As the university encampments and other protests against support for Israel continue, and the crackdown intensifies, is it becoming apparent that US policy towards its own citizens is much more like Israeli treatment of Palestinians than is often admitted?
As Max Blumenthal said recently on Judge Napolitano’s show, we are “kind of living in Netanyahu’s America.” He was talking more about Israel interference in US politics and the crackdown on the First Amendment in order to silence criticism of Israel.
Much of this discussion revolves around the massive amounts of money that groups like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee throw around and whatever other leverage Israel uses over the US politicians.
But is there more to it than that? Is there ideological overlap that also helps explain why the US uniparty backs Israel so strongly?
The economic components that have served as the dehumanizing foundation to Israel’s current “plausible” genocide share many similarities with poor Americans and migrant laborers who are treated as disposable in the US. Before we get to the US, the following are three brief points about Israel-Palestine power dynamics beyond religion or ethnicity. That’s not to say those factors don’t play a role, but for this exercise we’ll set them aside and focus on economic components.
- The occupation of Palestine is an exploitative endeavor. That plan was summarized by Moshe Dayan, Israel’s defense minister during the June 1967 war, which resulted in the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, describing the territories as:
“…a supplementary market for Israeli goods and services on the one hand, and a source of factors of production, especially unskilled labor, for the Israeli economy on the other.”
There are more than 200,000 Palestinian laborers, including those without permits, who work inside Israel and the occupied West Bank. Netanyahu’s government has resolved to replace them with other laborers who can be exploited – a massive proposed influx from countries like India and Sri Lanka.
There was a dispute about this plan within the Israeli government with those opposed arguing that leaving so many Palestinians unemployed would only worsen Israel’s security, and experts say that the turn to migrant laborers is unlikely to last given the benefits Israel derives from a disenfranchised Palestinian workforce. As Jewish Currents point out, “the economic advantages of exploiting Palestinians have usually pushed Israel” to keep using their labor.
According to Dr. Ofer Cassif, a member of the Knesset from the Hadash Party, which supports Jewish-Arab cooperation and workers’ rights, this is at the heart of the problem and replacing the exploitation of Palestinians with the exploitation of other laborers brought from places more afar will not solve the issue. Cassif draws on Lenin’s idea that Israel’s “plausible” genocide is a product of late-stage capitalism:
Here, it is a class issue. It is between the oppressed and the oppressor, between the exploiter and the exploited. This distinction is much more important. We in Hadash, for instance, Palestinians and Jews together and some others, we see ourselves as part of those who oppose the oppression. It doesn’t matter to us if we are Jews or Palestinians or Argentinean Christians, just hypothetically. For us, it’s important to refer to the situation as one that distinguishes not between the peoples, but between the exploited and the exploited, the oppressor and the oppressed…
National hostility serves the economic and political interests of the ruling classes because that way they can divert the rage, the frustration, the alienation from a class-based one to a national-based one. This is exactly what I think we should pay attention to. Those who actually benefit from the ongoing occupation on top of using cheap labor, Palestinian cheap labor, or in the north of Qatar, for instance, there are apparently some resources like gas, etc., beyond that, the hostility serves them because as long as the occupation goes on, the Palestinian proletarian, and even peasants will see the Israelis, generally speaking, of course, I have to simplify the picture; obviously it’s much more complicated. For our conversation, for analytical purposes, if I may say so, the ruled classes, Palestinian-ruled classes, are going to see not their own Palestinian exploiters as the so-called rival or enemy but the Israelis and vice versa. They are exploited within Israel. The exploited Israelis, especially the proletarians, will not see their own employers as their exploiters and class enemies but as the Palestinians. Who benefits from that? Who’s going to benefit from that? The exploiters. So, ending the occupation, besides being an end in itself because it involves direct oppression and exploitation, will also reduce, using the language of Lenin, the hostility between the peoples. In that sense, it will not only give us a better future to live as good neighbors but will also allow us to make it easier for us to divert our rage against our so-called domestic exploiters.
There’s also the possibility that the ever-increasing racial and religious supremacy in Israel over the years has arisen from this plunder. Cassif paraphrases French philosopher, Albert Memmi:
In one of his famous books, he said, in other words, that the occupier doesn’t like to see a monster when he looks in the mirror. In order to justify the crimes that an occupier does, occupiers always, eventually, deteriorate into crimes because, eventually, occupation leads to resistance. In order to refrain from seeing yourself or recognizing yourself as a monster, you have to justify the crimes that you do. You do that by demonizing the occupied. It’s the same everywhere. It’s not something that was born under the Israeli occupation. The slave orders in the United States of America did so. The Germans did so, too, with the Jews. The Apartheid regime in South Africa did that with the non-whites, especially with the blacks; of course, there was a hierarchy of different so-called races. It is the same here, a language of occupation.
- Along with exploiting Palestinian labor, Israel tests out surveillance, population control, and military technology on the captive population. It has been reported that the Israeli Defense Forces’ use of artificial intelligence has aided in the current brutal war against Palestinians. Israel testing out new technologies to surveil and kill Palestinians is unfortunately nothing new, as described by Antony Loewenstein in his book, “The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation Around the World.”
