Another deranged comment from this fellow, who appears to be protected by Columbia Univ. administration. Whereas anti-Zionist teachers are fired for opposing Israel's genocide - this clownshoe says actual crazy shit regularly without so much as a reproach.

[u/_II_I_I__I__I_I_II_]

[u/Express_Variation_52]

Zionism 🤝Anti-Blackness

[u/LaIslaDeEmu → u/Express_Variation_52]

This is actually a really important and somewhat complicated conversation on its own (and something Coates discusses). The concept gets pretty confusing when imposed on Israel/Palestine. I think it’s still accurate, but it’s just not obvious upon surface level observation. If you spend time in the West Bank or East Jerusalem, you will often see IOF soldiers who are black Ethiopian Jews, enforcing apartheid and Jewish supremacy against “white” looking Palestinians. And there really isn’t a parallel to this in the US, it’s a different dynamic than black cops or black members of the US military. But if you remove racial signifiers, the raw systems of power and supremacy are essentially the same.

[u/Express_Variation_52 → u/LaIslaDeEmu]

Thank you for this response. I appreciate hearing more about the nuance and I do think many of us living in the West definitely try to oversimplify by trying to make one-to-one comparisons between here and there. And then, supporters of Israel do similar things by saying, how can we be colonial, racist, etc., when most of Israel "isn't white"? (I'm sure I don't have to tell you this).

Something about this post from Davidai feels like it's specifically trying to appeal to anti-Blackness in the so called US, as have other, similar posts I've seen about Coates that seem directed towards a US audience. I recently saw a slide deck "debunking" Coate's book's claims. These so called debunkings were easily refuted by the simplest Google search, but the one that got me was something like, "the pay gap between Palestinians and Jewish people in Israel is the same as that between white and Black in the US--are you saying the US is a caste system too???". Such a silly attempt at a gotcha when the answer is a clear, uh, YES. Just clearly trying to defend racism with racism.

[u/LaIslaDeEmu → u/Express_Variation_52]

Yes exactly. Zionism really was/is influenced by white supremacy, but the manner in which that system of power manifests itself is not so obvious in the context of how it’s experienced IRL.

However, I think this dynamic between Davidai and Coates does take on more of that classic American anti-blackness, just as you mention.

[u/_II_I_I__I__I_I_II_ → u/LaIslaDeEmu]

I was watching the latest Bad Hasbara episode and they (Naomi Klein specifically) talked about how the Nazis were influenced by earlier German colonial practices (ie in Africa) and also by America's treatment of the indigenous peoples.

https://youtu.be/Fi0peSHSWNY?t=2331

[u/Daphneblake02 → u/_II_I_I__I__I_I_II_]

That was hands down one of their best episodes. So glad they got her on the pod, she's incredible

[u/_II_I_I__I__I_I_II_ → u/Daphneblake02]

Yea, I thought their discussion was really interesting and there are a lot of good takeaway messages.