site banner
PaperclipPerfector  8mo ago (text post)   26191 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 18, 2024

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

7
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Candace Owens out at the Daily Wire

This is less than 24-hours after the ADL publicly attacked Candace, and Mediaite reports:

Owens’s departure comes after months of tensions between her and Daily Wire co-founder Ben Shapiro over her promotion of various anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.

Her promotion of so-called antisemitic conspiracy theories has definitely been noticed on DR Twitter, and she's been engaged in public spats with a certain Rabbi Schmuley. So this isn't really a surprise, but it's a significant development that DR critiques of Zionism are making their way into Right-wing mainstream, as other rhetoric has in the past 10 years.

Candace is breaking from the Zionist right at the same time Tucker Carlson has turned heel on US support for Israel, and even Alex Jones who is notorious for his "the Chicoms are behind everything I love Judeo-Christian values" schtick - his willingness to humor every conspiracy theory to his audience except ZOG - yesterday accused Israel of Genocide.

I have a lot of criticisms of Nick Fuentes and his movement, but there has to be credit where it's due. I remember the Bush years, support for Israel was simply axiomatic and it was unthinkable for anybody to believe any differently. That has changed, and Zionism now faces a pincer movement of critique from both the Left and the Right, with the Right-wing critique of Zionism growing in influence among younger audiences.

Obviously it’s not a surprise this story played out the way it did- conservative black woman pundits can get away with a lot because there’s so few of them, background antisemitism in the black community is fairly high to begin with, and she literally works for a Jew so there’s some limits to the antisemitism.

Is antisemitism going mainstream? Maybe. Red tribe normies seem a lot less tolerant of Israel than I remember them having been in the 2010s, but there was kind of nowhere to go but down, and the prevailing sentiment is still ‘they have a right to the land so I don’t care what they do to the Palestinians’. I still think there’s a long, long way to go before mainstream conservatives adopt antisemitism en masse, Candace Owens got fired for it after all.

“No no, we’re not the real enemy, forget your crime stats, how about an illegal immigration story? No? A little cunning (((manipulation)))? Can’t I interest you into some slit communist bugmen?”

Deflection by racism is cringe when the Indians do it, it’s cringe when the Hispanics do it, it’s cringe when the Jews do it, and it’s cringe when black conservatives do it too. On the other hand, it’s again a hilarious reminder of just how diverse the dissident right is, it’s ethnics all the way down trying to convince each other they’re the real inheritors of huwhite civilization.

Candace can’t easily move left, so she’s just positioning herself for a minor update to the based black woman grift; it is a fundamental testatment to America’s inherent liberalism that it will always have an audience.

It is funny hearing Nick Fuentes say, in his typically tongue-in-cheek-but-serious-at-the-same-time manner, "blacks are cool, they can stay but Jews have to go." But I will defend a level of internal consistency there...

We can say those DR people are so racist they kind of circle back around to not attributing real agency to the problem of, say, black crime. It's just, like, the weather or something.

But political forces conniving to destroy segregation or drive demographic change and direct public consensus vis-a-vis the media apparatus are more of a real threat than street crime.

I do think you are on to something though. Nick Fuentes was very popular on the Fresh and Fit podcasts which IIRC has all black hosts, they loved the guy. Nick had a "JQ" debate with Destiny on the Fresh and Fit Podcast and I couldn't help but feel like it was highly significant. There probably is an element of "instead of commiserating over the failures in the black community we can go on the offensive against Jews with White racists on our side" that may be attractive to some black influencers.

You can joke about the "diversity" of the DR, but it's savvy for Nick to lean into this dynamic and I think Candace is an example of it producing results, along with Nick's appearances on the other podcasts with black hosts who seem to really like him and take his side.

While there have been some black nationalist groups that have ascribed a particular villainy to (white) Jews, in general it’s hard to see black identity-led movements or ideas ever absolving gentile whites of their significant list of complaints about them, both past and ongoing. In practice it’s often crime, more than religion or guns or borders, that most drives white American support for conservative movements. White and black identitarians will always be at loggerheads over fundamental American issues like reparations, some kinds of crime, segregation, civil rights law and white law enforcement interacting with black men. When the next Floyd moment happens (presumably with a gentile white cop), and everyone knows it will, any alliance will disintegrate pretty rapidly.

Beyond the third-worldists, who are often more third position types with some right-conspiratorial associations, and often even among them, very little white nationalist hostility toward Israel is motivated by any sincere concern for the Arabs, principled opposition to ethnic cleansing, firm emotional or other belief in or care for the Palestinian claim, or even by the US’ very limited spending on Israeli defense. It is motivated primarily and overwhelmingly by a feeling of impotence around supposed Jewish political power in the west and a simple, vengeful desire to bloody the nose of the enemy. It is about revenge, “if we don’t get to have our ethnostates, you shouldn’t get yours either!”. You know this and I know it.

Revenge can, as they say, lead to strange bedfellows. But piggybacking on the joint leftist and Muslim anti-zionist movement is unlikely to have the desired effect. The stronger that movement becomes, the more the pressure for open borders, for accelerated mass immigration from the Islamic world and beyond in sub-Saharan Africa, and the more powerful the sinecures, racial spoils and political favoritism for people who are even more genetically and culturally distant from you, in your homelands, than we are.

So in your mental model it's completely natural for White Americans to support Israel despite no reciprocity whatsoever from Jews. But then when white people decide to return fire, that's just out of hatred and revenge? How about it's just politics? Discrediting Zionism discredits Jews. It absolutely does. The notion that the DR should just sit on its hands or (lol) support Israel simply because it's being attacked on the Left flank is delusional. It is politically advantageous to press the confrontation on the other flank.

That doesn't mean the DR expects White liberals to drop their values. It is about confronting Jewish influence in culture and politics and they are over the correct, soft targets.

Despite your closely held beliefs regarding elite theory, you seem highly dismissive of the idea that the elites with influence in Academia, Culture, and Politics are indeed responsible for the ethos that is now consuming them. Why would the DR take the side of the Jews now that the political radicalism they created is being directed towards their own project?

that's just out of hatred and revenge?

A lack of reciprocity and revenge are often very much tied together. I said nothing about what white identitarians should do, only that their hostility toward Israel is not the result of any care for Palestinians or any actual concern with the status of Muslim-Jewish hostilities. And they typically freely concede this when asked what, say, they would do if they were Jewish and ran Israel. The problem for white identitarians is that they want their Israel, whereas what the left is deeply focused on is preventing any more Israels at all. Talking themselves into the DEI coalition is therefore likely to backfire, and it certainly isn’t politically advantageous if it only puts thirdworldist leftists in power who will be only too happy to open the West’s doors and wallets to the world far, far wider than they already are today.

