where brightness despairs

"There is an evil empire next door to you, and they keep trying to invade"

"Well, just let them? Borders aren't real, silly!"

"When they invade they want to stop you from passing down your culture, ban your language, stop you from celebrating your holidays, kidnap your kids and scatter them to the four winds."

"Well, I would just stop them, I would say no! I'd hashtag RESIST!"

"Then, they will kill you, and everyone who tries to resist."

"Well then I would fight back, I'd form a resistance movement against them, we'd train with weapons and learn to make bombs and..."

"Wouldn't it be easier if you had already trained that resistance before people were dying? Maybe, get them to learn how to hold a rifle or pilot a drone before they have to do it in secret?"

"Yeah, probably."

This week Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called Marjorie Taylor Greene an antisemite on camera. Her colleagues on the progressive left have refused to do this for years.

Within hours, progressive accounts were posting in defense of Marjorie Taylor Greene, despite no change in her record on Jews. She had recently broken with her party over Gaza.

Far-left journalist Ryan Grim said MTG had sacrificed her career to stand against genocide. A self-described leftist wrote that MTG has more credibility and honor than AOC. Others framed AOC’s criticism as a defense of Israel, and accused her of using “Zionist talking points.”

These are the same people who told Democrats not to vote for Kamala Harris.

They watched a presidential election in which the other candidate was Donald Trump and told their followers Kamala was unacceptable on the question of Gaza. They were willing to absorb a Trump second term, mass deportations, the gutting of the climate transition, the collapse of the Voting Rights Act, and a Supreme Court that will govern for a generation, because Kamala was insufficiently anti-Israel.

One issue, weighted infinitely.

Marjorie Taylor Greene has spent her career on Jewish space laser theories, “globalist” rhetoric, Holocaust comparisons that desecrate the camps, and conspiracy material you would find on a 1930s pamphlet table. Her own colleagues kicked her off committees for it. She went anti-Israel, and the record was wiped.

Tucker Carlson spent years as the most loathed figure on the American left, until he started platforming anti-Israel voices, and segments of the progressive online world began linking him approvingly. Megyn Kelly was untouchable until she became useful. Ana Kasparian was dismissed by the Hasan Piker wing as a sellout, and is now celebrated for declaring on Piers Morgan that the Jewish lobby controls the United States. Piers Morgan himself is anti-trans, anti-woke, contemptuous of every progressive cultural priority of the last decade, and his clips are passed around by activists who would have boycotted him a year ago, because he platforms anti-Israel guests.

You can hold every other position the far left despises, and the far left will rehabilitate you, provided you arrive at the correct position on Israel.

The very people who tell us every day that anti-Zionism is not antisemitism have just shown they will accept antisemites, as long as they arrive anti-Zionist.

For years this same crowd mocked the GOP for tolerating MTG while treating Liz Cheney as the real threat to the party. The hypocrisy was their joke. They have built a mirror version of it, with anti-Israel as the redemptive position and pointing out antisemitism as the heresy.

The constellation of voices that has accused American Jews of putting “Israel first” for years, and has now turned the same accusation on AOC for using the word antisemite, has organized its own politics around a single foreign policy litmus test. Their test is one position, on one country, smaller than New Jersey and six thousand miles from Washington. Healthcare, climate, labor, Trumpism, voting rights, abortion, immigration, and democracy itself can all be traded away if the position on Israel is correct.

If the accusation of dual loyalty had any honest meaning, it would describe them.

I have spent enough years in this argument to know the merger of left and right antisemitism is not new. My grandmother saw a version of it in Baghdad in 1941, when a coup-installed pro-Nazi government collapsed and the mob came for the Jews and her father pushed her under the bed while neighbors broke into the house. The horseshoe is older than American politics.

The far left in 2026 has built an infrastructure for forgiving antisemites. The price of admission is anti-Israel content. Once you have paid it, your record is yours again. Jewish space lasers becomes a youthful indiscretion. Years of dog-whistles get filed under “she is evolving.” A self-described leftist quotes you approvingly. An influencer in a keffiyeh tells her followers you have honor.

Some will say they do not see what they are doing. I do not believe that.

AOC said one true sentence about a colleague who has spent years saying untrue things about Jews. The progressive pile-on came for her.

