And why we should applaud Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) for his courageous No vote on unconditional supplemental military aid to the Israel of Bibi Netanyahu.
i’ve much admired your recent writing coming to my inbox i found this piece a shock because you’re taking the rather incoherent stuff of these panelists as necessarily what’s being said across the movement.
i think we need much more extensive effort to see what spectrum exists in the wider palestinian communities and in the propal discourse which appears pretty decentralized. even in this episode i gather you didn’t directly challenge any of them with the very import objections you here inscribe.
i’m familiar with the sinking feeling you implicitly describe in a room of hard leftists. i’ve had that feeling often for about 65 years. But are these folks just like those young ones out across the country. even the JVP guy seemed very different from those i know.
Dick--Great to hear from you and I'm a big admirer of your work! I agree, what I provided is just one piece of the larger picture. That said, the central organizing materials of National Students for Justice in Palestine unambiguously confirm what I saw in this one encounter. So while I'm sure there's a spectrum of opinion at the encampments, the hard core seem set in these views.
A week after I wrote that piece, Biden attended a fundraiser in nearby Irvington and I hung around the 40 or so people, some local and some up from NYC, who came to protest "Genocide Joe." Their chants included "We don't want no two-state, we want 48" and other references to Israel that confirmed their hardcore anti-Zionism.
Micah, I was absolutely pained by reading your most recent post. The lack of humanity for the rape and murder of innocents and the language used by the event organizers makes the tragic death of Palestinian civilians into props for their vague economic-political agenda. It seems each child's death is a propagandist tool to be celebrated as a martyr to the cause. Disgusting! The complete lack of seriousness in understanding a complex and difficult history is profound. "Anti-Imperialism of Fools" while appropriate, vastly understates the tragedy of the ignorance. As a Jew who has warned my Israeli and diaspora friends for years about the dangers of a Jabotinskist led government and its rejection of Jewish ideals of justice, I am disheartened that the alternative these activist present is same law of the jungle. While some commenters applaud the activism, I am more circumspect of advocates who are pursuing an inevitable path towards violence without end. All they do is make peace more difficult by perpetuating lies that are all too familiar to anyone familiar with Jewish history. I despise Bibi and his government and hold them fully responsible for the October 7th tragedy (no, that doesn't mean I don't hold Hamas guilty of using rape, torture and murder and violations of the conventions on genocide). But these advocates make it easy for Bibi to appear reasonable and aggrieved. But for symbolic votes by Raskin to note this absurdity, it will go down as accepted fact. At this time of Passover, it feels again like G-d is punishing us for our sins. In the words of Isaiah
"Shout as loud as you can and don’t stop.
Shout like a trumpet!
Tell the people what they did wrong....
I will tell you the kind of day I want—a day to set people free....
If you do these things, your light will begin to shine like the light of dawn. Then your wounds will heal. Your “Goodness” will walk in front of you, and the Glory of the Lord will come following behind you. Amen!
Micah- I always applaud your deep analysis, but this time I think you missed something important ( I don't know if it was intentional or not). Raskin was very clear that his No Vote was not going to make a difference- as he knew the aid would go forward. For me that meant, if his vote mattered he would have voted yes. This was his opportunity to express his feelings without there being any real consequences which is why I don't think the Israeli government going to care ( i can think of another expression) too much about his statements. They will look at it as being chastised but know they can count on him if they need him.
The kids are dumb for sure. But I’m glad they’re organizing rallies and taking over the news. Most people participating, showing up for the afternoon or evening, are more normal and imo reasonable, and also wouldn’t be organizing rallies. I’m not doing it. I have a job and kids. I need some idiots to do all the work so I can show up for 2 hours, or send me action alerts etc. Actual anti-nationalists and liberals can take advantage of the opposition that these kids make visible, and advance reasonable outcomes, as you’ve described here in this post and in others. The democrats voting against the war wouldn’t be able to do so without it continuing to be in the news because of all the actions or the email campaigns.
Thanks Micah. I had to laugh at, “Israel is currently engaged in a multi-front war against terrorist enemies hellbent on its destruction and committed to wiping out the Jewish people.” Truly a sentence with more clichés than words :)
Such damn good work. You may be getting close to being Officially Old but your mind is in its prime. I think u have teased out the essence of the prob with the Pro Pal movement. It is much more a call for confrontation with forces ten thousand times their power rather than acting as a reality-based peace movement. On my fb timeline I am getting comments from some that we MUST term this as genocide, which it is not. Bur it spooks me to see how determined these folks are in applying that label as if 30,000 dead aren’t dead enough. Anyway… great work young man!