“The Palestine Laboratory,” which was published in May 2023, details how Israel sells its technology and weapons all over the world (about 130 countries in 2021) in order to support its economy and curry favor from other nations that will help it continue to deflect criticism from its treatment of Palestinians. Israel benefits from having a captive population on whom to constantly test its weapons and surveillance technology.
- There are economic goals to Israel’s current policy in Gaza. If we’re talking about plunder, we cannot forget that there’s a modern colonial twist of beachfront condos to consider.
An Israeli real estate company stirred up controversy at the end of last year when it released ads for “presale” lots in Gaza. The post featured building plans for villas drawn onto a picture of the destruction in Gaza, with text reading “A home on the beach is no dream!”Zeev Epshtein, the company’s CEO, said the posts were meant to be “a joke.” Haha.
The idea certainly isn’t a joke for some. As the BBC reports:
Who wouldn’t want a house on the beach? For some on Israel’s far-right, desirable beachfront now includes the sands of Gaza. Just ask Daniella Weiss, 78, the grandmother of Israel’s settler movement, who says she already has a list of 500 families ready to move to Gaza immediately.
“I have friends in Tel Aviv,” she says, “so they say, ‘Don’t forget to keep for me a plot near the coast in Gaza,’ because it’s a beautiful, beautiful coast, beautiful golden sand”.
She tells them the plots on the coast are already booked. Mrs Weiss heads a radical settler organisation called Nachala, or homeland. For decades, she has been kickstarting Jewish settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, on Palestinian land captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war.
Donald Trump’s son-in-law and former senior foreign policy adviser and property dealer, Jared Kushner, couldn’t help himself from salivating over the potential for Gaza’s waterfront land – so long as it’s “cleaned up” by Israel.
“I’m sitting in Miami Beach right now,” Kushner said. “And I’m looking at the situation and I’m thinking: what would I do if I was there?”
For Kushner, the solution is simple: “I would do my best to move the people out and then clean it up.”
These economic components are central to the colonialist endeavor in Palestine – and were possibly a necessary precursor to the current “plausible” genocide – as well as its support outside of Israel-Palestine.
***
According to Netanyahu, the future belongs to authoritarian capitalism. Call it that or apartheid or colonialism, or neoliberal fascism; either way, it is alive and well at the heart of empire: in the US. And the repressive tactics to silence any criticism of Western support for Israel (or neo Nazis in Ukraine) is helping to drive that point home.
This isn’t meant to diminish what Palestinians are going through, but to ask if the permanent underclass here in the US that is constantly exploited and considered disposable is part of the same struggle. What do we see in rust belt towns, West Virginia sacrifice zones, in the agriculture fields where migrant workers toil as our elites pass laws banning mandatory water breaks, or one of California’s hundreds of Hoovervilles, or a plasma harvesting center or Cancer Alley along the lower Mississippi and countless others?
These are all places where people are used and abused, imprisoned by economic precarity, frequently literally imprisoned where they are exploited as a form of cheap (or free) labor for some of the country’s largest corporations, and often legally robbed by the state police forces through civil forfeiture. Americans are increasingly surveilled using the very same technologies that Israel uses on Palestinians as Silicon Valley tech billionaires dream of a world where democracy is stamped out.
Americans can also be killed with impunity as long as the killer is from the right caste. Heck, the Sacklers can off a few thousand and write it off as the cost of doing business. Reading Matt Bivens recent piece on the opioid crisis at Racket News left me wondering if the difference is that while Israel resorts to killing with bombs, the US sticks with neoliberal despair :
At the turn of the century, about 20,000 people each year would take an opioid — as a pill, or as a snorted or injected powder — and then stop breathing and die. Those of us working on ambulances or in emergency departments could not save them.
But for every death, there are about 20 non-fatal overdoses. So, with bag mask ventilation and opioid reversal agents, we have dragged millions of people back to life. How many suffered anoxic brain injuries, and today are mentally a half-step slower? Unknown.
Overdoses at this scale were a new development, and they were occurring hand-in-hand with the aggressive new marketing and prescribing of opioids. This is the era chronicled so well by popular miniseries — “Dopesick” on Hulu, “Painkiller” on Netflix. In the midst of it, the Sackler family-owned Purdue Pharma pled guilty to a deception campaign meticulously designed to bring about recklessly liberal opioid prescribing. As punishment, the company had to shell out $600 million, and three top executives got multi-million-dollar fines and 400 hours of community service.
That should have been peak “Opioid Crisis.” But it was only 2007. Heck, George W. Bush was still president. The Sacklers were never contrite. They’d been raking in about $1 billion a year for more than a decade. The $600 million fine sounded impressive — but the Sacklers shrugged, cut the government in to the tune of less than 5% of the cash rolling in, and got right back to slinging opioids. And in the 17 years since, everything has gotten terribly worse.
Did it feel like a catastrophe back in 2007, when 20,000 people a year would die, and people were enraged at Purdue?Or a decade later, in 2017, when President Donald Trump declared it a national emergency, and 50,000 people a year would die? That’s nothing. For the past three years, we’ve reliably seen 80,000 people each year take an opioid, stop breathing and die.
***
The university encampments and ensuing crackdown on them has been instructive in many ways.
