms. I think it's about time for me to stop talking to Narr, because Narr's not talking in good faith. Narr's an asshole.
I'm old fashioned, Crack, and prefer to gain knowledge by going deeper than podcast reports from Jimmy Dore and his buds, however independent you and they think they are.
I feel sad for a person whose culture extends only to pop music, pop movies, and pop sitcoms, but then this is America, so it's to be expected.
Cliff was the know-it-all character on that show, right? I seldom watched.
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