It is about confronting Jewish influence in culture and politics and they are over the correct, soft targets…. Why would the DR take the side of the Jews now that the political radicalism they created is being directed towards their own project?

Political liberalism predates substantial Jewish influence on Western politics and would surely postdate it too. If the insinuation is that discrediting Israel leads to a backlash against all Jews, how does that square with your own depiction of anti-Zionism as the very triumph of Jewish leftist ideology? Antizionist Jews, among them the countless prominent Jewish leftist academics over the last 150 years (including many leading critical theorists etc), succeeding in rallying public opinion to the leftist cause of rallying against ethnonationalism would be no win for the right. With the settler colony of Israel vanquished as South Africa was, attention can turn to the even more critical ongoing work of decolonizing Canada, Australia and - most necessarily - the United States, not to mention the rest of Western Europe. There will be plenty of gentile leftists - white, brown and beyond - plus those prominent antizionist Jews (who you will find grow quickly in number if the tides of public opinion change quickly) to continue to keep white nationalists firmly under the boot, while America Brazilifies ever further.

Why should wignats support Israel? I don’t know, but perhaps because if Israel is destroyed (or looks like it might be), many millions more Jews are coming to the US. And my guess is that, in said event, white identitarians won’t have enough political clout to stop them.

are indeed responsible for the ethos that is now consuming them

Jews are both extraordinarily successful in taking over Western institutions to benefit themselves and their tribe to the extent that they practically dominate politics, media and finance in the world’s most powerful country, but also dumb enough that - at the absolute height of their power - they allow a movement of Muslims, communists and TikTok zoomers to destroy public support for their ethnostate? If we had the influence you ascribe to us, why did we let this happen? Before the canned reply about hubris, golem, etc, that metaphor does not apply so easily when the scale of the influence alleged is as great as this.

If we had the influence you ascribe to us, why did we let this happen? Before the canned reply about hubris, golem, etc, that metaphor does not apply so easily when the scale of the influence alleged is as great as this.

Isn't the history of the Jewish people just a long series of such fumbles?

Here's a prominent member, the current US Secretary of Homeland Security. Could this fellow be said to have any influence over immigration flows into the US? Now isn't it surprising to learn that this man's mother fled not one but two separate countries within a lifetime?

His mother, Anita (Gabor),[19] was a Romanian Jew whose family escaped the Holocaust and fled to Cuba in the 1940s[20][21][22] before leaving for the United States after the Cuban Revolution.[20]

With modern technology fueling political developments, I would not be surprised if some set a record at 3 or 4 in this century.

plus those prominent antizionist Jews (who you will find grow quickly in number if the tides of public opinion change quickly) to continue to keep white nationalists firmly under the boot, while America Brazilifies ever further.

I'm not sure the boot has legitimacy without the Holocaust mythos that fundamentally forms the foundation of Jewish power in the 20th century. And Zionism is eroding the power of that mythos. It means less and less to be called "antisemitic" or "racist." The old guardrails are beginning to weaken. Anti-Zionist Jews who invoke the Holocaust to tell White people they have to accept demographic change are discredited even though their position is more morally consistent than Zionist Jews.

Jews are both extraordinarily successful in taking over Western institutions to benefit themselves and their tribe to the extent that they practically dominate politics, media and finance in the world’s most powerful country, but also dumb enough that - at the absolute height of their power - they allow a movement of Muslims, communists and TikTok zoomers to destroy public support for their ethnostate?

They foremost have themselves to blame, not that they are capable of or willing to admit it. The pathological goodwill of the Anglos towards them was squandered with subversive and extreme hostility. The waxing and waning of Jewish influence in culture and politics is an apparently never-ending cycle. We now seem to be heading towards the "waning" phase, for the first time in our lives.

Have you read the - quite remarkable - Atlantic piece The Golden Age of American Jews is Ending from earlier this month? The author essentially admits to all the behavior by Jews which is charged by White identarians but of course spins it as a good thing, and it's only falling apart because the world cannot accept how morally good and pure Jews are. It's a fascinating piece:

In the hatred that I witnessed in the Bay Area, and that has been evident on college campuses and in progressive activist circles nationwide, I’ve come to see left-wing anti-Semitism as characterized by many of the same violent delusions as the right-wing strain. This is not an accident of history. Though right- and left-wing anti-Semitism may have emerged in different ways, for different reasons, both are essentially attacks on an ideal that once dominated American politics, an ideal that American Jews championed and, in an important sense, co-authored. Over the course of the 20th century, Jews invested their faith in a distinct strain of liberalism that combined robust civil liberties, the protection of minority rights, and an ethos of cultural pluralism. They embraced this brand of liberalism because it was good for America—and good for the Jews. It was their fervent hope that liberalism would inoculate America against the world’s oldest hatred.

For several generations, it worked. Liberalism helped unleash a Golden Age of American Jewry, an unprecedented period of safety, prosperity, and political influence. Jews, who had once been excluded from the American establishment, became full-fledged members of it. And remarkably, they achieved power by and large without having to abandon their identity. In faculty lounges and television writers’ rooms, in small magazines and big publishing houses, they infused the wider culture with that identity. Their anxieties became American anxieties. Their dreams became American dreams.

But that era is drawing to a close. America’s ascendant political movements—MAGA on one side, the illiberal left on the other—would demolish the last pillars of the consensus that Jews helped establish. They regard concepts such as tolerance, fairness, meritocracy, and cosmopolitanism as pernicious shams. The Golden Age of American Jewry has given way to a golden age of conspiracy, reckless hyperbole, and political violence, all tendencies inimical to the democratic temperament. Extremist thought and mob behavior have never been good for Jews. And what’s bad for Jews, it can be argued, is bad for America...

I grew up at the apex of the Golden Age. The nation’s sartorial aesthetic was the invention of Ralph Lifshitz, an alumnus of the Manhattan Talmudical Academy before he became the denim-clad Ralph Lauren. The national authority on sex was a diminutive bubbe, Dr. Ruth. Schoolkids in Indiana read Anne Frank’s diary. The Holocaust memoirist Elie Wiesel appeared on the nightly news as an arbiter of public morality. The most-watched television show was Seinfeld. Even Gentiles knew the words to Adam Sandler’s “The Chanukah Song,” which earned a place in the canon of festive music annually played on FM radio. Jews accounted for roughly 2 percent of the nation’s population at the time, but I’d estimate that my undergraduate class at Columbia University was one-third Jewish; soon, a third of the justices on the Supreme Court would be Jewish as well....