The police, as always, are used as a force on behalf of the powerful to quell dissent. But we also have counter protestors working almost in tandem with the state to beat up protestors:
UCLA—A haunting scene as University Police file in on the side of the Zionist counter-protest.
The Zionists chant, “L-A-P-D! WE LOVE YOU.”
A man on a megaphone yells, “Let’s leave! It’s their turn now.
The counterprotest clears out. Police file in. pic.twitter.com/ux0giL7dDF
— nolan (@RevSouthNolan) April 28, 2024
The fact this latter incident occurred at UCLA was fitting, as it was reminiscent of another chapter in US history when the state and its oligarchic owners used right wing paramilitary allies to crack down on protest. Back in the 1920s, Southern California police frequently teamed with the KKK to fight the waterfront union, and the Wobblies were jailed and beaten into submission.
We can see who that the supporters of the counter protestors are supporters of plunder at home and abroad:
The way we learn from each other how concretely our struggles are connected once we all get out there and do the damn thing. Got the tenants’ rights organizers at the campus divestment protest ID’ing and exposing local slumlords in the Zionist counter-demo at UCLA. 😍 https://t.co/BWohttWuhu
— OLAASM (@craigtoennies) April 28, 2024
It’s also come to light that Jessica Seinfeld, cookbook author and wife to comedian Jerry Seinfeld, helped fund the pro-Israel counterprotest at UCLA. Billionaire hedge-funder Bill Ackman is also helping to bankroll at least one other counterprotest.
There’s been a lot of media talk about who is funding the original anti-genocide protests, but so far this seems to be a classic case of projection in which those motivated solely by profit are incapable of understanding that others might oppose US-supported “plausible” genocide simply because they think it is morally wrong. A POLITICO story attempting to connect the protests to George Soros and Bill Gates, for example, begins to fall apart upon closer examination.
The encampments are also helping to reveal just how strong the embrace is between the neoliberal universities and the national security state.
What are these institutions other than valuable real estate holdings and investment vehicles that hold some classes? Well, maybe there are other purposes:
Harvard once gave students class credits for taking off school to join the National Guard and murder striking mill workers in Lawrence, MA.
Bourgeois universities exist to mold the middle management of misery and nothing else. https://t.co/HGiG07LRZo pic.twitter.com/b8noSQWD2V
— 🔻 (@uncle_authority) April 27, 2024
The response to the campus encampments are a fine example of how the exploitation supported by the US abroad goes hand in hand with exploitation at home. Is it any surprise that the corporatization of higher education has led to the current militarization of campuses and suppression of speech?
US militarism abroad is done in defense of American capital. Let’s not forget Washington’s support of a neo nazi regime in Kiev in the failed effort to break up and plunder Russia.
We see these efforts to spread this American brand of freedom for capital being pushed back abroad by Russia, Iran, and the Houthis who have helped exposed the paper tiger.
What about at home? Can the protestors make strong connections between the US support of “plausible” genocide in Gaza and Israel’s colonial system with the US system of plunder at home?
Even if students and faculty are not explicitly drawing this line, the protests still represent opposition to the merging of neoliberalism and militarism and higher education’s role in that system.
Can these protests continue and/or morph into something more? Can they extract concessions, forge alliances and gain consensus among a wider swath of the population? Or will they simply end if a ceasefire deal is reached and/or the universities promise to consider divestment?
As for support, recent polling shows that on the issue of “college campuses limiting students’ rights and abilities to protest Israel’s military operations” 40 percent approve while 46 percent disapprove. Interesting that, while the poll doesn’t break down results by class if you use college as a marker, there is actually more support for campus protests among those that didn’t attend college. Those without a college degree were less likely to support (37 percent) the crackdown on students compared to respondents with a college degree where 43 percent backed silencing the protests.
Those without a college degree were also less likely to support spending more money to send weapons to Israel and less likely to support fighting alongside Israel against Iran. It doesn’t appear to just be a fiscally conservative issue, either, as those without a college degree were more likely to support sending humanitarian aid to Gaza (56 percent to 49 percent).
Overall, the survey revealed that 70 percent of voters support a permanent ceasefire and de-escalation of violence in Gaza.That’s really quite incredible considering how much propaganda the media has been churning out – from the New York Times Pulitzer-winning coverage of Gaza that includes bogus weaponized sexual violence propaganda to the recent coverage of campus encampments that take ridiculous police allegations as fact with no pushback.
It will be worth watching what happens this coming week with the union of 48,000 academic workers in the University of California system who are holding a strike authorization vote May 13-15 in response to violence against protestors by Zionist groups and the police and the universities refusal to hear the demands of protestors.
Our members have been beaten, concussed, pepper sprayed, both by counter-protestors and by police forces. As a union, it is our responsibility to stand beside them and demand that UC stop committing these gross Unfair Labor Practices. (5/9)
— UAW 4811 (@uaw_4811) May 6, 2024
UAW 4811 is calling on UC to peacefully negotiate with stakeholders and reach agreement to address these concerns through: (7/9) pic.twitter.com/WhqToBPtyD
— UAW 4811 (@uaw_4811) May 6, 2024
UAW workers have already established a “union village” as part of the encampment at UC Berkeley. From the Daily Cal:
While union members have been at the encampment for the last few weeks in an individual capacity, UAW 4811 did not have an explicit presence until Tuesday, according to UC Berkeley ASE Unit Chair Iris Rosenblum-Sellers.
