https://x.com/caitoz/status/1957255609226854510
Freeman asks on Facebook, “I have quite a few friends/people in my life who somehow are against the occupation and genocide while also being for Israel. How would you tactfully explain to them why this is a problem?”
The most culturally consequential fictional fantasy land ever authored is not Oz or Narnia or Middle Earth, but the liberal Zionist creation of Alternate Reality Israel.
In the minds of its authors, Alternate Reality Israel exists in a parallel universe at the geographic location of actual real-life Israel, but never became a genocidal apartheid state. In this fictional timeline, Alternate Reality Israel magically came into existence without the mass murder, ethnic cleansing and land theft which would normally be required for the creation of a brand-new ethnostate dropped on top of a pre-existing civilization. Because of magic, Alternate Reality Israel has not needed to use nonstop violence and tyranny to maintain its existence as a theocratic ethnostate, and has instead been able to exist in peace and harmony with all the populations who were living in the area prior to its creation. The position of the liberal Zionist is therefore not self-contradictory, because the existence of Alternate Reality Israel is not at all incompatible with progressive values.
The problem, of course, is that Alternate Reality Israel does not exist, and has never existed. There is no alternate version of Israel that anyone can point to which does not include genocide, apartheid and abuse. The Zionist experiment has been run, and what we see before us is the one and only result of that experiment. This is it. There are no other timelines to compare and contrast this existing reality with.
So when someone says they are “for Israel” but against Israel’s occupation and genocide, maybe ask them which “Israel” they are referring to. It can’t possibly be the one that exists in this universe, because they said they oppose occupation and genocide. So where is it? Do they have some sort of magical crystal ball which enables them to peer into an alternate universe where Israel somehow isn’t doing these things? Show me this kindly, beneficent version of Israel, please.
There isn’t any. There never has been. It turns out it was always impossible to create a new state where people were already living and say that a new group of people gets to show up by the millions and run things there, without it looking like nonstop mass-scale abuse. There was never any magical way for that to happen in a way that aligns with human rights and liberal values. Israel was always headed toward this, and everything we’re witnessing is the result of what Israel has always been.
If liberals could point to any other Israel (or indeed any other brand new ethnostate placed overtop of a preexisting civilization of a differing ethnicity) which has existed without tremendous injustice, tyranny and abusiveness, then it would be reasonable to say that you support that thing that you are pointing to but not thing thing that Israel is now. If they could go “Well with a bit of tweaking Israel could be like the thriving east Asian ethnostate of Zim-Zam” or whatever, then maybe that could be a position with some standing. But no such place exists. All they can say is that they don’t support the way Israel actually is in real life. Once they see that, they’re seeing clearly.
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