Born in Silesia in 1882, the eldest of eight, Horace Kallen had a preordained calling: to become a rabbi like his father. But a Boston truant officer forced him, against his parents’ wishes, to attend a secular grammar school. This set him on the path to Harvard, where he paid his way by reading meters for the Dorchester Gaslight Company. Kallen never felt at ease with patrician classmates like Franklin D. Roosevelt, though the philosopher William James embraced him as a protégé.

Kallen’s breakthrough came in the course of an argument with another Jew. In 1908, the British-born playwright Israel Zangwill had a hit called The Melting-Pot, a melodrama about a pogrom survivor who sets out to marry a Christian woman in the hopes that he will no longer be haunted by his identity. This vision of assimilation was a warmed-over version of the devil’s bargain that Western Europeans had offered Jews ever since Napoleon: In exchange for the rights of citizenship, Jews would have to give up their distinctive identity.

Kallen didn’t want to surrender his identity. He wasn’t religious, but he had read Spinoza and devoured the works of the early Zionist thinkers. At Harvard, he co-founded the Menorah Society, a Jewish affinity group. His rebuttal to Zangwill took the form of unabashed patriotism. In essays that were intellectual bombshells at the time, Kallen extolled the mongrel nature of American society, the phenomenon known as hyphenation. Harvard’s Brahmin elite believed that newcomers must assimilate in full, commit to what they called “100 percent Americanism.” But to Kallen, the hyphen was the essence of democracy. He described America as a “symphony of civilization,” an intermingling of cultures that resulted in a society far more dynamic than most of the countries back in the Old World. The genius of America was that it didn’t coerce any minority group into abandoning its marks of difference.

That argument was idealistic, though also self-interested. Kallen’s polemics implicitly targeted the Protestant monopoly controlling academia, politics, and every other corner of the establishment, which reverted to desperate measures to block the ascent of Jews, imposing quotas at universities and restrictive housing covenants in well-to-do neighborhoods. His ideas were emblematic of an emerging strain of Jewish political philosophy, a set of arguments that would define American Jewry for generations.

The sons and daughters of immigrants may have dabbled in socialism, but in the 1930s and ’40s, liberalism became the house politics of the Jewish people. Walter Lippmann, a descendant of German Jews, first used the term liberal in the American context, to describe a new center-left vision of the state that was neither socialist nor laissez-faire. Louis Brandeis, the first Jewish justice on the Supreme Court, conceptualized a new, expansive vision of civil liberties. Lillian Wald and Henry Moskowitz co-founded the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, in the belief that all minorities deserved the same protections. Jews became enthusiastic supporters of the New Deal, which staved off radical movements on the left and the right that tended to hunt for Jewish scapegoats. As a Yiddish joke went, Jewish theology consisted of die velt (“this world”), yene velt (“the world to come”), and Roosevelt.

The historian Marc Dollinger titled his 2000 narrative of Jewish liberalism Quest for Inclusion. Jews set out to achieve that goal procedurally—opposing prayer in public school, knocking down discriminatory housing laws, establishing new fair-employment rules. But it was also a project of mythmaking and dream-casting. Widely read mid-century intellectuals such as Louis Hartz, Daniel Boorstin, and Max Lerner wrote books reimagining America as the home of a benevolent centrism—tolerant, cosmopolitan, unique in the history of nations.

Reality began to resemble the myth: In the years following World War II—and especially as the world began to comprehend the extent of the Nazi genocide—a liberal consensus took hold, and anti-Semitism receded. After Auschwitz, even three-martini Jewish jokes at the country club felt tinged by the horrors. In 1937, the American edition of Roget’s Thesaurus had listed cunning, rich, extortioner, and heretic as synonyms for Jew. At that time, nearly half of Americans said Jews were less honest in business than others. By 1964, only 28 percent agreed with that assessment. It became cliché to refer to America as a “Judeo-Christian nation.” Quotas at universities fell to the side.

As anti-Semitism faded, American Jewish civilization exploded in a rush of creativity. For a time, the great Jewish novel—books by Saul Bellow, Philip Roth, Norman Mailer, Joseph Heller, and Bernard Malamud, inflected with Yiddish and references to pickled herring—was the great American novel. Under the influence of Lenny Bruce, Sid Caesar, Mel Brooks, Elaine May, Gilda Radner, Woody Allen, and many others, American comedy appropriated the Jewish joke, and the ironic sensibility contained within, as its own.

..It wasn’t just mass culture. The New York Intellectuals, a group with a name as euphemistic as it sounds, acquired a priestly authority in the realm of aesthetics and political ideas, and included the likes of Alfred Kazin, Clement Greenberg, Irving Howe, and Susan Sontag. Betty Friedan, Bella Abzug, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg ushered second-wave feminism into the world. Jews became the prophetic face of American science (J. Robert Oppenheimer) and the salvific one of American medicine (Jonas Salk). The intellectual rewards of Jewish liberation could be measured in medals: Approximately 15 percent of all Nobel Prize winners are American Jews.

In the Golden Age, Jews in America embraced Israel. Enjoying their political and cultural ascendance, they looked to the new Jewish state not as a necessary refuge—they were more than comfortable on the Upper West Side and in Squirrel Hill and Brentwood—but as a powerful rebuttal to the old stereotypes about Jewish weakness, especially after the Israeli military’s victory in the Six-Day War of 1967. As The New York Times’ Thomas Friedman has put it, American Jews “said to themselves, ‘My God, look who we are! We have power! We do not fit the Shylock image, we are ace pilots; we are not the cowering timid Jews who get sand kicked in their faces, we are tank commanders.’ ”

There's a lot to unpack here, the whole article is fascinating and worth a read. The point is that accepting the reality of this "Golden Age of American Jewry" does not allege some sort of omnipotence or invincibility. As Franklin Foer emphasizes, this was a Jewish phenomenon with Liberal trappings. The cultural phenomena advocated by them was distinctly self-interested, and it created the world as we "know it" today.

The pathological goodwill of the Anglos towards them was squandered with subversive and extreme hostility.