UC Berkeley’s is the first “Union Village” to be established at any UC encampment, Rosenblum-Sellers added. As of Tuesday afternoon, there were around half a dozen tents in the “Union Village,” but both Chowdhury and Rosenblum-Sellers said union members anticipate filling the remaining space soon.
“It’s peaceful here and I hope it stays that way, but we also want to see progress on our demands,” Chowdhury said.
In the hour before the village was established, speakers and participants at the rally chanted “World leaders, grow a spine; Rafah is our red line” and “Free free free Palestine,” among other phrases. Community members and protesters also gave speeches throughout the event to loud cheers and drums from the crowd.
Both speakers and protesters acknowledged the solidarity between students and workers in the Free Palestine movement. Many raised signs and banners with phrases such as “Students & Workers of the World: United for Palestine” and “UAW Student Workers for a Free Palestine.”
Could this be the start of something? If it is, the rank and file will likely need to overcome the opposition of union leadership.Payday Report has been all over this, and here’s the most recent:
On Tuesday, Payday broke the story of how UAW President Shawn Fain vetoed attempts within the UAW to divest from Israel. UAW represents over 100,000 academic workers and many, who have been involved in campus occupations, were upset by Fain’s veto of the union’s divestment from Israel. (See our story here)
While the UAW along with other unions endorsed a ceasefire in December, the union has been loath to take more aggressive action to protest Israel’s attack on Gaza.
When several UAW members attempted to protest the UAW’s endorsement of Biden at its convention in January, they were literally dragged from the convention by UAW staff as union members began chanting “U-S-A. U-S-A” to drown out their anti-war chants. (Check out Prem Thakker’s story at the Intercept from January)
Maybe Fain doesn’t want to distract from unionization efforts or lose focus on the goal of a mass strike scheduled for May Day 2028, detailed by Fain here at In These Times – a worthwhile goal, but 2028 is a long ways away.
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Sound analysis.
The beatings will intensify …
My very limited experience is, there is a huge generation gap in how Israel is viewed. The under 30 see what Israel is doing w/o the historical drama for what it is – genocide pure and simple. My 80+ father and younger sister are completely indoctrinated like many/most where until recently that poor Israel is being terrorized by deplorable Arab terrorists to the point of calling my attention to Gazans basking on the beach as if that means something. Genocide does not exist in their world and they appear stone cold unaware regarding anything bad Israel is doing. We are not speaking currently as a result. The student protesters are hooligans defacing public property in their view. In contrast I’ve known a few 30 or under quite vocal and indignant that their government is supporting Israel. Given I’ve experienced their views at work where such conversations are looked down upon, that’s probably more widespread.
“Given I’ve experienced their views at work where such conversations are looked down upon, that’s probably more widespread.”
This. Last week, I was talking with a young colleague who I really like and respect. She just turned 30. I brought up Gaza in the context of listing all the wars we’re fighting, and she said that her friends are appalled by the slaughter and do not buy the official propaganda. (Discussion of national politics is not part of our office’s culture and is implicitly frowned upon; she’s one of the few I’d talk with about the subject. For some background, this young woman and I established a connection in 2020, as we both consistently wore 3M Auras at work where ‘masks’ for everybody else included scarves, baggy blues, etc. IIRC, we were among the few who wore any type of respirator.)
After reading timbers’s comment, I might try to probe my colleague’s observation a little more to find out where and from how many people she’s heard this.
Working in tech (so typical age distribution of tech…most people. incl. leadership, between 20-40). There was a brief and uncharacteristic pro-Israel outburst (mostly politics are not discussed at work). And then silence for months now. Similar pattern with friends/family who follow MSM.
For people who are 100% enraptured by the party line, by golly Biden is doing his best. Otherwise, even with the information proferred in MSM, it would be pretty hard not to connect the dots here. You can only be “frustrated” with Israel for so many months while handing them endless amounts of materiel and money before it starts to seem that you agree with and support what they are doing. BuT ThE SupReME CoUrT I guess.
It is not about age, not about education, not about race, not about gender or gender identity — or at least, it’s only peripherally about such things — it is about class, and class struggle. Working class young people, working class university students, working class pastors and religious congregations, union members, drafted working class soldiers and their brothers and sisters and parents and grandparents, working class Latinos, blacks, Asian-Americans, whites, musicians, homosexuals, housewives, high-schoolers and peasant farmers stopped the war in Vietnam. If these same folks do not stop the genocide in Gaza, it will not stop.
good answer, Don.
i decided sometime in november to lay low around here and with others i know on this particular topic.
i do not need crosses burning in my yard, etc….or even just the hassle of trying to explain something that i regard as obvious as hell, to people who will not cotton any challenge to their pre-chewed belief system.
as the meme goes:”its all just so…tiresome…”
You are probably correct, but I’m old and have seen what Israel has been doing for many decades now. Beyond disgusting, though I will add that all my sisters (three) are true blue Dems and think Biden is doing just fine. They get angry at me when I call him Dementia Genocide Joe. How I escaped the brainwashing I have no idea. Paul Street had a fab article in yesterday’s Counterpunch on why he does NOT support “lesser evil” voting for Dems.
