Listen now | Arash Azizi reacted to my recent essay, The Case for Colonizing Gaza, by responding to one of my trolls who had said the essays was “blatantly racist,” to which Arash Azizi replied, “It’s not just racist but outright fascist.” Of course, there is nothing racist or fascist about it, any more than there was about the U.S. occupation of Germany, since that is precisely what I am recommending. Moreover, when he was a
David, looks like you are unfamiliar with the new definition the left uses for the term “racist”.
To them it means: ‘you do not agree with everything I say, no matter how ideologically twisted, ridiculously nonsensical or morally bankrupt. Therefore you are morally inferior inthe extreme and worthy of this otherwise nonsequitor epithet. Meanwhile I have burnished my superior status as one who opposes hate and I avoided engaging in a logical argument, reading, or even understanding what you wrote. So there.’
Just trying to help with the newspeak vocab. These are crazy times.
And speaking of defending Hitler, last week I heard of three new books that are hate-filled screeds trashing Trump supporters. One is Rural White Hate, or some such nonsense. Why not compare and contrast those with Mein Kampf? I’ll bet he parallels are startling.
“Are they stupid or pretending to be stupid” is a question I’ve been asking for decades. I’ve come up with a third option. “Convincing themselves of something false to maintain social standing and ingroup integrity.” Remember those social psych studies where a subject would declare blue as red or a line longer than others as shorter because all the other people in the room did? I used to think they were lying. Now I believe their actual perception changes.
This describes everyone I’ve separated from in the past 8 years…
You may wish to consider doing a longer piece on what exactly occurred with the US occupation of Germany and Japan and what "de-nazification" actually entailed.
Hiya. I'd love to hear why you chose to use the word colonization in your title, and what you thought it would evoke in Hamas supporters. Did you think it would make them stop and read the piece? Would you do it again or pivot to another non triggering word?
The difference between military occupation and colonization is duration and purpose. If Israel occupies Gaza and can later withdraw because Palestinian leaders decide they want a two-state solution then that would be ideal. But I imagine the process would take decades and would necessarily involve some level of cultural reform. A lengthy occupation together with the imposition of one's own cultural values—in this case values such as tolerance and human rights for Jews, women, LGBT members, as well as opposition to genocidal violence—would move beyond occupation to a colonial project. But there's no point occupying Gaza and then leaving so long as the vast majority of Gazans still want to genocide Jewish people. Israel already did that, then left in 2005, and the result was October 7. So the options would appear to be carpet-bombing Gaza for the next century, forcibly shoving Gazans into Egypt, allowing Gazans to genocide more Jews, or some version of a one-state solution. Again, if Gazan leadership decides it wants to pursue a two-state solution, that would be the best option, but that's not the reality right now.
I also had doubts about your use of the word colonize. I don't think the Allies or the US saw themselves as colonizers, but occupiers. Colonization has overtones of populations transfer to the conquered land with an eye towards annexation, or at least a desire to utilize the resources of the new land for enriching the colonizer. Your plan is patriarchal, I suppose, and adopts a position with could be seen as cultural imperialism.
Let me go a bit farther here: your plan is fascist in the sense that you want to culturally engineer a non-Western culture into Western values. You could claim that the idea of "crimes against humanity" posits a moral code, but that code as formulated by the United Nations in the wake of WWII reflected a Western understanding, not a universal one.
Perhaps you believe there is natural good and obvious evil. Maybe all cultures do, and they define the natural good according to their way of seeing the world and their place in the world. But it is plainer than the nose on my face that my Palestinian neighbors have a definition of the good and the evil that is at odds with mine - and yours.
I listened (I admit, with some amusement) at how mystified you were that any could call your proposal fascist or racist, when there was nothing in the proposal that would do any harm adn much that would promise hope for a better future for the Palestinians and th whol Middle East - heck, the whole world.
They are not interested in that, David. That picture you paint is not their definition of the good. Your proposal would mean that the Palestinians would have to drop the idea of annihilating the State of Israel. The very definition of their identity as Palestinians is wrapped up the the destruction of the Jewish state and the murder of the Jews brazen enough to try to establish themselves in an Arab Muslim Near East. You want to strip that from them.
So in the end, your plan is not one of colonization, but rather of genocide. I'm surprised Azizi did not call you on that one. Any plan that includes the existence of a Jewish state in Palestine is by definition fascist, racist, and genocidal. I know in your liberal soul, you were just trying to present a plan that would be good for the greatest number of people, and that you really believe you can educate the Palestinians out of the idea of murder, rape, and expulsion. The reaction of your educated and sophisticated friend Azizi might be an indication that it will be more difficult than you think.