I think much like Israelis and some diaspora espoused chaos in the immediate aftermath of October 7th but have since retracted that irredentist claims to extermination, I suspect the young global left is in a streamed loop of chaotic revenge that is insurmountable without a ceasefire. Perhaps the butchers of Gaza’s greatest victory won’t be against Hamas but in compelling a second Patriot Act against the left.
hi micah, i appreciate all the writing you do and have learned enough to know i can't really add to these discussions. being in germany the last few years, i can say that the ny jews go back to poland comment ... i couldn't read it as innocently as go back home/live elsewhere might suggest, but as there's nowhere jews can live ... and that is why an israel must not cease to exist.
micah
i’ve much admired your recent writing coming to my inbox i found this piece a shock because you’re taking the rather incoherent stuff of these panelists as necessarily what’s being said across the movement.
i think we need much more extensive effort to see what spectrum exists in the wider palestinian communities and in the propal discourse which appears pretty decentralized. even in this episode i gather you didn’t directly challenge any of them with the very import objections you here inscribe.
i’m familiar with the sinking feeling you implicitly describe in a room of hard leftists. i’ve had that feeling often for about 65 years. But are these folks just like those young ones out across the country. even the JVP guy seemed very different from those i know.
thanks for all the insights…
Dick--Great to hear from you and I'm a big admirer of your work! I agree, what I provided is just one piece of the larger picture. That said, the central organizing materials of National Students for Justice in Palestine unambiguously confirm what I saw in this one encounter. So while I'm sure there's a spectrum of opinion at the encampments, the hard core seem set in these views.
A week after I wrote that piece, Biden attended a fundraiser in nearby Irvington and I hung around the 40 or so people, some local and some up from NYC, who came to protest "Genocide Joe." Their chants included "We don't want no two-state, we want 48" and other references to Israel that confirmed their hardcore anti-Zionism.
Micah, I was absolutely pained by reading your most recent post. The lack of humanity for the rape and murder of innocents and the language used by the event organizers makes the tragic death of Palestinian civilians into props for their vague economic-political agenda. It seems each child's death is a propagandist tool to be celebrated as a martyr to the cause. Disgusting! The complete lack of seriousness in understanding a complex and difficult history is profound. "Anti-Imperialism of Fools" while appropriate, vastly understates the tragedy of the ignorance. As a Jew who has warned my Israeli and diaspora friends for years about the dangers of a Jabotinskist led government and its rejection of Jewish ideals of justice, I am disheartened that the alternative these activist present is same law of the jungle. While some commenters applaud the activism, I am more circumspect of advocates who are pursuing an inevitable path towards violence without end. All they do is make peace more difficult by perpetuating lies that are all too familiar to anyone familiar with Jewish history. I despise Bibi and his government and hold them fully responsible for the October 7th tragedy (no, that doesn't mean I don't hold Hamas guilty of using rape, torture and murder and violations of the conventions on genocide). But these advocates make it easy for Bibi to appear reasonable and aggrieved. But for symbolic votes by Raskin to note this absurdity, it will go down as accepted fact. At this time of Passover, it feels again like G-d is punishing us for our sins. In the words of Isaiah
"Shout as loud as you can and don’t stop.
Shout like a trumpet!
Tell the people what they did wrong....
I will tell you the kind of day I want—a day to set people free....
If you do these things, your light will begin to shine like the light of dawn. Then your wounds will heal. Your “Goodness” will walk in front of you, and the Glory of the Lord will come following behind you. Amen!
Micah- I always applaud your deep analysis, but this time I think you missed something important ( I don't know if it was intentional or not). Raskin was very clear that his No Vote was not going to make a difference- as he knew the aid would go forward. For me that meant, if his vote mattered he would have voted yes. This was his opportunity to express his feelings without there being any real consequences which is why I don't think the Israeli government going to care ( i can think of another expression) too much about his statements. They will look at it as being chastised but know they can count on him if they need him.
The kids are dumb for sure. But I’m glad they’re organizing rallies and taking over the news. Most people participating, showing up for the afternoon or evening, are more normal and imo reasonable, and also wouldn’t be organizing rallies. I’m not doing it. I have a job and kids. I need some idiots to do all the work so I can show up for 2 hours, or send me action alerts etc. Actual anti-nationalists and liberals can take advantage of the opposition that these kids make visible, and advance reasonable outcomes, as you’ve described here in this post and in others. The democrats voting against the war wouldn’t be able to do so without it continuing to be in the news because of all the actions or the email campaigns.
So appreciate the question you posed and your verbatim transcription, as well as the analysis.
Thanks Micah. I had to laugh at, “Israel is currently engaged in a multi-front war against terrorist enemies hellbent on its destruction and committed to wiping out the Jewish people.” Truly a sentence with more clichés than words :)
Such damn good work. You may be getting close to being Officially Old but your mind is in its prime. I think u have teased out the essence of the prob with the Pro Pal movement. It is much more a call for confrontation with forces ten thousand times their power rather than acting as a reality-based peace movement. On my fb timeline I am getting comments from some that we MUST term this as genocide, which it is not. Bur it spooks me to see how determined these folks are in applying that label as if 30,000 dead aren’t dead enough. Anyway… great work young man!
I think much like Israelis and some diaspora espoused chaos in the immediate aftermath of October 7th but have since retracted that irredentist claims to extermination, I suspect the young global left is in a streamed loop of chaotic revenge that is insurmountable without a ceasefire. Perhaps the butchers of Gaza’s greatest victory won’t be against Hamas but in compelling a second Patriot Act against the left.
hi micah, i appreciate all the writing you do and have learned enough to know i can't really add to these discussions. being in germany the last few years, i can say that the ny jews go back to poland comment ... i couldn't read it as innocently as go back home/live elsewhere might suggest, but as there's nowhere jews can live ... and that is why an israel must not cease to exist.