Tapestries-35 | What's going on?
A situation far away that feels very personal and close-to-home.
The last week has been taxing. Israel today is no saint, and in its current political form is absolutely worthy of legitimate criticism. But the current situation feels personal.
Personal in that the rockets from Gaza have repeatedly forced Tali's grandfather and cousins into bomb shelters, and in the sense that it has sent my best friend back into military service. But also personal in that it has felt like members of our communities—friends and peers—have expressed and circulated views which suggest not only is Israel a colonialist and genocidal regime, bent on "ethnic cleansing," but that it doesn't have a right to exist. And as a Jew and Zionist, that's been confronting to absorb.
The online war is raging, and I feel compelled to contribute something, even in a small way. This piece is my attempt. It's pretty long, relatively emotive, and definitely personal. And as always, to those reading this, I hope it's the start of many conversations. For those who read my pieces regularly, you would have noticed an increasing tendency to address issues of personal identity. This piece is a continuation of that attempt at openness and honesty, and I hope you receive it as such.
Let's first set the scene.
Why this is important to me, and what can I add?
Israel is many things: tough, innovative, diverse, resourceful, principled, and also deeply flawed. It's also of enormous personal significance to me. I grew up learning about its exploits. I have visited the country many times, and have lived there for an extended period too. I am not oblivious to the bias this creates, and acknowledge that I am significantly more familiar with the story of Israel's history and founding than the stories of its Palestinian inhabitants. But I am also honest enough to say that in spite of its real shortcomings, I am a supporter of Israel.
I am also critical of Israel. In recent years it has made certain political and tactical decisions that are hard to defend. I therefore have no issue with criticism of Israel. What I do take issue with is criticism from entirely uninformed quarters that paints Israel as an evil regime, and take issue with the expression of positions that whether intentionally or unintentionally, undermine its legitimacy as a sovereign nation and its right to exist.
I've had lots of conversations with Jewish friends this week in Israel, New York and Melbourne. I've wanted to write something on the topic to clarify my view, but wasn't sure what the point was; mine would be just another missile in a deafening war of infographics, tweets and slogans. So I decided to write a piece to help me and others make sense of what is happening in the rolling argument online, and why it's developed the way it has.
Just like a nuanced view can't be expressed in an Instagram story, this piece will not elegantly capture the totality of the social media scrum or the underlying conflict itself. I don't want to litigate the case of who is "right" and "wrong" today; I clearly have a view, and express it towards the end of this piece, but I've focused elsewhere in pursuit of adding something useful.
With the context now set, I'll aim to cover the following: why this chapter of the conflict has captured such intense interest and vitriol, why I believe some of the criticism contains huge inconsistencies and is itself the embodiment of that which it critiques, and why I find the tenor and volume of the attacks really troubling. I'll then try and finish with a personal statement about how I plan to move forward.
I think I wrote this piece for myself and for my friends. And whether you're a Jewish or non-Jewish friend (especially if you're non-Jewish), I'll be on the other end for a chat as I always am. Breathe, and let's dive in.
The important cultural context
To understand why so many people have waded in so aggressively to this episode of the conflict, I think one has to understand the current cultural context. And for that, one has to understand critical race theory (CRT). CRT's definition states "that race is not a natural, biologically grounded feature of physically distinct subgroups of human beings but a socially constructed (culturally invented) category that is used to oppress and exploit people of colour." It’s the view that systemic racism is present in the structure of western societies (especially the US), and that we need to re-organize our societies to reverse historical injustices.
Whether you notice it clearly or not, it has become a dominant ideology in the things you read and hear in the mainstream media, on your socially-conscious Instagram and Twitter feeds, or in the diversity training within your workplaces; it’s the theory that underpins “wokeism.” It's an outwardly progressive and leftist ideology, but in its application is fundamentally illiberal. It has placed “race” at the absolute centre of every communal discussion of consequence. It's responsible for the renaming of schools in San Francisco (Abraham Lincoln is now too racist to have a school named after him), the removal of Dr Seuss books from Ebay and Amazon, the wholesale revision of primary school curricula, and the suggestion that "whiteness" is a scourge to be identified and purged.
At its core, it splits the world into two groups. There are the oppressed, and there are the oppressors, with the explanation for the historical injustices of the past and present generally reduced to the presence of systemic racism. I have observed what's happened in the US over the last 12 months, as a relative outsider, and been confronted by what I've learned about the indignities and injustices that certain groups in this country continue to suffer at the hands of unfair systems. But I've also been horrified to see how a progressive agenda—one I generally share—has morphed into a destructive force that employs violent rhetoric and blunt force moral superiority to vilify anybody or anything that doesn’t share its views.