Except in that, by your own admission, the ‘people’ are turning against Israel not because they reject “Jewish leftist” ideas, but because they embrace them. You gloss over this fact.

I’ve read the article in The Atlantic a couple of times, I think we may even have discussed it. It’s the same eulogy that’s been given thirty times over the last twenty years. I’ve made many of the same points here myself. But the real reason is that a combination of high intermarriage and low birthrates among bourgeois secular Jews have eroded the intellectual core of the American Jewish population, hence the decline from 40% to 10% or fewer of Ivy undergraduates etc. Again, Sailer, Unz and others have been writing about that for decades.

The waxing and waning of Jewish influence in culture and politics is an apparently never-ending cycle.

There has never been an age of substantial antisemitism in the 250 year history of the United States.

More generally, you still cannot actually explain where the Jewish mistake was. Why couldn’t they keep a lid on anti-Zionism? Why were liberal palestine activists able to so successfully subvert ‘us’, if we were in possession of all the power you say we are? Why does Zuckerberg allow pro-Palestine content on Facebook and Instagram? Why does Sulzberger print stories alleging the IDF struck hospitals before quietly retracting them days later? This is poor coordination at best, outright (almost white style) ethnomasochism at the worst. You ignore the more credible explanation, that while Jews disproportionately participated in liberal politics from the haskalah onward, we could not alter the more fundamental trajectory, which did eventually come for our settler colony populated in substantial part by (what are, to the vast majority of whites and essentially all nonwhites) white people.

The same golem (if you will), invented by white gentiles and a few Jews here and there (cf Spinoza etc), came for both of us in the end. But assigning blame is easier that reckoning with one’s own failures. As you suggest, that is another thing we have in common.

More generally, you still cannot actually explain where the Jewish mistake was.

The Jewish mistake was their implacable hostility towards their most important base of support - White American Christians. Proof that no matter how much white people cuck try to be friendly and allied with Jews, Jews will wage Culture War on them to advance their own security and interests. White American Christian magnanimity towards Jews was rewarded with an immense decimation of them by establishment Institutions in every respect: politically, culturally, demographically...

One observation made by Churchill in his essay was that the fact Jews and synagogues were exempt from the universal hostility of the Bolsheviks provided a hint towards the genealogy of that ideology. The fact that what we now call "wokeness" has so heavily been directed towards White American Christians with Jews completely exempt from the hostility of that discourse - protected even (until now), proves that this is not simply a case of Liberalism run amok.

Although that was their greatest mistake the actual cause for the land shift is indeed social media. Back when everyone got their information from a small set of sources, even something like Talk Radio, there was almost no way to share information outside the kosher political spectrum. Sure, you had some dissident journals, publications, and societies. But the level of engagement with that content was microscopic compared to social media engagement.

The past 10 years they have aggressively sought to wrangle Social Media, which is why we are all here instead of on Reddit, but the cat is already out of the bag.

There has never been an age of substantial antisemitism in the 250 year history of the United States.

Go back further. The origin story of the Jewish people starts with their existence as a minority under an imperial hegemon. Then they gain political influence, a social radical wreaks plagues upon the empire, and they get expelled by an exasperated Pharoah. They seem to take immense pride in coming into conflict with every single Civilization that has taken them in.

Given the possibility we will see a substantial level of antisemitism in the United States, who could the Jews blame that on except themselves? White American Christians? Are they really going to go with the "and for no reason at all..." narrative despite America's historic support for Jews? Looking at Foer's article in the Atlantic, the answer to that question seems to be yes, they are going to blame the White American Christians.

More comments

with the Right-wing critique of Zionism growing in influence among younger audiences.

Are we sure about that? Certainly the left-wing critique of Zionism is growing in influence, but I'm not sure about the right-wing critique (to say nothing of explicitly DR ideas). I get the impression that when young people are critical of Israel, it's overwhelmingly for progressive reasons: Jews are white colonialists who are oppressing the non-white Palestinians, and opposing Israel is part of the broader struggle for racial justice. Right-wing inflected critiques of Israel seem to me to be as fringe as ever in the mainstream conscience. But I do agree with your general point that even "normie" right-wing media has become edgier recently; Fox News is a lot more willing to say "white" than they were a few years ago.

https://forward.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/part-1-The-Social-Costs-of-Being-Jewish-and-Supporting-Israel-on-Campus-What-a-Before-After-Survey-Can-Tell-Us.pdf

Interesting polling shows weirdly, conservatives are most likely to think Israeli civilians are valid Hamas targets, conservative students are more likely to avoid Jews because of Israel, conservatives are less likely to see anti-semitism as a problem in American society. Now, there's some interesting stuff about how Jewish students feel on campus, but the idea it's progressives are the leading edge of general Jewish hatred.

The red tribe normies are a lot less axiomatically Zionist than they were in, say, 2010. Now a lot of that is ‘why should we have to pay the bill for the war? They can pay market rate and create American jobs’ in a post-Ukraine context, there’s very little ‘poor oppressed Palestinians’, but outright criticism of Israel is Socially acceptable now.

Yes, and the right wing critique that appears to be most shared is just the left wing critique copied by thirdworldist rightists like Fuentes and Woods, and to some extent by Owens, it’s not a distinctly reactionary critique. Rightists forget that the left zoomer response to “‘open borders for thee but not for me’ is unfair!” isn’t going to be to advocate for closed borders in the West, its just going to be to advocate for more leftist policies on the border, immigration and identity in Israel, which of course Soros and others already do. I suppose if one’s primary motivation is just owning the juice that might be enough, unless their view of Western leftists (who they typically argue are dominated by Jewish influence anyway) is so delusional that they think they’re going to abandon all their other principles to go full fash because they don’t like zionism.

The right's support of Israel never made sense. Israel has created a perpetual refugee crisis on Europe's border, it costs a fortune in foreign aid, and it is a PR nightmare. Meanwhile, ADL, AIPAC and every mainstream jewish groups work against the interests of social conservatism in western countries. Simping for the Israel lobby while the ADL wants to ban conservatives off Twitter is a one way relationship. Israel is oppressing Christians and has sponsored terrorist groups in Syria. Israel works to destabilize the region when the rest of us benefit from it being stable.

There is absolutely no reason to burn political capital defending some of the bloodiest and most brutal wars in recent history in the middle east. Israel can't really provide any tangible benefit to social conservatives in the west. Especially not when Ben Gvir who is Minister of National Security of Israel wants to relocate large numbers of Palestinians in the west.