Source

According to a 2023 statistic Jews make up about 73 % of Israel's population. Let's compare that with some other countries. (While ethnostate actually refers to racial or ethnic groups and Judaism isn't 'just a religion', I will also give examples for the demographics of religions in countries)

Let's start with the EU: According to statistics from 2019 about 64% of the EU's population were Christian, a decline from 72% in 2012. So what? In 2012 the EU was actually a Christian ethnostate? Or at least consisted of ethnostates? I mean if we think about it, we have to follow the Christian calendar, Christian holidays are mandated by the state while other religious groups have to fight every year to be able to observe their most sacred days. Hell, where I live (in Germany) one of the currently ruling parties is called the Christian Democratic Union and our Grundgesetz (basic law) is built upon Christian roots. They even invoke God in the preamble!

Here some further statistics about Religion in Europe.

As you can see even just looking at individual Christian denominations, there are about 6 countries for which the religious majority makes up more than 3/4th of the population. IN THESE COUNTRIES ONE DENOMINATION OF CHRISTIANITY HAS A HIGHER POPULATION PERCENTAGE THAN JEWS IN ISRAEL. So I hope this shows that 'Israel is an ethnostate cause there is just one religion determining everything' is utter bullshit not just because Judaism is not just a religion but also because I can name 6 countries in Europe alone for which there is a higher percentage of people of a certain religion.

So now to actually look at specific countries. Ireland especially seems to have an antisemitism problem, so how about we focus on them.

As of 2022 the amount of Catholics in Ireland has decreased so that they actually make up 69.1% of the population as opposed to the over 75% from 2019. But the definition of ethnostates actually specifically looks at ethnic or racial groups. Let's see. As of 2022 the largest ethnic group in were White Irish, making up a whole 76.5% of the Irish population. Including other white people in this, this number increases to 87.4% of the population. That is 14% more than the 73% that Jews make up of the Israeli population. The next largest group in Ireland are Asians with 3.7% (or depending on how you'd like to spin it, the 6.16% who did not state their ethnicity. This still doesn't make Ireland an ethnostate though.

And some more examples:

China: 91.11% Han Chinese (2020)

Russia: 71.73% ethnic Russians (2021)

Saudi Arabia: 90% Arabs, 10% Afro-Arabs (2021)

USA: 57.84% White (2020)

Canada: 69.8% White (2022)

Germany: 71.3% Germans (2022)

Democratic Republic of Congo: no dominant ethnic group

South Africa: 81.4% Black

Poland in 1931, before the Holocaust: Polish, 69% of the population, Ukrainian, 15%, Jews 8.5%, Belarusian, 4.70%, German, 2.2%, Russian 0.25%, Lithuanian, 0.25%, Czech 0.09%

Please explain to me why Poland isn't blamed for their massive ethnic cleansing and the fact that their country is nearly homogenous.

(All good faith questions are welcome, Anon - thanks for this one!)

TLDR: Because words change meanings over time and Herzl wasn't psychic.

In the 1890s, "colony" just meant a planned settlement or concentrated community. This included Jewish agricultural colonies in the Pale, temperance colonies in Colorado, and utopian communes everywhere.

It was basically the Victorian word for "intentional community," with absolutely no imperial baggage required.

The specific meaning activists now deploy (colony as racial domination, metropole extraction, indigenous suppression) is a 20th century framework that didn't exist when Herzl was writing in 1896.

So a reader of the 21st century finds the word "colony" in an old text and assumes it carries a technical definition that was coined decades later.

It's a little like finding the word "trauma" in a Civil War field report and concluding the surgeon was diagnosing PTSD.

Meanwhile, 'settler colonialism' as applied to Israel isn't a neutral analytical tool that happens to fit badly. It's a framework specifically constructed to exclude the features that distinguish Jewish return from actual settler colonialism...and it still fails on its own stated terms.

Jewish immigrants to the Levant were never agents of any empire. They were overwhelmingly refugees from empires who were fleeing Russian pogroms, Eastern European persecution, and later Nazi Germany. No metropole sent them. No metropole would take them back if the project failed.

That's not a minor quibble about definitions, either - it's the primary distinction between settler colonialism and every other form of large population movement in history.

There's also the matter of indigeneity. The Jews returning to the Levant weren't arriving in a place with which they had no connection.

Jewish presence in the region is documented continuously from ancient history, including in Egyptian records dating to roughly 1210 BCE.

The religious, linguistic, and ancestral connection to the land is what distinguishes this case from the British in Kenya or the French in Algeria, who had no such ties - and it is some of the best-documented, most indisputable history humans have ever gathered. (This is why they're so constantly engaged in historical revisionism.)