Maybe we can produce some bumper stickers to capture the current USA political scene?
Such as:
“Shamocracy = Genocide Joe vs Con-man Don”
How ’bout,
“Da-mockracy: Genocide Joe vs Don the Con”
?
Well-done, LawnDart.
===== Quite separately ….
On another blog, a smart-alek said:
“yeah, all you go on about your outrage. We all know why you’re mad. Heard it a million times already”.
And then, to everyone’s horror, went on to ask “So what are ya gonna do about it, punk?”
=== those college kids, foolish and idealistic though they are … they showed up. They did something.
If any of you “kids” are reading this, remember:
we love you, we admire you and we (obviously!) need you to lead the way
Very good.
John Wright, Very good. The ‘shamocracy’ covers sham as well as shame. Will make people take notice.
I wonder what affect the student opposition is having on the attitude of their parents (& financial supporters)
This squares with my own observations. I’m old enough to remember an Israel whose circumstances and behaviour, given the tightly controlled media environment of the times, could pass for reasonable — possibly even sympathetic. If all you have known is the Israel of the past 30 years, or worse only the last 20, it is inescapably monstrous.
And this reveals the Potemkin village that US support for Israel’s genocide and regional escalation actually is. The diagram above with all its connections belies the fact that it is really only a handful of PMC handlers in key positions who are really driving all this reactionary behavior. Of course they have the tacit support of many (likely no longer all) in the wider PMC, private and state, but that is really it.
You can’t fool all of the people all of the time and the public is seeing through the (absurdly stark) lies. Moreover now the public is seeing in Blumenthal’s words “The occupation coming home”. While there may be some hawks who will OK any old bombing campaign on poor people abroad, when the apparatus of repression, censorship, attainder laws, beatings, etc, arrives back on their own doorstep, support dwindles away even from the hardliners.
Nasrallah’s comments about a spiders web that only needs to be blow on to fall apart applies far more to the Israeli state lobby than to Israel itself.
Really excellent article Conor.
As the US empire groans under the weight of its numerous contradictions all of the crimes and misery visited on the periphery will return to the homeland
That the under 30 cohort are getting it gives me hope
Voltaire said something about not being able to criticize your true ruler…
Funny you should bring up this quote. Turns out Voltaire didn’t say it. Some neo-Nazi actually did. I know this because a few years back there was an explosion of “debunking” Snopes-like articles on the quote when a lot of people began using it. The “rulers” – or their media lackeys – were delighted that they could make this connection and show that those who were using it (often “deplorables” at the time) were quoting an actual Nazi.
For those unfamiliar with the reference, the quote is some variation of the following:
“To know who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.”
So when Dr. Phil is joining Netanyahu in explaining why pro-Palestinian protesters are Nazis, and you pull out this quote, well, the laughs on you – *you* are the Nazi! So shut up you anti-Semitic Nazi!
https://www.mediaite.com/online/to-learn-who-rules-over-you-viral-voltaire-quote-probably-originated-with-white-supremacist/
I was thinking about that quote a few weeks ago, so I looked it up and, like you, found that it is now controversial. The problem that those fact checkers have is that they claim he said it in 1993, and I distinctly remember using it in the seventies and eighties with attribution to Voltaire.
As with the definition of what a Semite is, and subsequent redefining of what anti-Semitism is, there is a lot of revisionism going on. This looks like just another variant on a theme.
Yep. Censorship by association. Nothing like a good Nazi smear to keep a succinct statement of fact out of the papers.
Please correct me if I am wrong. I understand a Semite to be one whose ancestors originated in the area around greater Israel, including current Israel. Using that definition Palestinians – and other Arabs from the area – are Semites too and greatly outnumber Jewish Semites as most current Israelis are descendants of those who immigrated into the area fairly recently – Eastern European Jews, Russian Jews, NY Jews etc.
Therefore antisemitism would more properly be understood to condemn Palestinians rather than Jews.
The use of Semitism and anti-Semitism to refer to Jewish people appears to have originated in 19th century German. Links here: https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2023/11/200pm-water-cooler-11-1-2023.html#comment-3952203
In addition to marym’s post, which is very relevant, I would point out that the word “Semite” derives from the Biblical Shem, son of Noah, whose five sons birthed the Semitic tribes, only one of which encompasses the Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Islam and Christianity. IOW, there are one hell of a lot of “Semites” out there, and as you correctly point out Jews form the smallest proportion of them in the region.
That has been the Biblical definition for a few thousand years now, so to transform it (as marym says, since the late Nineteenth century) into a word which solely refers to Jews is literally blasphemy and requires a great deal of chutzpah on the part of those who choose to use it that way.
Not saying that this is the way it actually worked out in the real world, just that if one wants to use the term “Semite” at all one should do so within its’ own frame of reference.
By the Israelis own scriptures (Genesis 12) they actually originated in Northern Iraq. God gave them the land from the river to sea, but never magically made them indigenous (and it was conditional on them treating the natives decently, having debt relief, and sacrificing lots of animals to him).
Semites is basically a nonsense term from 19th century racial “science” and is no longer taken seriously, except as a language family. Semites are them people who speak semitic languages: Arabs, Israelis, Maltese and Ethopians (and maybe a few others) but very few non-Israeli Jews.
Antisemitic, no matter what the etymology, means hatred of Jews. There is no way that the word would have developed with any other meaning, as language doesn’t usually develop words to describe non-existent behaviour.
Very well then, I won’t criticize Snopes, either.
Even if Heinrich Himmler originated the quote, it appears to accurately describe observable reality.
Wondering….Didn’t Kayne West get debanked for this? I seem to recall an American pro ball player having to pay a tribute to the ADL for his remarks about black Jews.
This. I tell people he is in a unique position within the Zeitgeist to observe its machination, and his alarming behavior was just that, an alarm. His delivery is crude, and paradoxically indiscriminate, but authentic.
I am 80+ and I see an Israeli genocide of those “inconvenient people” cluttering up Jared Kushner’s prime beach front property. I see people driven pillar to post, herded from one “safe zone” to another so 2,000lb bombs can be dropped on them. I see the President of the United States handing a blank check to Bibi and only drawing back just a little bit as his thoughtless embrace of a man who only has contempt for his gullibility threatens his re-election. I see the eschatologically mesmerized certain that bombing, shooting and starving millions of people is not only right but ordained by god. The young protest? Good. Maybe that will wake up the complacent.
seeing the zionist invisible hand in american politics is nothing less than mind blowing. these are interesting times.
Watching the academic industrial complex leaders , along with the media industrial complex illuminati, all converging to tell americans that there is not any right to freedom of speech. There is no first amendment, that says so…. the attack from everywhere on those who are obviously right…. is a hell of a thing to witness.
I hope this shameful, disgraceful, vile, intellectually dishonest smear campaign against those who have the good sense to stand up against injustice; comes back to haunt the zionists…. everywhere.
The world is watching them … and we will remember.
Isreal has no right to exist. It was never promised by anything. the psychopaths who are leading the country of isreal, are an abomination. The poor jews who will be blamed for the scum who use their history as a shield, will likely have to come up with excuses wherever they go…. from now on.
if anything good is to come of this it will be the total denuciation of the entirety of the zionist spiel.
GOOD RIDDANCE.
As if the US would have democracy, freedom, and the rule of law if only the Zionists… that sounds quite naive and ignores huge chunks of important context and history..
Huh? Where did he even hint at that? He just points out what the Zionist lobby has been doing for decades, and that much of the ruling class has allowed them to get away with.
Huh? :”the zionist invisible hand” apparently controls everything, and no mention of the “ruling class” is given. Maybe I’m just tired of so many blaming only one factor in the wider context of institutional corruption. Forest, trees and all that
rob was observing that said invisible hand was inflecting the PTB into restricting the right of free speech. He did not say that it controls everything. I try to read carefully and not twist others’ words into pretzels.
Remember our discussion yesterday about Zionism indoctrinating the West? This is an example.
Or European ethno-nationalism creating Zionism in Europe by European Ashkenazi Jews.
European nationalism, settler colonialism, and imperialism came well before Zionism, So who influenced whom?
But I’m sorry to to split hairs, we are all anti-Zionist, and most are anti-imperialist as well. Allies arguing over fine points. I guess the old bumper sticker “If you’re not angry, you’re not paying attention” applies
I suspect your insights into the nefarious nature and doings of the ruling class would be appreciated. So bring them up! (There is a prior comment in the ether)
yeah johhny, something must have twitched your hair finger…. I am not one who believes zionists contol everything….. I was talking about the zionists…(christians and jews)… only. Not extrapolating anything about what should happen….
There are rules you know…. going off.. and on and on…. I would rather talk about monetary reform than zionism, were i to opine about how to begin to fix the US.
Thank you for that and your reply below. Most of us here are on the same page. Sorry if I over-reacted
another facet of this story is how the zionist lobby in the US have gotten so many states to pass laws /rules/regulations, insertions into state employee contracts, etc., prohibiting the free speech of americans against the boycott,divest,sanction (BDS) movement.
That was a recent example of how we live in netanyahoo’s america….. how all these state leaders bent over for a foreign government and made laws telling american workers/citizens that they are not able to express their opinions by doing what they want to do…..boycott isreal… and isreali interests/businesses.
Genocide Joe is impeached for not sending more (than overly plentiful) of the means of genocide! Irony.
Israel and USA have in common: mass murder is demanded to salve their insecurity.
O tempores, O mores!
Bombing is Terrorism
“To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.” – Abraham Lincoln
“America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.” – Abraham Lincoln
“A highwayman is as much a robber when he plunders in a gang as when single; and a nation that makes an unjust war is only a great gang.” -Benjamin Franklin
“No protracted war can fail to endanger the freedom of a democratic country.” -Alexis de Tocqueville
. “War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it.” -George Orwell
“A state of war only serves as an excuse for domestic tyranny.” -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
How many IDF members have been infiltrated into the US to be used as future muscle like what happened at the UCLA encampment. Are they a future Freikorps to be used in street fighting and busting up peaceful protests?
Israel and AIPAC has always been the Fifth Column here. Now it’s in the open and it’s time to prepare accordingly.
The US didn’t need no stinkin Israelis to kill kids at Kent State in 1970. Folk done forgot all about they history…
More recently, the black-clad thugs beat the shit out of students and faculty when they protested austerity/kleptocracy, tuition hikes etc. in 2009 and 2011 at UC campuses. This had nothing to do with Israel.