Had Israel supported similar politics in the west as they promote in their own country, it could have worked. But "nationalism for me, open borders for thee", will upset the left in the west that doesn't like nationalism as well as the right in the west that doesn't like the "open borders for thee"-part.

Most of the migrant crisis moving forward will be from Africa, not the Middle East. And there would be still be plenty of tension in the region without Israel, it’s ethnically and religiously diverse and the center of one of the world’s most violent modern sectarian conflicts, between Sunnis and Shiites.

Had Israel supported similar politics in the west as they promote in their own country, it could have worked.

You're doing what SS and his crew do, and assuming that Jews are all part of an orchestrated ZOG movement. Jews in the West are generally sympathetic to Israel, obviously, but Israeli political concerns are very different from Western ones - Israelis generally are not trying to get Western countries to open their borders. They don't care. They actually do have specifically Israeli concerns, they aren't seeing everything through the same lens of "Jewishness" that people who hate Jews do.

As for why conservatives have traditionally supported Israel, it's pretty simple: even if most conservative Christians don't particularly like Jews, they dislike Muslims even more, and geopolitically, a local boot to put on Arabs in the region is very useful.

And that's without addressing the Christians who genuinely do believe that support for Israel is Biblically mandated.

and assuming that Jews are all part of an orchestrated ZOG movement

No, black people overwhelmingly vote democrat. There is no conspiracy, no centralized control and there are individual black people who are right wing. Jews have been overrepresented in promoting their ethnic interest which is in stark contrast to our ethnic interest. When Jared Kushner talks about moving the population of Gaza to Europe that is promoting his ethnic interest against ours.

Israelis generally are not trying to get Western countries to open their borders.

Ben Gvir has been publically promoting ethnic cleansing in Palestine with the goal of bringing in migrants to the rest of the world. ADL and AIPAC have worked hard for open bordres for everyone except Israel along with the pro zionist donor class.

and geopolitically, a local boot to put on Arabs in the region is very useful.

How was the war in Iraq useful? The war in Libya was a terrible example of the west shooting itself in the foot. Afghanistan gave us heroin, migrants and two trillion dollars of debt. We haven't been putting a local boot on Indonesia, the largest muslim country and that hasn't created a problem for us. Israel has not benefited christians in the region, they have not benefited christian Palestinians and they have pushed millions of muslims into Lebanon that used to be more Christian and Greek. Israel is supporting Azerbaijan cleanse Armenians. Meanwhile, Israel has if anything opposed relatively secular nationalists in the middle east and backed islamists who fracture and weaken nearby arab states. This is the polar opposite interest of the rightwing voter.

Ben Gvir has been publically promoting ethnic cleansing in Palestine with the goal of bringing in migrants to the rest of the world.

Let's say the first part is correct: why do you think his goal is "bringing migrants to the rest of the world" (as opposed to just wanting them out of Palestine so Israelis can settle there)?

ADL and AIPAC

Are not Israeli.

How was the war in Iraq useful?

In my opinion, it wasn't, but the argument (whether or not you believed it at the time) was that Saddam Hussein posed an existential threat to the stabliity of the region (and oil prices). The reason it is useful to have an outpost in the region is oil, and Iran.

I'm not personally defending US misadventures in the Middle East (of which there are many). I'm explaining why conservatives would find Israel useful for reasons other than "Da Joos hoodwinked us."

We haven't been putting a local boot on Indonesia, the largest muslim country and that hasn't created a problem for us.

We don't have national interests threatened in or next to Indonesia.

Israel has not benefited christians in the region

Well, Christians have it better in Israel than in most Arab countries. Of course, so do Arab-Israelis.

they have not benefited christian Palestinians and they have pushed millions of muslims into Lebanon that used to be more Christian and Greek.

The Muslims who got pushed into Lebanon were a result of Black September, which the Palestinians did to themselves (by trying to start a coup in Jordan).

This is the polar opposite interest of the rightwing voter.

Not being a right wing voter, I will not disagree with you that they often choose sides poorly. But the bottom line is that Israel is, at least from a Western perspective, the best of a bad lot in the region, and we cannot escape our interests in the region.

(as opposed to just wanting them out of Palestine so Israelis can settle there)

They are going somewhere. The best option is if they stay put. Moving millions of arabs around 300 km from the EU is a terrible idea.

Are not Israeli.

Imagine in a Han chinese lobby claimed they were not a Chinese lobby, just ethnic Han who love China.

The reason it is useful to have an outpost in the region is oil, and Iran.

Yet Chinese ships sail past Yemen without getting shot at and China buys middle eastern oil. They didn't have to invade any countries. Iran is in no way a threat and is if anything the group that has been the best at integrating in Europe. They even speak an indoeuropean language. Destabilizing Iran would be an absolute disaster. Our interest is a stable Iran with few migrants and stable exports.

We don't have national interests threatened in or next to Indonesia.

What national interests does the west have around Israel that Israel helps with? Israel provides no oil.

Well, Christians have it better in Israel than in most Arab countries.

Christians are being ethnically cleansed by Israel. Israel has backed jihadists in Syria that were wrecking Christian communities and Israel has had an anti-christian stance in the Armenia/Azerbadjan conflict.

and we cannot escape our interests in the region.

How has Israel promoted stable arab states that produce few migrants and like to do business with the west?

They are going somewhere. The best option is if they stay put. Moving millions of arabs around 300 km from the EU is a terrible idea.

I don't disagree. I disagree that moving Arabs to Europe is the end goal of right-wing Israeli nationalists (and Jews in general). They want to move the Palestinians somewhere, and usually the (very slightly more realistic) proposal is that neighboring Arab countries should take them in. (Only slightly more realistic because the Arab countries don't want them.)

Imagine in a Han chinese lobby claimed they were not a Chinese lobby, just ethnic Han who love China.

Okay. I have no problem imagining that. Lots of Chinese special interest groups, political and cultural, exist in the US. I don't think most of them are fronts for the Chinese government or advocating the interests of the PRC.

What national interests does the west have around Israel that Israel helps with? Israel provides no oil.

A joint base of operations. Israeli intelligence. An allied military force in place.

Christians are being ethnically cleansed by Israel.

That's a bold claim. Are you basing this on the fact that some Palestinians are Christians, or are you actually claiming Christians who live in Israel are being ethnically cleansed?

Israel has backed jihadists in Syria that were wrecking Christian communities and Israel has had an anti-christian stance in the Armenia/Azerbadjan conflict.