So when proponents of the settler colonialism framework of accusation encounter these objections, what do they do?

They move the goalposts.

The absence of a metropole gets explained away as an "exception."

The indigenous origin of the Jewish people to the Levant gets ahistorically dismissed or ignored, despite the fact that the Jewish people are the only group whose national identity, language, and religion originated in and remained oriented toward that specific land throughout their entire existence.

The framework gets rewritten and the history is revised until Israel fits the allegation.

So, one word in Der Judenstaat doesn't settle* any of this.

From The Atlantic: The False Narrative of Settler Colonialism (paywall bypassed)

Much more in this post.

“There is insufficient evidence to suggest a social media ban for under‑16s would help keep children safer online, Scotland's children's commissioner has said.”

“Nicola Killean warned a ban could drive children to less regulated or riskier parts of the internet, and said the focus should instead be on holding social media companies to account.

She was responding to the UK government's consultation on whether to introduce a minimum age for accessing online platforms, including social media.

"A ban does little to address underlying issues such as exploitative algorithms, and business models that drive harmful content and engagement," she said.”

“Ahead of submitting her response, the commissioner's office carried out a children's rights impact assessment examining how the proposals could affect children and young people, both positively and negatively.”

“Her team also worked with a group of young advisers aged between 12 and 17 from across Scotland.”

She said that are dangers like cyber bullying, harmful content, and exploitation”

But she also pointed out the benefits of social media and the way it impacts these teens lives, saying

"by supporting communication, self-expression, access to information, participation, play, and connection with communities and support networks".

She added "The evidence so far on bans is limited, mixed, and still emerging. "Blanket restrictions can risk shifting responsibility away from platforms and onto children."

“Killean also warned a ban could impact on some youngsters more than others.

The commissioner said it could more negatively impact those in rural and remote areas, those with family overseas, disabled children and those who rely on online communities for support with their identity.”

“In her recommendations, Killean called for greater focus on platform design and accountability, and a crack-down on harmful features.

She also said rules should reflect children's age and maturity, and that young people should be directly involved in shaping future policy.

"Oh, I love Jews, but Zionists and Israelis are not welcome here."

Fetishization of Jews (Sounds contradictory, isn't)

Obsessed with supercessionism

Blame Jews for their life not working out the way they wanted it to and also every social ill that occurs to them really

Enjoy and justify cutting Jews out of public life (Bar tokens you'll turn on later)

Enjoy and justify lighting Jews on fire

Enjoy shooting Jews outside Jewish buildings (And inside too but hey)

Failure to realize that with the Jews dead the regime needs new enemies to justify its existence... and has also been going after said other enemies the whole time.

If Israel was intending to commit genocide...

Then why isn't everyone in Gaza already dead?

They have the means, the ability, and the tools to do so.

The only answers that Jew-haters can come up to explain how 98% of the population of Gaza was still alive after two years of intense urban warfare--when the fighting in Mariopol, Ukraine, had a higher death toll despite taking less time--tend to fall into one of three categories:

Incompetence--the IDF intends to kill them all, but just somehow is too stupid to manage it.

Conspiratorial--the IDF intends to kill them all, but is being sneaky about it, in order to distract... somehow. Which is just "Untrustworthy Jews" in a different package.

Abject denial--"La la, la, The Jews are trying to kill them all! Hitler was right! I can't hear you and your evidence and details! I know in my heart that the Genocide is Real, just like how my parents know that Jesus is their Lord and Savior!"

And given that the "genocide scholars" in this case include a woman who has claimed a higher death toll and that the Israelis eat Palestinians and feed the leftovers to dogs, and a "genocide scholar group" that has no requirements for joining, and thus has "Emperor Palpatine" as a listed member... and several NGOs and states admitted that they would have to alter the definition of "genocide" to make what happened in Gaza count...

Yeah, there was a "broad consensus" in Nazi Germany that Jews were subhuman creatures that needed to be exterminated for the safety of the human race. Doesn't make it right.

Furthermore, in answer to the question...

No, it's how the Right and the Left have shaken hands and agreed that Jews Are The Problem And There Is One (Final) Solution that is acceptable. Going back to the original post, when a Leftist African-American politician was promoting a Jew-hating propaganda piece created by the KKK that claimed that Jews were responsible for 9/11.

i'm not gonna argue genocidal intent, since that would require convincing you that there was intent which is clearly impossible, but we can talk about ethnic cleansing:

"The UN Commission of Experts described (United Nations) ethnic cleansing as "a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic or religious group from certain geographic areas," and stated that the coercive practices used can include "murder, torture, arbitrary arrest and detention... forcible removal, displacement and deportation of civilian population... wanton destruction of property."

so forcible displacement is part of the UN definition of ethnic cleansing

"Nearly all of Gaza's current population of 2.1 million people has been displaced, lacking access to sufficient shelter, food, life-saving medical services, clean water, education and livelihoods."

"More than 60% of the population had lost their homes... Gaza's economy has contracted by 84%... 'The scale and extent of deprivation across living conditions, livelihoods/income, food security, gender equality, and social inclusion, have pushed back human development in the Gaza Strip by 77 years,'" the assessment said.

"Over 371,888 housing units have been destroyed or damaged, more than 50% of hospitals are non-functional, nearly all schools destroyed or damaged, and the economy has contracted by 84% in Gaza."

"Approximately 81% of all structures in the Gaza Strip are damaged... An estimated 320,622 housing units have been damaged." -- based on publicly available satellite imagery

it's not "sneaky" to not just literally nuke the strip and kill every single person inside. you can ethnically cleanse a group of people by destroying all their housing, their education, their economy, access to food, their healthcare, etc., and generally make the place unlivable. this has historically been an ethnic cleansing tactic, such as in the case of the holodomor in ukraine, and i would not say this is unique to israel or jews

So, to summarize:

You came onto a post talking about the Jewish experience with how chummy Leftists and Neo-Nazis have become over the last several years when it comes to hating Jews--to the point that Leftists are now endorsing Marjorie Taylor "Jewish Space Lasers" Greene--and basically went, "Well, have you considered that the consensus is that Jews are actually the bad guys and are doing what the Nazis did to them?"

And when I pushed back on that, pointing out the bias of the sources and how the situation does not show a genocide, you basically went, "Nuh uh" and shifted the topic, refused to engage with the discussion of antisemitism, and accused me of projecting antisemitism onto you, when you are engaging in antisemitism.

I owe you and your entire Jew-hating movement nothing until you police your own. At a fucking minimum, kick out the people who call Jews "inbred" (Piker), cannibals (Albanese), and the like... instead of, yanno, elevating them to be speakers of the movement. Until then, all I see is an old quote from Sartre:

"We know how difficult things would be, if today in every city during the bomb attacks, the burdens of war and the privations, we still had Jews as secret saboteurs, agitators and instigators... We have the moral right, we had the duty to our people to do it, to kill this people who would kill us."

This claim is based on a misrepresentation of a resolution put out by the organization IAGS. The problem with using this resolution as evidence of “consensus” in the field of Genocide scholarship is

IAGS has been somewhat controversial within the field for a while. While it is still the largest body of its kind, a lot of scholars do not take the org all that seriously for a number of reasons, one of which is emphasizing statements (such as this) over actual peer-reviewed research

Only 129 of its estimated 500 members even voted on the resolution

Membership is not limited to genocide scholars; being interdisciplinary isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but the fact anyone with a credit card can join, and a lack of transparency by IAGS, means we can’t know how many (if any) of the members who voted are even in Genocide Studies, and that the IAGS’s statements cannot be taken as the authoritative voice of Genocide Scholarship

After this resolution, more than 500 scholars & experts in the field (i.e., a larger amount than IAGS even has members) signed an open letter condemning the resolution & demanding IAGS retract it

And here's the thing: I think that there is an argument to be made that what happened in Gaza was a genocide, at least by the UN's standards. And I think that's because the UN's standards are very broad, and if we accept Gaza as a genocide we also accept a lot of other things. I wrote a whole thing on why there's about as strong a case for the bombing of Dresden being a genocide, and went through the criteria one by one here. For more, see John Spencer, an urban warfare expert, discussing why Gaza is not a genocide.

There is also far from a universal consensus. Noted scholars such as Menachem Rosensaft, Israel Charny, republished by the nonprofit Genocide Watch, Benny Morris (not a genocide scholar, but a New Historian, an Israeli historian skeptical of the traditional pro-Israeli narratives). Indeed, the ICC's decision was simply saying that it is possible to commit genocide against Palestinians and South Africa's claim was not ipso facto spurious (as, e.g., a claim that Israel was committing genocide against redheads would be), many military experts, over 500 scholars, et cetera et cetera.

Rough day in court(s) for Trumpmenbashi.