Sadly, my friend, I think you are right. Not only can we probably not reeducate Palestinians to agree with us that rape and genocide are bad ideas, but even if we try—no, even if we say we would like to try—we will be called pro-rape and pro-genocide by our presumed allies who apparently share our values but happen to stand several inches to our left. Not only will we not be able to convince Palestinians that killing Jews is a bad idea, but we will not be able to convince Clemson professors and their colleagues that we should even try.
If you have time, look up the book The War of Return by Adi Schwartz and Einat Wilf. The forst half of the book documents how UNRWA took over the role of indoctrinating Palestinians, the second half addresses how Arafat massaged the message of Israel's destruction into language acceptable to the West, and manipulated Israeli and American naiveté to advance a diplomatic war against the Jewish state. Wilf was a member of the Israeli Labor party and worked on the Oslo Accords. She was shocked that her Palestinian interlocutors made no secret of their desire to erase Israel fromt he map. Unlike many people locked into an ideological strait-jacket, she listened and gave the Palestinians the respect of taking them at their word. She was not shocked nor surprised by the acts of October 7.
My guess is that Arash would say, if he came onto your show, that he cannot imagine how you could compare Palestine to Nazi Germany and that to do so is racist. And that he finds the comparison of the two so extreme he cannot find enough common ground to start with.
Not making a political argument here literally just trying to define terms - isn’t any use of force to reach an end fascism? Wasn’t it therefore fascism to occupy and de-Nazifiy Germany? Are there therefore judicial and constructive doses of fascism? Like public health measures and taxes?
"On the contrary, what the western left usually does is to lock ordinary muslims in position, under the pyramid of the bureaucratic, clerical and holy warrior castes."
They do this in America with Black people and Latinos as well. They define our "traditions" as being noble farmworkers or service workers (which is nonsense, that's what we adapted to under strife - just like the current Islamism and suppression of women is not traditional either) and attack us when we overcome it.
I'm half-Mexican. The white side of my family is extreme-left from the working class/factory/union days. I will never be able to grasp why they are aligning themslves with the rich Democrats. They tell me I'm not Mexican anymore because I went to college and got a corporate job. Which aligns perfectly with all the rich white left wingers I met in college - and later in corporations. The corporations were less "you're not Mexican anymore" but rather "how dare a minority hire that made me feel good actually be equal to me." (Always "liberals" with that attitude, 100% of the time.)
Marxism is the mask. The real issue is feeling threatened by people they want to feel superior to. We just might be smarter than them. We just might be more successful. We might have to make them work to keep their superior position that makes them feel special and charitable.
David, looks like you are unfamiliar with the new definition the left uses for the term “racist”.
To them it means: ‘you do not agree with everything I say, no matter how ideologically twisted, ridiculously nonsensical or morally bankrupt. Therefore you are morally inferior inthe extreme and worthy of this otherwise nonsequitor epithet. Meanwhile I have burnished my superior status as one who opposes hate and I avoided engaging in a logical argument, reading, or even understanding what you wrote. So there.’
Just trying to help with the newspeak vocab. These are crazy times.
And speaking of defending Hitler, last week I heard of three new books that are hate-filled screeds trashing Trump supporters. One is Rural White Hate, or some such nonsense. Why not compare and contrast those with Mein Kampf? I’ll bet he parallels are startling.
I like Michael Malice's definition whereby a racist is anyone who wins an argument with a woke progressive.
good one
David, please interview Xi Van Fleet, author of Mao’s America. The ivy league is our own red guard.
“Are they stupid or pretending to be stupid” is a question I’ve been asking for decades. I’ve come up with a third option. “Convincing themselves of something false to maintain social standing and ingroup integrity.” Remember those social psych studies where a subject would declare blue as red or a line longer than others as shorter because all the other people in the room did? I used to think they were lying. Now I believe their actual perception changes.
This describes everyone I’ve separated from in the past 8 years…
You may wish to consider doing a longer piece on what exactly occurred with the US occupation of Germany and Japan and what "de-nazification" actually entailed.
Hiya. I'd love to hear why you chose to use the word colonization in your title, and what you thought it would evoke in Hamas supporters. Did you think it would make them stop and read the piece? Would you do it again or pivot to another non triggering word?
The difference between military occupation and colonization is duration and purpose. If Israel occupies Gaza and can later withdraw because Palestinian leaders decide they want a two-state solution then that would be ideal. But I imagine the process would take decades and would necessarily involve some level of cultural reform. A lengthy occupation together with the imposition of one's own cultural values—in this case values such as tolerance and human rights for Jews, women, LGBT members, as well as opposition to genocidal violence—would move beyond occupation to a colonial project. But there's no point occupying Gaza and then leaving so long as the vast majority of Gazans still want to genocide Jewish people. Israel already did that, then left in 2005, and the result was October 7. So the options would appear to be carpet-bombing Gaza for the next century, forcibly shoving Gazans into Egypt, allowing Gazans to genocide more Jews, or some version of a one-state solution. Again, if Gazan leadership decides it wants to pursue a two-state solution, that would be the best option, but that's not the reality right now.