This seems like a very skewed reading of their interests. That said, yes, both Israel and the US have made very unfortunate devil's bargains with jihadists that have come back to bite us.

Evangelical Christians used to love Israel. A lot. Like the way cringe weebs loved Japan, but even scarier. They pushed for carte blanche support of Israeli foreign policy, massive military aid funding, direct US support and intervention to ensure the survival of the Israeli state. They donated money and material support to settlers and and private security forces for settlements. And they were vocal supporters of the Netanyahu government. They basically thought that America’s entire spiritual purpose was to keep Israel and the Jewish people alive. Israel’s response to that massive war chest of foreign political support was to crack down on Christianity in Israel (which is negligible), and to intensify rhetorical denunciations of Christianity. A high ranking member of Likud stated that spitting on Christians in the street and other forms of low level violence and harassment was “part of traditional Israeli culture” (Edit: this wasn’t anyone in Likud, this was a settler activist, and his statements were harshly criticized by most of the the higher ranking people in Likud’s government, including I believe Benjamin Netanyahu). At home, American Jews (who thought Israel was cringe and unnecessary anyway) led a 20 year crusade against Christianity, succeeding in driving it out of politics and a lot of public spaces. Then starting in 2012 American Jews acted as the tip of the spear for a racialist movement targeting Anglo Americans with Southern and Midwestern evangelical whites being on the top of the shit-list. Unsurprisingly, Evangelical support for Israel and American Jews has cooled significantly in recent years.

A high ranking member of Likud stated that spitting on Christians in the street and other forms of low level violence and harassment was “part of traditional Israeli culture”.

Who?

This part I think I got wrong, it was Elisha Yered, a settler activist who is otherwise a bit of a nut, and was denounced by most of the government. It made the rounds on Twitter several months ago. I will work on editing my above post to reflect that when I can figure out how the formatting works.

and geopolitically, a local boot to put on Arabs in the region is very useful.

And to have a competent ally in the area against Iran, who's probably the US' most dangerous enemy these days after China, Russia, and maybe North Korea.

Israel's the worst ally the US could possibly have, their competence is irrelevant.

Consider the invasion of Iraq. You might naively think that Israel would be really useful, sending troops to help the Coalition in their mutual goal of destroying Saddam Hussein's regime? No, of course not. They didn't lift a finger to help the US. Of course they sent some false intelligence to suggest Iraq actually had nuclear weapons, of course they flexed their influence to encourage the invasion. They just didn't do any fighting.

Why? Because the Arabs hate Israel and it would've let Saddam reframe the war as yet another Arab-Israel war. He tried doing that in 1991 by throwing some Scuds at Israel. Israel's presence would've made things worse for America.

There's no convincing reason to think that Israel would help against Iran, based on past practice. If they did help it would probably be net-negative in creating more opponents for US forces. Dumping Israel would make it much easier to work with Saudi Arabia, Iraq, the Gulf, Turkey, Egypt...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syria_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction

Israel had helped a lot there as one example. But ultimately I don't know and cannot know how useful Israel is, given how much secrecy is involved in military matters. But I have some amount of faith in the US military establishment being able to gauge how useful Israel is, and inform administrations of that.

I don't think many people really cared about Muslims either way until 9/11

I think the dominant sentiment about Muslims in the 90s was ‘desert savages who oppress women on camels somewhere’.

The unrequited love of Christian conservatives for Jews is really something.

Evangelical conservatives have a net +39 favorability rating of Jews.

Jews have a net -40 favorability rating of Evangelicals.

This is an unstable equilibrium. Why should Evangelicals support Israel when American Jews view evangelicals with sneering contempt? It's delusional. Evangelicals probably think that Jews love them back. A greater awareness of the true situation will lead to a rapid decline in support for Israel among U.S. conservatives.

(And yes, American Jews != Israelis, but let's be real here).

It’s because ‘like’ is measuring two different things. Evangelicals like Jews for eschatological reasons and because Evangelical Christianity embraced Zionism in its millenarianism. When asked if they ‘like Jews’ or what their ‘favorability towards Jews’ is, their understanding of Jews is twofold: Jews in a real world, domestic, sense, and Jews in an eschatological religious sense. And for committed Evangelicals, the latter is more important. The Jews of the imagination loom larger than real Jews, who are for geographic reasons not particularly common around the places where many of America’s Evangelicals live.

Jews are both often secular / atheist and do not have any religious role for Evangelicals in any event, they judge them only in a temporal, domestic, real sense, and therefore base their decision on the media impression of Evangelicals as backwards conservatives who believe the earth is 6000 years old and that Adam and Eve had pet dinosaurs. On some level Evangelicals often are presumably aware that Jews are mostly urban progressives who support abortion rights and gun control, but this is simply outweighed by the religious situation. It’s not caused by a lack of knowledge of what many American Jews think of them, for it to change they’d need to lose their faith.

I'd definitely be curious to hear what the favorability rate is of evangelical christians is among more observant jews.

I believe that observant Jews are much more heavily fundamentalist than the case among Christians, and the ultra-orthodox notoriously do not like Christianity or Christians in any capacity.

It's religious (obviously). Evangelicals really do believe Jews are God's Chosen People and Israel is required for Biblical prophecy to be fulfilled. Jews understandably tend to view the idea that they are meant to, essentially, all be slaughtered * so Christians can have their Rapture with less enthusiasm. Plus evangelicals also try to convert Jews, which Jews dislike even more than most people dislike evangelizing. (@hydroacetylene says only super fundies still believe Jews are going to hell. I don't think that's true; most evangelical denominations still believe in exclusive salvation.)

Thus the phenomenon where evangelicals "love" Jews while Jews view them with distrust bordering on contempt.

  • There are various eschatological schools and thus different versions of what's actually supposed to happen in the End Times, but usually it's not good for Jews.

I'm sure a lot of conservative Christians do like Jews as individuals and admire them as a race, but, well, eschatology is a thing. That may just be my own personal notion of what "like" means - I know you can like someone while believing they're going to burn in hell, but it's not a circle I could square.

As for Muslims, Muslim terrorists were certainly on people's minds before 9/11 (Osama Bin Laden had been an infamous enemy of the US and the West for years), though obviously that event is what cemented the association to the rest of the world. Republican support for Israel has always been a combination of realpolitik (want a Western outpost in the oil-producing region and as a counterbalance to Iran), opposition to leftists, and religion.