Even before that, US police opened fire and murdered labor union protesters at the Battle of Rincon Hill in 1934, part of the west coast general strike. Folk done forgot they history…
Time to connect the dots and factor in important historical context.
The US has a long history of abuse of power, and violently suppressing freedom of speech, freedom of the press etc.
Ask Julian Assange about it, oh I forgot, he is max sec. HMP Belmarsh prison.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009%E2%80%932010_California_college_tuition_hike_protests
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AdDLhPwpp4&pp=ygUbdWMgZGF2aXMgcGVwcGVyIHNwcmF5IHZpZGVv
http://sfmuseum.org/hist4/maritime12.html
People who don’t know history at all (I’m surprised how little the general population knows about history other than crap they learned from movies) can’t forget it. This is at least partly the result of living in a society with tooo muuch information to process particularly information created for the specific reason to mislead and manipulate whether it is ubiquitous advertising or ubiquitous propaganda.
Bafflegab at industrial quantities…
Or is it the UN’s America? I hope this isn’t true:
Exclusive Breaking: The Mass Numbers of Illegal Migrants that are pouring into our respective countries are in fact UN soldiers.
LOL! As I said above, there’s nothing like a good Nazi smear if you want censorship by association. But also effective is to infiltrate a serious discussion of Zionist influence in the US — deadly serious in my opinion — with this type of goofy conspiracy theory. I suppose it’s just trolling, or maybe a joke – hopefully you are not serious. But I can see this comment being selected to show how unhinged the NC community is in its conspiratorial anti-Semitic rantings. For that reason I feel the need to call attention to it rather than ignore it.
The United States has an extremely powerful military and hundreds of thousands of police. The government has no need to bring in people who would increase resistance to it as much as a foreign military would; the elites do want to drive down wages and destroy unions.
John O’Looney? “I’m a Scottish Highlander, I love the English people.”?
Surely this is a satire.
My earlier reply has not appeared. But I invite all to read the video summary (so you don’t have to actually watch the video), and then peruse the website of ‘Freedom Train International.’ Here is their ‘About’ page; start with ‘Values’ and then check out the bios of some of the ‘Inner Circle.’ You’ll get the idea:
https://freedomtraininternational.org/about/
I don’t know if this is a real organization or an ‘agent provocateur’ type operation to smear by association those critical of Establishment policies (the gist of my original comment). But this is not something that belongs in a serious discussion – which the topic of Israeli genocide certainly is.
> “I’m a Scottish Highlander, I love the English people.”
After what they did to us in Culloden? How could he? I remember learning about Culloden in primary school. They gave us the impression that it was like Hiroshima, the Holocaust and Taiping, all rolled into one.
Great article that connects dots and provides significant context. As I always say: what can we expect when all three branches of govt are institutionally corrupt, and unlimited political bribery is legal?
There is no functioning democracy, and as Connor says we can call it Inverted Totalitarianism, Techno-feudal totalitarianism, or whatever but the public clearly have no affect on policy. Folks who want to believe it is only AIPAC/Israel engage in wishful thinking that ignores history, and ignores the ugly reality that is even worse than the prevailing narratives.
The ruling classes, oligarchy, the 1% or whatever all support Israel policy, they support the oligopoly/monopoly price gouging extortion of the US public, they support giving trillions to the MICIMATT, espionage, surveillance etc. The public have no say in the matter, there is no way to “vote” against the interests of the oligarchy.
The US is an empire and a product of British imperialism, the US and Israel are both products of British imperialism. Zionism is one flavor of settler-colonial imperialism that was also born in Europe. Zionism is part of Western imperialism and western imperial tradition. Ignoring the crimes of the US and British while focusing only on the bad ol’ neocons/Israel is very narrow and short-sighted and ignores important centers of power.
Thank you–that was what I was going to say, more or less. At the moment, I see no chance, unlike many with an “alternate” POV, of political change in the balance of power in the USA and the rest of the Empire. Do you see something different?
Not to sound overly pessimistic, but no. In light of the decline of past great powers, the US seems to be well on its way on the decline curve, but has a way to go yet. I just hope that as conditions worsen for the vast majority, widespread political violence does not develop. The US has an armed and highly misinformed population.
there is a lot of blame to go around, and a lot of history that got us here…. that doesn’t mean that there is no point in pointing out one of the sorest spots in human relations at the moment. Right now, is a tragedy for some. the rest of us, can only witness the crime. And history will be written by those who at this moment choose not to witness the crimes. that much is certain. It will continue from here , the same as it did before.
For what it’s worth, I agree with you completely. I have been aware of the current situation and how it is the same as it ever was for about forty years now….. too bad nobody gives a F@&#.
So here we are…those of us with eyes to see and ears to hear…. we exist… and we witness the now.
everyone has to have a hobby , right?
I expect nothing in return
JonnyJames
May 12, 2024 at 11:30 am
We need to start someplace. The war mongering/neocon/zionists are as good a place as any to start the dismantling of the suppression policy process and for the removal of the oligarchs currently in power.
I lost a lot of Jewish friends in 1969 when I started pointing out the nature of the occupation after the ‘good’ war of 1967. The occupation reminded me of all the news reels I saw of Nazi Germany and the uprisings in eastern Europe.
I just watched ‘I, Daniel Blake’, a film by Ken Loach. It is a good film on oppression through public / private bureaucracy. I see why Ken Loach was forced from the Labor Party.
Carnegie, Pullman etc. all crushed dissent. The miracle of the Depression / WWII readjustment is now gone. Our current elite walk proudly in lockstep with the Robber Barons.
We are the colony – get used to it.
Good article with a comprehensive capture of the current national mood. There is a danger of real and justified anti you know what worldwide. Many already are primed to receive such a message and the way Israel is behaving merely confirms their suspicions.
Nice screed. Now what?
Inverted Totalitarianism has evolved because in an era of gross overpopulation and diminishing resources Our Billionaire Overlords must protect their democracy from populism and keep the jungle from invading their garden.
We are all Palestinians.
I would argue that the US uniparty does not back Israel as strongly as it may appear in many headlines.
The economic analysis presented above leaves out the crucial role of international energy markets (oil and natural gas) in U.S. strategic foreign policy calculations and obscures the fact that the U.S. foreign policy establishment may prefer as much stability as possible in the Middle East (continually trying to minimize the degree of military conflict between Israel and Iran) to protect future potential investments in, say, the natural gas industry in Iran.
Our uniparty (the Texas wing as well as the Biden wing) is not unaware, for example, that the 2nd largest natural gas reserves (more the 33.2 trillion cubic meters or 17.2% of the world’s total proven reserves sits in Iran). Both oil and gas wings of this U.S. uniparty may be highly interested in eventually developing some type of cooperative relationship with Iran by which they could get better access (through profit sharing or maybe even some type of joint ownership) to the development of Iranian reserves, particularly in the area of liquified natural gas.
The JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) may have been as much about trying to preserves US access to Iranian oil and gas as it was about restrictions on Iranian nuclear development. (See blog posts of Mike Benz).
Seinfeld with Israeli settlers.
https://www.newarab.com/opinion/apartheid-yada-yada-seinfeld-photographed-israeli-shoot-palestinian-camp
Wow. Current website for the camp:
https://www.funinjerusalem.com/military-experience-caliber-3/
Jerry’s all in on genocide.
Biden and Blinken and Congress are in severe need of horse liniment for their knees as they have spent so much time slithering on their bellies to kiss the feet of RoiBibi and pay tribute with US taxpayer funds. The US home of the free and the brave. Hah.
This goes hand and hand with Netanyahu declaring himself the new Moses. He has already edited the Ten Commandments by expunging the ones regarding murdering and coveting and is rewriting the First Testament.
“…genocide is a gradual process and may begin with political disenfranchisement, economic displacement, cultural undermining and control, the destruction of leadership, the break-up of families and the prevention of propagation. Each of these methods is a more or less effective means of destroying a group. Actual physical destruction is the last and most effective phase of genocide”
— Lemkin, Introduction to the Study of Genocide
Who desecrates Judaism more, those collaborating on a genocide or those protesting it?
Note: It’s just a matter of time before the US police start utilizing IDF tactics: AI, snipers, & drones to target protesters. If Congress passes it definition of anti-semitism, that will make it illegal to criticize the policies of US Congressmen.
Back during Occupy, someone researched police department training and a couple of Israeli companies came up time and again. They have trained practically every PD in the US. I don’t think it was a coincidence of the increase in reported police brutality charges, tasering and shootings/ murders after Occupy and the PD training by these two companies.
I know my city PD definitely has had an increase in brutality charges after their Israeli training.
Johnny – in regards to gov crushing of protests, the New York State police was founded to protect the Rockefellers after the Leadville Massacre when they went into seclusion due to public outrage at their Hudson River estate no matter what the official Trooper history states. I am speculating about a Freikorps because regular army and national guard members might not be trusted to follow orders to shoot down fellow citizens this time around.
Someone “on the inside” has read their history and taken a lesson. The Freikorps were mainly comprised of ex-soldiers from the WW-1 German Army. Due to “circumstances,” many of this class were unemployed and desperate for work. The Freikorps provided “work” along lines they were already familiar with.
Fast forward to today. Over the past decade or so, America has prioritized the employment of demobilized military veterans in their ‘domestic’ police forces. The Freikorps have been institutionalized. The Army and the Guard are not thought to be needed. The extant militarized ‘domestic’ police forces will do well enough for the purpose. Indeed, with armoured cars and SWAT teams galore, today’s American police forces look quite like paramilitary organizations already.
Wasn’t the cop that put a couple magazines worth of rounds into the patrol car, narrowly missing the guy they had handcuffed in the back, over a falling acorn supposedly suffering PTSD from having served a tour or two?
Everyone is missing the Big One. The Democratic National Convention 1968.
At sixteen, I got an introduction to police brutality on a large scale up close and personal. Nothing like being tear gassed. Just happened to be in the wrong spot at the right time. Wasn’t even involved in the demonstration. A suggestion, would be interesting to the younger generations, to have some personal reflections and experiences of the ones of us that were there? Add in the whole Vietnam war stuff of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. I was in college when Kent State happened. By the way I still have my Selective Service (draft) Card.