Tag: zionism

The Inconvenient Jew Is One of Zionism’s Biggest Problems

Israeli Ambassador to the United States Yechiel Leiter recently offered what he apparently believed was a devastating answer to those decrying the genocide in Gaza.

“Jews do not use children’s blood for rituals,” Leiter said. “Jews do not poison wells. And Jews do not starve populations or commit genocide.”

The smear in this common Zionist talking point is obvious: Those who accuse the Israeli government belong in the same moral category as those who spread medieval blood libels against innocent Jews. To say the regime of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has committed genocide is not merely to criticize a government, an army, or a political ideology. It is to accuse “the Jews.”

But there is a growing problem for Zionism and its favorite smear: the moral indignation of Jews.

According to a new AP-NORC poll, 30% of Jewish adults in the United States say Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Only 49% say it has not. Among religiously unaffiliated Jews, the share rises to about four in ten. Also, only about four in ten Jewish adults believe Israel’s continuing military operations in Gaza are justified, while roughly six in ten view Netanyahu unfavorably.

In light of the grave public perspective of a growing percentage of Jews, the Zionists look more and more foolish. Their go-to argument – if you can even call this substanceless insult an argument – has become an argument ad absurdum: Nearly one-third of American Jews, Zionists believe, are secretly medieval antisemites; Jewish critics of Netanyahu believe Jews poison wells; Jews who watch children starve in Gaza and call it genocide are not morally serious observers but morons trafficking in blood libel … against themselves.

But the absurdity is rapidly leading to yet another Zionist offense – as if a genocide were not enough. Since the inconvenient Jew is now one of Zionism’s biggest problems, the Jew himself – insofar as he accepts the universal human principles that genocide flies in the face of – must be treated as an impossibility.

He cannot be debated honestly, because his very existence blows the argument apart. He proves that Jewish identity does not require loyalty to Netanyahu. He proves that revulsion at starving children is not (forgive the grotesque suggestion – it is not mine but Zionism’s) an anti-Jewish prejudice.

So Zionism does to the inconvenient Jew what it does to every inconvenient person.

It erases him.

He becomes “self-hating,” “brainwashed,” “disloyal,” or – perhaps most insultingly of all – “not a real Jew.”

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House candidate Maureen Galindo pledges to send ‘American zionists’ to internment camp

Controversy-tarred congressional candidate Maureen Galindo this week pledged to transform a site south of San Antonio now used by the Trump administration to detain migrants into an internment camp for “American Zionists.”

“She’ll turn Karnes ICE Detention Center into a prison for American Zionists and former ICE officers for human trafficking,” Galindo wrote in an Instagram post over the weekend, referring to herself in the third person. “It will also be a castration processing center for pedophiles, which will probably be most of the Zionists.”

Galindo’s latest set of inflammatory remarks comes as the Democratic hopeful for Texas’ newly redrawn 35th Congressional District continues to draw national attention for remarks critics have called antisemitic and untethered from reality. The controversy is snowballing as she heads into the May 26 Democratic primary runoff.

Over the past week, Galindo has accused her runoff opponent — former Bexar County Public Information Officer Johnny Garcia — of participating in a human trafficking conspiracy orchestrated by billionaire zionist Jews. She also pledged during a Texas Public Radio interview to put Garcia on trial for treason.

Beyond her attacks on Garcia, Galindo has continued to promote the narrative that a cabal of Jewish zionists controls Hollywood, the media and even local politicians.

Even so, in comments to the Current and other media outlets, Galindo maintained she only has an issue with zionists, or those advocating for the existence of a Jewish state in their ancestral homeland, rather than Jews in general.

“I think it’s actually the zionists who are putting Jewish people at the most risk,” Galindo told the Current last week.

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Facebook, the ADL and the Brewing Battle to Label Zionism as Hate Speech

Zionism is one word, in particular, that evokes intense and passionate debate as all ideologies do. But, now the term is coming under scrutiny after an “innocuous” email shed light on Facebook’s response to concerted action by a powerful Jewish rights group that led to new community guidelines curbing so-called “hate speech.”

The leaked email brought attention to a discussion ostensibly taking place inside the multi-billion-dollar company to design its censorship algorithms and moderator criteria according to the wishes of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL); posing the question of whether moderators should interpret the word as a slur against Jewish people, in general, or just Israelis.

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Yes, There Is a World Zionist Congress – and It’s Meeting Now

I’m sometimes astounded at the fact that a major political movement over a century old is so little known among Americans – especially since it has had a momentous impact on the world in general and on the U.S. in particular, causing multiple wars, vast population displacement, and global instability.

In my travels around the US, I’ve found that most Americans know extremely little about Zionism. I would guess that the vast majority of Americans could not define the term (that was certainly my situation for most of my life), and that a great many may not have even heard of it.

And among those who have heard the term, many may think it refers to some antisemitic conspiracy theory.

The fact is, however, that Zionism – according to the dictionary, “a worldwide Jewish movement that resulted in the establishment and development of the state of Israel and that now supports the state of Israel as a Jewish homeland” – is both very real and extremely significant.

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