Most conservative Christians today don’t believe Jews are going to hell, only the fundiest of the fundies do.

I think it largely depends whether they're dispensationalists, but most are dispensationalists.

Supercessionism is über-fundy coded. Almost all conservative Christians in the USA are dispensationalists in practice even if the literal text of their doctrines say things like ‘the old covenant is no longer in effect’.

Most of the conservative Christians who like Jews that much are dual-covenanters, they believe Jews also go to heaven because of the covenant with Abraham.

Israel has created a perpetual refugee crisis on Europe's border

No, Israel is not responsible for the European refugee crisis. That's on disputes within the Islamic world. And European foolishness.

It's a "PR nightmare" because western NGOs make it so, which is no reason to do anything different.

The refugees generally come from the countries bombed by the US and Israel. Putting maximum pressure sanctions on middle eastern countries, bombing them and supporting groups that destabilize them make it far worse. AIPAC lobbies for war. The US and Israel bomb. IsraAID helps the migrants cross the mediteranean while ADL works to get those who oppose this banned. There is no reason why Syria has to be less stable than jordan or the Gulf states. The wars in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Afghanistan have been destructive from a European perspective.

It is a PR nightmare because Israel is killing tens of thousands of people and engaging in an exceptionally brutal form of warefare with western backing. This goes against western tradition of rules of war and much of the non European world watches in horror.

Israel is not the reason for Syria's instability.

This goes against western tradition of rules of war and much of the non European world watches in horror.

Ever heard of Verdun? Dresden? Hiroshima? The Battle of the Bulge? Dien Bien Phu? The western tradition of war where no enemy are killed, or no enemy civilians are killed, is a fabrication. It doesn't exist. As for non-Europeans, they're not any better. The "PR nightmare" is NGOs inventing an entirely fictional standard of warfighting and applying it only to one side.

I remember the Bush years too. There were conservative critics of Israel then (but they were from the more overtly anti-Semitic fringe) and there were definitely leftist critics of Israel. That some people who nominally support Israel's right to exist are now uncomfortable enough with what's happening in Gaza to call it genocide is significant, but that's because Gaza is really quite unlike previous escalations.

I notice you are now carefully saying "Zionism" and not Jews. Would it be correct to say that you don't have a problem with Jews, only with Zionists?

There was almost no criticism of Israel during the Bush years, particularly on the Right, certainly nothing at all that resembles the discourse on X and TikTok. That did not exist in the Bush years, it's new.

I notice you are now carefully saying "Zionism" and not Jews.

... I'm saying what I mean. i.e. "Candace is breaking from the Zionist right". Not all Jews are Zionists but, importantly, many gentiles are Zionists. Typically people would say "neocon" but I am being more precise. "Candace is breaking from the Jewish right" wouldn't make as much sense there.

Jewish nationalism (re: Zionism) is one aspect of Jewish behavior, and the behavior that's relevant to my comment, I'm not choosing words based on who I have a problem with.

There was almost no criticism of Israel during the Bush years, particularly on the Right, certainly nothing at all that resembles the discourse on X and TikTok. That did not exist in the Bush years, it's new.

Yes there was. I was there.

X and TikTok and social media in general did not exist in the Bush years. The closest was Usenet and talk radio. So non-mainstream views in general had a harder time being disseminated, but they were definitely out there.

Jewish nationalism (re: Zionism) is one aspect of Jewish behavior

In what way? Because Zionism is a political movement and it's not intrinsic to Jewishness, any more than capitalism or democracy or Christianity are intrinsic to any ethnic group. I'm fascinated to know how a movement that at one time was opposed by most Jews on religious and/or pacifistic grounds is an "aspect of Jewish behavior." Do you just mean it's a movement that is currently embraced by the majority of Jews?

Because Zionism is a political movement and it's not intrinsic to Jewishness

It's not a matter of Zionism being intrinsic to Jewishness, it's a matter of Jewishness being intrinsic to Zionism. Such can be said about other political movements as well. The political movement is a reflection of the people pushing it forward. Zionism is fundamentally built on that piece of literary fiction which is called the Hebrew Bible. The Israeli conflict is eschatological with Bibi and many Zionists invoking Biblical story and prophecy- and prophecies are nothing if not plans and wishes. Zionism is biblical before it is anything else.

This is not to say all Jews are Zionists. None other than Winston Churchill in his 1920 essay ZIONISM versus BOLSHEVISM. A STRUGGLE FOR THE SOUL OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE elaborated on the divided opinion of Jewish nationalists on how Jews should politically advance their interests. On the one hand, supporting radical politics in the West which criminalized Anti-Semitism to ostensibly provide security from Jews, and on the other hand Zionism.

The National Russian Jews, in spite of the disabilities under which they have suffered, have managed to play an honourable and useful part in the national life even of Russia. As bankers and industrialists they have strenuously promoted the development of Russia's economic resources and they were foremost in the creation of those remarkable organisations, the Russian Co-operative Societies. In politics their support has been given, for the most part, to liberal and progressive movements, and they have been among the staunchest upholders of friendship with France and Great Britain.

International Jews.

In violent opposition to all this sphere of Jewish effort rise the schemes of the International Jews. The adherents of this sinister confederacy are mostly men reared up among the unhappy populations of countries where Jews are persecuted on account of their race. Most, if not all, of them have forsaken the faith of their forefathers, and divorced from their minds all spiritual hopes of the next world. This movement among the Jews is not new. From the days of Spartacus-Weishaupt to those of Karl Marx, and down to Trotsky (Russia), Bela Kun (Hungary), Rosa Luxembourg (Germany), and Emma Goldman (United States), this world-wide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilisation and for the reconstitution of society on the basis of arrested development, of envious malevolence, and impossible equality, has been steadily growing. It played, as a modern writer, Mrs. Webster, has so ably shown, a definitely recognisable part in the tragedy of the French Revolution. It has been the mainspring of every subversive movement during the Nineteenth Century; and now at last this band of extraordinary personalities from the underworld of the great cities of Europe and America have gripped the Russian people by the hair of their heads and have become practically the undisputed masters of that enormous empire.

Terrorist Jews.