I also had doubts about your use of the word colonize. I don't think the Allies or the US saw themselves as colonizers, but occupiers. Colonization has overtones of populations transfer to the conquered land with an eye towards annexation, or at least a desire to utilize the resources of the new land for enriching the colonizer. Your plan is patriarchal, I suppose, and adopts a position with could be seen as cultural imperialism.
Let me go a bit farther here: your plan is fascist in the sense that you want to culturally engineer a non-Western culture into Western values. You could claim that the idea of "crimes against humanity" posits a moral code, but that code as formulated by the United Nations in the wake of WWII reflected a Western understanding, not a universal one.
Perhaps you believe there is natural good and obvious evil. Maybe all cultures do, and they define the natural good according to their way of seeing the world and their place in the world. But it is plainer than the nose on my face that my Palestinian neighbors have a definition of the good and the evil that is at odds with mine - and yours.
I listened (I admit, with some amusement) at how mystified you were that any could call your proposal fascist or racist, when there was nothing in the proposal that would do any harm adn much that would promise hope for a better future for the Palestinians and th whol Middle East - heck, the whole world.
They are not interested in that, David. That picture you paint is not their definition of the good. Your proposal would mean that the Palestinians would have to drop the idea of annihilating the State of Israel. The very definition of their identity as Palestinians is wrapped up the the destruction of the Jewish state and the murder of the Jews brazen enough to try to establish themselves in an Arab Muslim Near East. You want to strip that from them.
So in the end, your plan is not one of colonization, but rather of genocide. I'm surprised Azizi did not call you on that one. Any plan that includes the existence of a Jewish state in Palestine is by definition fascist, racist, and genocidal. I know in your liberal soul, you were just trying to present a plan that would be good for the greatest number of people, and that you really believe you can educate the Palestinians out of the idea of murder, rape, and expulsion. The reaction of your educated and sophisticated friend Azizi might be an indication that it will be more difficult than you think.
Sadly, my friend, I think you are right. Not only can we probably not reeducate Palestinians to agree with us that rape and genocide are bad ideas, but even if we try—no, even if we say we would like to try—we will be called pro-rape and pro-genocide by our presumed allies who apparently share our values but happen to stand several inches to our left. Not only will we not be able to convince Palestinians that killing Jews is a bad idea, but we will not be able to convince Clemson professors and their colleagues that we should even try.
(sad laughter)
If you have time, look up the book The War of Return by Adi Schwartz and Einat Wilf. The forst half of the book documents how UNRWA took over the role of indoctrinating Palestinians, the second half addresses how Arafat massaged the message of Israel's destruction into language acceptable to the West, and manipulated Israeli and American naiveté to advance a diplomatic war against the Jewish state. Wilf was a member of the Israeli Labor party and worked on the Oslo Accords. She was shocked that her Palestinian interlocutors made no secret of their desire to erase Israel fromt he map. Unlike many people locked into an ideological strait-jacket, she listened and gave the Palestinians the respect of taking them at their word. She was not shocked nor surprised by the acts of October 7.
Astonished by the description of that book. Will immediately get a copy.
My guess is that Arash would say, if he came onto your show, that he cannot imagine how you could compare Palestine to Nazi Germany and that to do so is racist. And that he finds the comparison of the two so extreme he cannot find enough common ground to start with.
Not making a political argument here literally just trying to define terms - isn’t any use of force to reach an end fascism? Wasn’t it therefore fascism to occupy and de-Nazifiy Germany? Are there therefore judicial and constructive doses of fascism? Like public health measures and taxes?
Excellent and insightful point, K.
"On the contrary, what the western left usually does is to lock ordinary muslims in position, under the pyramid of the bureaucratic, clerical and holy warrior castes."
They do this in America with Black people and Latinos as well. They define our "traditions" as being noble farmworkers or service workers (which is nonsense, that's what we adapted to under strife - just like the current Islamism and suppression of women is not traditional either) and attack us when we overcome it.
I'm half-Mexican. The white side of my family is extreme-left from the working class/factory/union days. I will never be able to grasp why they are aligning themslves with the rich Democrats. They tell me I'm not Mexican anymore because I went to college and got a corporate job. Which aligns perfectly with all the rich white left wingers I met in college - and later in corporations. The corporations were less "you're not Mexican anymore" but rather "how dare a minority hire that made me feel good actually be equal to me." (Always "liberals" with that attitude, 100% of the time.)
Marxism is the mask. The real issue is feeling threatened by people they want to feel superior to. We just might be smarter than them. We just might be more successful. We might have to make them work to keep their superior position that makes them feel special and charitable.