Empowered by this ideology, the woke mob—by the light of their social media pitchforks—seeks out situations that validate their worldview. In the woke ideology, victimhood is currency. The greater the perceived power gap between the oppressed and the oppressor, the greater the case for the presence of systemic racism. Once this scourge is identified, the mob commits to "act" with a level moral certainty that resembles religious fervor. This is the mindset of those at the core of this movement; and it's this mindset that creates the tidal wave of momentum that forces everyone else who is digitally native and "progressively-minded" to performatively post and share and like anything related to the dominant, woke-adjacent issue of the month.
I provide the context regarding CRT and wokeism because I think it is critical to understand the world in which the current chapter of the Israeli conflict is unfolding. The loudest and most consequential narrative we are living within today in the US (which is then exported like other parts of US culture) is the one being driven by the woke. This ideology is now the hammer, and as a result, everything looks like a clear oppressed/oppressor-shaped nail—wrapped in the language of race—simply in need of a swift and righteous hammering to reveal injustice and set things straight. And there is NOTHING that on its surface screams racist oppression like the current state of the Israel/Palestinian conflict. That is, if you believe the conflict is truly as advertised by woke terminology.
This conflict, when couched in terms like “racism” and “colonialism” that are central to the agenda, is therefore an irresistible opportunity for the woke to swing that hammer. And yet:
“in an act of blatant neocolonialism, the American story is viewed as the universal prism through which all societies should be understood and analyzed…. Jews are bizarrely cast as “white,” and Zionism as a movement of “white supremacy,” while Arabs, who look exactly like Jews (Fauda, anyone?), are cast as “people of color.”
The cultural imperialism and lack of self-awareness is astounding. But let’s keep playing this game. If we're living in a woke-world, let's speak its language. If you've been paying attention for the last year, you've probably been told to "do the work" to understand some part of you or your society that's previously been masked by hidden power structures or some sort of personal "fragility." So to all of those currently expressing incredibly strong views online, I ask, have you "done the work"?
What would "doing the work" reveal?
I am sympathetic to the casual observer who sees what's happening in Israel, from partisan sources, and surmises that this is a classic case of a "colonialist" regime flexing its superior muscle over a powerless adversary. That's an easy conclusion to make, especially with the toolkit and prevailing ideologies described above. But if one is willing to “do the work”, it would reveal that the issue at hand does not fit into a simple framework. If interested, how would one "do the work"?
Would it mean going back a few weeks to understand the interaction between (1) Mahmoud Abbas' postponement of Palestinian elections, (2) ongoing political turmoil and maneuvering in Israel's fractured politics, (3) the competing legal claims in Sheikh Jarrah, and (4) the annual celebration of Jerusalem Day? Does it mean going back 15 years to when Hamas consolidated its political power (upon Israel's transfer of Gaza back to Palestinian authority) and added it to its arsenal of weapons that also include suicide bombers, rockets and human shields?
Or perhaps "doing the work" means learning about the wars of defense Israel has fought from literally its first day of existence, when the Arab world attacked the tiny state the morning after the Israeli Declaration of Independence was issued? Or critically, it may mean understanding the way Israel has successfully brokered peace in the region with once mortal enemies, and how doing so again in the future probably requires a partner whose senior officials don't tell their people (even last last week) to go out and buy cheap knives to cut off Jews' heads wherever they find them.
And if one really wanted to "do the work," one could consider going back in time to understand the history that predates modern discussions of entitlement to land. One could go back past the British Mandate, the Ottoman Empire, the Mamluks, the Crusaders, and every other civilization of the last 4,000 years that spilled blood—Jewish and others—in pursuit of controlling this breathtakingly small strip of land perched on the Mediterranean's east coast.
The first step in understanding the conflict on our screens is to understand the complexity it entails, and to acknowledge, with a strong dose of humility, that maybe the broad worldview being brought to this most specific of conflicts, doesn't fit. I am entirely aware of the fact that my description of "doing the work" is partisan and biased, but I have come to view these as the relevant pillars of the broader Israeli question over years of thinking critically about what is actually happening, and how the current state of Israeli affairs does and does not align with my personal values.
The view one reaches having done this work will therefore depend on their particular personal starting bias (we all have one), and how far back they look in seeking to understand the origin of the region's conflict. I am happy to accept considered and informed views that differ from my own, and I acknowledge that I lack familiarity with the details of some of Israel's most damaging policies; understanding this is part of my ongoing work, and it’s important for me to continuously challenge my own views.
What I am not willing to accept are views that reduce the conflict to an infographic or something to be articulated in 280 characters or less, couched in terms that are entirely inappropriate in this specific context. And I am absolutely unwilling to simply accept a torrent of uninformed, hateful and damaging criticism from people who most likely view this as another opportunity to partake in woke virtue signaling. Because for me and many others, it's both personal and troubling.
The inconsistencies
I sometimes ask myself, what is it about Jews and Israel that consistently creates such a furor across all political or ideological spectrums? Jews represent ~0.2% of the global population; there's 15 million of us. In total. In the whole world. Depending on how you measure it, modern Israel (blue below) comprises less than ~0.2% of the Arab world's landmass.
In a world of ongoing conflicts, why do Israel and Jews constantly get singled out online, and continue to comprise a consistently outsized proportion of hate crimes even in a city like New York? I believe the description above of our current cultural moment provides a partial answer, but if not, let me re-state:
"today, when the greatest sins are racism and colonialism, Israel, the Jew among the nations, is being demonized as the last bastion of white, racist colonialism—a unique source of evil not just in the region but in the world."
Ultimately, Jews today are too "privileged" and "white" for the left, not "white" enough and too race-muddled or subversive for the right, and too "globalist" for the regular working person.
If the outrage applied to Israel was applied towards other perceived atrocities in the world, what would that look like? How should we respond to the actual ethnic cleansing and genocide of millions of Uyghur Muslims at the hands of the Chinese regime? Where are the outpourings of support for Tigrayans in Ethiopia being slaughtered at the hands of the Ethiopian government? How do those on the progressive left who rightly protest for the rights of women comfortably share a platform with Palestinian protestors in London this week who drove through Jewish neighborhoods, past a friend of mine's flat, yelling "Fuck their mothers, rape their daughters"?
If those leveling the claims of Israel's "ethnic cleansing" were at all serious about addressing the conflict’s actual history, wouldn't they acknowledge that the only ethnic cleansing that's actually occurred was the expulsion and forced migration of close to 1 million Jews from Arab countries from 1947 onwards? The reduction of a rich history of Jewish communities to a population of a mere 15,000 seems relevant, no?
If this was simply another example of a land dispute between groups of people, why is it that it creates a one-sided surge of violence and anti-Semitic attacks against Jews across the globe? Every time there's a flare-up in Kashmir, is it accompanied by a wave of threats and intimidation against Indians or Pakistanis in their diasporas? Yet somehow events in Israel are causing (and always do cause) real-world impacts for Jews in Paris, London, Berlin, New York and many other parts of the world.
How does all of this square? The answer, again, is that there is something unique in the structure of the Israeli conflict and the nature of its combatants that captures the attention and ire of a rampaging and very online woke ideology and allows it to share a platform with terrorists and their supporters who spout a type of virulent hatred that runs counter to everything they supposedly stand for.
To be clear, I am not suggesting that Israel should remain immune from criticism. And I am not suggesting that every anti-Israel comment should be considered anti-Semitic. I am simply suggesting that it is a unique conflict in its complexity. And that the blatant inconsistencies and torrent of vacuous virtue signaling make for a disproportionate response that many Jews feel personally. I’m here for the Israeli criticism, but it lacks humility, self-respect and intellectual honesty.
What do I think, and what am I going to do
Having spoken in more abstract concepts to this point, I think it's important to say what I personally think, and to make clear (at least to myself), what I'm going to do.
The most troubling implication in some of the criticism being levelled at Israel is that its existence is illegitimate. I believe that Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish state, and has a sovereign right to defend itself and its citizens from deadly attacks, as it has done for the last 73 years. That it has better technology is irrelevant; countries don’t turn off their defense systems to create a “fairer fight,” whatever that concept means in the context of facing a terrorist adversary.
I also believe that Palestinians deserve so much more than they're currently getting from both Israel and Palestinian leadership. They deserve Palestinian leadership that doesn't place terrorism and armed conflict at the centre of its strategy. They deserve a political partner in Israel that doesn't antagonize with unnecessary provocations and that doesn't embolden nationalist tendencies with seats in government; I know I am not alone in desperately wanting a change. People on both sides deserve an immediate end to the rockets flying over each others' heads. This is what I believe.
And what am I going to do? I'm not entirely sure, but I know what I'm not going to do. I will not seek to convince people arguing online, that Israel is actually not a genocidal, colonialist, racist oppressor of human rights. The below captures my thinking in other words:
“Since these analogies have nothing to do with Israel and everything to do with projections of domestic issues and animosities, the best response is simply to refuse to give them the respect of treating them as honest arguments and dismiss the pretension that these issues have anything to do with Israel or Zionism.”
I want Israel to be genocidal and colonialist much less than those people lazily leveling those accusations! I want a strong, secure and vibrant Israel, and I acknowledge that this type of Israel is probably incompatible with a ruling coalition that that's turned hard to the right along a number of vectors. I believe a majority of the Israeli population feels this too, and is exercising their will internally to ensure the Israel of the future is one we can continue to be proud of. How I personally support this internal change I am not yet sure, but I do know that Israel will continue to have a critical place in my heart and mind, and will be a place I consistently visit as the years move on.
Bringing it together
If this is an issue of real and genuine importance to you, then I am here for any dialogue predicated on respect, nuance, and humility. I have no issue making it clear that I am taking sides, and in return, I will respect the position or side you take as long as it's considered and informed. But this is not a matter of social justice to us as supporters of Israel and as Jews; this story never has, and never will, exist to support lazy virtue signaling or to fit into an approach that seeks to squeeze the square peg of any conflict into the round hole of woke ideology. If there really is an “ism” worth discussing, it’s the cultural imperialism of the woke.
A future with a strong Israel cannot include an ongoing tolerance of violence or the inevitability of conflict with its Palestinian neighbors. Before the last few weeks, the Middle East felt like it was on a path towards a more sustainable and stable state of affairs. Admittedly this state of affairs may have been papering over some cracks, but directionally it was, and I believe remains, positive and constructive. The situation needs the removal of actors on both sides who continue to act in their own selfish self-interest, and for them to be replaced by leaders with a genuine eye to peace. Israel faces some deep and existential questions, but they are not insurmountable. And the Palestinians, if they're ever granted the elections they deserve by their current rulers, cannot continue empowering terrorists.
Upon finishing this, I don't expect you to agree with everything I say or believe; where my argument is deficient or lacking, I want to be held accountable, and I am genuinely interested in engaging openly with anybody who wants to address the issue in good faith. But this conflict is bigger, more complex and more consequential than the current social media melee would have us believe. In this case, the medium really is the message, and it has real world consequences for friends and family in Israel, and Jews around the world.
Our history is dotted with examples of Jews being forced to embody symbols that capture the evil of whatever it is that the ruling powers or orthodoxies require. Using this lens, "you can understand how, under communism, the Jews were the capitalists. How under Nazism, the Jews were the race contaminators," and how under the rule of a church-dominated medieval Europe, the Jews were the heretics or murderers of children in the Blood Libel. And now, with racism and colonialism anointed as our darkest enemies, the conflict in Israel is simplistically viewed by many as an example that captures the essence of what we think we’re fighting against. I am not suggesting that everyone contributing a view today does so with malicious intent in mind, but the effect is as real as it's been in my lifetime.
The content is complex, the subject matter is emotive, and the situation will continue to play out over many years. My absolute sincere hope is that this week sees a ceasefire that brings to an end FaceTimes from family in bomb shelters and images of buildings toppling in Gaza. And when the fighting hopefully subsides, Israelis and Palestinians will have to return to the really hard task of figuring out how to live next to each other. And for many of those posting, my hope is that they return to posting the blissfully inconsequential content they did before this recent blow-up. Humility, and an acknowledgement of our own biases and limitations, both sit at the core of any solution we hope to find.
If you made it this far, thank you for the effort taken to read this piece. And please reach out, I'm here on the other side.
Photo by Cole Keister on Unsplash
Wow, a fantastic article Daniel, indeed it seems that in every generation there’s a perceived social context for the unjust rise of antisemitism and I agree that your perceived current cultural context of Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Wokeism has got a lot to do with the present aggression, and again its unjust.
Excellent, well considered, incisive & thought provoking article. When you consider the regimes that spoke against Israel it adds to the farce of the world through the UN. Thank you Daniel for these timely well expressed thoughts.