There is no need to exaggerate the part played in the creation of Bolshevism and in the actual bringing about of the Russian Revolution by these international and for the most part atheistical Jews. It is certainly a very great one; it probably outweighs all others. With the notable exception of Lenin, the majority of the leading figures are Jews. Moreover, the principal inspiration and driving power comes from the Jewish leaders. Thus Tchitcherin, a pure Russian, is eclipsed by his nominal subordinate Litvinoff, and the influence of Russians like Bukharin or Lunacharski cannot be compared with the power of Trotsky, or of Zinovieff, the Dictator of the Red Citadel (Petrograd), or of Krassin or Radek – all Jews. In the Soviet institutions the predominance of Jews is even more astonishing. And the prominent, if not indeed the principal, part in the system of terrorism applied by the Extraordinary Commissions for Combating Counter-Revolution has been taken by Jews, and in some notable cases by Jewesses. The same evil prominence was obtained by Jews in the brief period of terror during which Bela Kun ruled in Hungary. The same phenomenon has been presented in Germany (especially in Bavaria), so far as this madness has been allowed to prey upon the temporary prostration of the German people. Although in all these countries there are many non-Jews every whit as bad as the worst of the Jewish revolutionaries, the part played by the latter in proportion to their numbers in the population is astonishing.

"Protector of the Jews."

Needless to say, the most intense passions of revenge have been excited in the breasts of the Russian people. Wherever General Denikin's authority could reach, protection was always accorded to the Jewish population, and strenuous efforts were made by his officers to prevent reprisals and to punish those guilty of them. So much was this the case that the Petlurist propaganda against General Denikin denounced him as the Protector of the Jews. The Misses Healy, nieces of Mr. Tim Healy, in relating their personal experiences in Kieff, have declared that to their knowledge on more than one occasion officers who committed offences against Jews were reduced to the ranks and sent out of the city to the front. But the hordes of brigands by whom the whole vast expanse of the Russian Empire is becoming infested do not hesitate to gratify their lust for blood and for revenge at the expense of the innocent Jewish population whenever an opportunity occurs. The brigand Makhno, the hordes of Petlura and of Gregorieff, who signalised their every success by the most brutal massacres, everywhere found among the half-stupefied, half-infuriated population an eager response to anti-Semitism in its worst and foulest forms.

The fact that in many cases Jewish interests and Jewish places of worship are excepted by the Bolsheviks from their universal hostility has tended more and more to associate the Jewish race in Russia with the villainies which are now being perpetrated. This is an injustice on millions of helpless people, most of whom are themselves sufferers from the revolutionary regime. It becomes, therefore, specially important to foster and develop any strongly-marked Jewish movement which leads directly away from these fatal associations. And it is here that Zionism has such a deep significance for the whole world at the present time.

A Home for the Jews.

Zionism offers the third sphere to the political conceptions of the Jewish race. In violent contrast to international communism, it presents to the Jew a national idea of a commanding character. It has fallen to the British Government, as the result of the conquest of Palestine, to have the opportunity and the responsibility of securing for the Jewish race all over the world a home and a centre of national life. The statesmanship and historic sense of Mr. Balfour were prompt to seize this opportunity. Declarations have been made which have irrevocably decided the policy of Great Britain. The fiery energies of Dr. Weissmann, the leader, for practical purposes, of the Zionist project, backed by many of the most prominent British Jews, and supported by the full authority of Lord Allenby, are all directed to achieving the success of this inspiring movement.

Of course, Palestine is far too small to accommodate more than a fraction of the Jewish race, nor do the majority of national Jews wish to go there. But if, as may well happen, there should be created in our own lifetime by the banks of the Jordan a Jewish State under the protection of the British Crown, which might comprise three or four millions of Jews, an event would have occurred in the history of the world which would, from every point of view, be beneficial, and would be especially in harmony with the truest interests of the British Empire.

Zionism has already become a factor in the political convulsions of Russia, as a powerful competing influence in Bolshevik circles with the international communistic system. Nothing could be more significant than the fury with which Trotsky has attacked the Zionists generally, and Dr. Weissmann in particular. The cruel penetration of his mind leaves him in no doubt that his schemes of a world-wide communistic State under Jewish domination are directly thwarted and hindered by this new ideal, which directs the energies and the hopes of Jews in every land towards a simpler, a truer, and a far more attainable goal. The struggle which is now beginning between the Zionist and Bolshevik Jews is little less than a struggle for the soul of the Jewish people.

We can dispense with your insinuation that the disagreement between Jews at this time regarding the best way to support Jewish interests disproves the Jewishness of Zionism.

Churchill forgot the other option though- Porque no los dos? Throw their weight behind radical political movements in the West which promote diversity, inclusiveness, demographic change in America and Europe, and support their aggressive ethnonationalist conquest of Palestine at the same time. The ADL is perhaps the avatar of the Jewish consensus- just do both. And that has worked until now, the blowback is coming.

It's not a matter of Zionism being intrinsic to Jewishness, it's a matter of Jewishness being intrinsic to Zionism.

Well, yes, Zionism is Jewish nationalism. You might as well say that Indianness is intrinsic to Hindu nationalism. It is both a true statement and one that conveys no additional information or implications. A nationalist movement is by definition closely associated with the nation whose interests it is advancing, even if it also has religious and ethnic overtones.

We can dispense with your insinuation that the disagreement between Jews at this time regarding the best way to support Jewish interests disproves the Jewishness of Zionism.

I did not say Zionism is not Jewish. I said it's not an intrinsic property of Jewishness. You seem to be playing the A -> B = B -> A game here.

I said that Zionism is an aspect of Jewish behavior. You tried to counter this by saying that Zionism is not intrinsic to Jewishness. But my original statement is proven by the fact that Jewishness is intrinsic to Zionism in particular.

You are the one playing that game.

I said that Zionism is an aspect of Jewish behavior.

Which is why I asked for clarification. "An aspect of Jewish behavior" could mean "It is commonly seen among Jews" or it could mean "It's inherent to being Jewish." Those are not the same.

You tried to counter this by saying that Zionism is not intrinsic to Jewishness.

Correct. It is not.

But my original statement is proven by the fact that Jewishness is intrinsic to Zionism in particular.

"Jewishness is intrinsic to Zionism" is not the same as "Zionism is an aspect of Jewish behavior." Those are two different statements with different implications. You are focusing on the former because it's literally true but not meaningful, but trying to make it mean the same as the second, which, in your worldview, advances the notion that Jews are inherently predisposed to act in an entirely self-interested manner to the detriment of non-Jews, justifying your argument that Jews should be treated as a racial enemy and an existential threat. If you want to convince people that Jews should be treated as a racial enemy and an existential threat, put forward better arguments than "Zionism is Jewish" and "Most Jews are Zionists."

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats