I believe Hannania makes this point when comparing the left’s fixation with Palestinians’ plight and general ignorance of the Uyghurs’ plight. Since Israel is an avatar of the West, Palestinians hold a special place. Since China is not, the Uyghurs are just some random group in Asia.
Perhaps. And, of course, "the left" doesn't care (or know) much about the 5 million displaced in eastern Congo or the repression of the Rohinga in Myanmar (nee Burma) or the plight of lots of other people in other places.
On the other hand, I am struck by the difference in coverage of the wars in Palestine and in Ukraine (both of which get lots of American weapons). The coverage of Palestine seems to be structured around "Israel did this and killed this many Palestinians." The coverage in Ukraine seems more like the allies in World War II. They've lost this territory. They've taken out this Russian strategic asset. Never about "this many Russians were killed." The implicit morality is 180 degrees.
A big difference is that Ukraine was attacked by massed Russian troops. Of course, Israel sees itself as constantly under attack, and indeed there are constant little attacks, greater or lesser destruction of Israeli homes and infrastructure, wounding or killing, evacuation or "run to the shelters". But most mainstream coverage doesn't find this worthy of noticing, perhaps because it is felt to be in some way deserved. "If they hadn't been so unfair to the Palestinians ..." The focus is on the wrongs of the Israelis and the Russians, with little concern for the faults of the other side.
(And, yes, some people like Robert Wright do say that the Ukrainian government was unfair to the Russians, and that the US government needlessly disrespected and frightened the Russian government, but they are very much a disfavored minority.)
Several politicians do talk about how many Russians are killed, but in a positive sense. Lindsay Graham seemed like he was having an orgasm when interviewed and talking about how he wanted to kill as many Russians as possible. I don't think it quite rises to the same euphoria Palestinians feel over killing Jews, but its the same basic human impulse.
"Ukraine troops were massing to enter ethnic Russian areas" IN UKRAINE in order to confront Russian supported separatists.. That in no way justifies an invasion and orders of magnitude greater atrocities than might have been prevented.
That's irrelevant from a US perspective, nearly every US military engagement since, but including the War of Northern Aggression, has involved the US invading another nation over their handling of their own domestic issues to "help" them solve it in a way we want with "them" being whichever party in that nation we prefer. Russia was just following US policy in that case.
On Ukraine what you are missing is in the US it's not about Ukraine, we have, and never will, like them. It's about opposing Russia. As far as the woke crowd is concerned Ukrainians are just another group of honkies, i.e. that war is white people's problems and diverting resources away from where it should go, rich African crime lord family immigrants to the US who are pretending to be black to get public funds.
You are correct the concern about Russia is much greater than for Ukraine. The concern is that if not opposed, Russia will be emboldened to invade other countries, and China to invade Taiwan.
I don't have an opinion to state on who hates Ukraine or on African crime lord families.
The right is no more interested in those places. Those places aren't relevant to this issue for the reason I've already stated.
I agree the US disrepected and frightened Russia, seemingly needlessly. I can see the argument US threatened Russia. I don't know how US was unfair.
It is indeed interesting how attention on Ukraine focuses more on the territory than the atrocities against the people.
I agree the left seems to ignore the "constant little attacks." In that respect Israel seems nothing like a 51st state.
Palestine (Hamas govt) committed wrongs in Israel. I'm not aware of any wrongs Ukraine committed in Russia, excepting maybe a terrorist type attack after the invasion.
According to many Russians, the US government was unfair in supporting the 2014 overthrow of the pretty much duly elected pro-Russian government of Ukraine.
International observers at the time, including Western European ones, said it was the most clean election Ukraine ever had including over the subsequent ones by the current regime who flat out suspended the elections.
Was it dirty, sure yet it was arguably more fair than the US installed regime.
The Monroe doctrine did not prevent Cuba or other western hemisphere countries from aligning with Russia. It did not prevent Russia from providing defensive weapons. It did prevent Russia from providing offensive weapons to attack other countries. US did not provide Ukraine offensive weapons to attack other countries. "Russian" Monroe Doctrine has been honored.
NATO expansion into the Baltics and offensively invading a historic Russian ally to install an Islamic regime in southern Serbia isn't honoring staying out of their neighborhood. You forget Cuba was in response to the US putting nukes in Turkey.
For at least 40 years the global left has conceived as Israel as being next in line after Rhodesia and South Africa (and all the other decolonization efforts) and indeed even since it became clear to be working in Africa the progressives have been explicit about using the same anti-apartheid-era-South Africa 'playbook' pressure-ratchets against Israel to grind it down over time and get the Jews to capitulate to the Arabs the same way that the white South African regime did (you can judge for yourself how well that went and continues to go.) Before he was President Obama articulated this exact strategic approach though this was not widely reported for some reason.
The point it, Israel isn't the 51st state, every other country in the world is the 51st through ~250th states, and some place or heretical group or subculture is always the current year most wanted thorn in the side, and then when that's smashed it only means it's time to cross it off as another notch in the arc of history's belt and move down to the next target on the list that never ends. Every knee should bow. This is what Hazony was getting at with his notion of ideological 'Imperialism'. To the progressives in terms of judgment there aren't 50 or 250 states but just one world state with borders that will be swept away in the fullness of time, or in the alternative, 8 billion+ states of the atomic individuals who likewise all face such judgement.
And the Left ignored the genocide in Zimbabwe just after majority Black rule in the early 1980s when Mugabe sent his thugs into Matebeleland and murdered about 20 000 Ndebele - a tribal group in opposition to Mugabe’s ruling Shona tribe. The White regimes in South Africa and Rhodesia never did anything like this… nor Israel.
It seems obvious to me that life would be better in a white run South Africa. Especially if you lifted the western embargoes that made life difficult apartheid era South Africa.
This seems like standard "better to reign in hell than serve in heaven" stuff. Blacks would rather live a shithole run by their own then have better lives but lower relative status.
TBH I think it was irrelevant for the vast majority of blacks in South Africa. Your poor dirt farming tribesman out in the rural areas near Angola isn't any better today nor likewise the urban poor living in shanties both of which constituted the overwhelming majority of South African blacks; in fact both might have even been better off given higher social services and less corruption diverting it.
Just like feminism and most other revolutions, it's really only "better" for niche highly vocal portions of upper middle class, i.e. even I would agree it was better for high IQ corrupt uppity blacks who wanted political power to enrich themselves and become the new urban elite. It may have even been better at the lowest level as well, i.e. maybe black convicts are treated slightly better but I doubt it. My guess is for the overwhelming number of South African blacks it was simply six of one, half dozen of the other in practice.
On that other hand I think it's pretty obvious it was worse for coloreds (which Americans define as black though they aren't in South Africa just like they aren't in Brazil).
If Israel were the 51st state, the feds would be in the West Bank forcing the settlers to respect the civil rights of the Palestinians, might look a little like this https://youtu.be/R8O-m5gO31k?si=B-6z3p0mxCtWXwZN
All I want is for American/Western leaders to act in the defense of their peoples in the manner the Jewish leaders of Israel act in the defense of theirs.
Apparently that's FAR outside the overton window of acceptable politics. go figure.
“What I would suggest is that the hatred of Israel is derivative of this hatred of America.”
100%
That whenever television or radio interviews of “Israelis” often include some guy (or gal) speaking with an “American” accent does not help the equation on the left (which reliably requires “otherness” a bonafides). Fun times.
It might also help if they quit always interviewing Jews like the Mexican president, Weinstein, Epstein, and Senator Schatz, etc and instead interviewed more "ethnic" Jews that physically looked more Palestinian complete with heavy accent or even better, Beta Israeli's turning it instead into "white Palestinians" trying to kill black Israeli's. Play the race angle and quit trying to paint Jews as white but instead paint themselves as being the oppressed party by evil whitey. The woke forget Palestinians aren't brown Arabs but Phoenician whites similar to the other non-Arab white Syrians and Lebanese. Americans tend to think all "sand n*ggers" are Arab and Israel should work against that narrative while pushing Jews as black ala Beta Israeli's.
If Israel would like to become or 53rd state (get in line behind DC and Puerto Rico) its leadership should commit to align itself with the US positio on the eventual creation of a Palestinian state. And it is hard to see how that can be done w/o beginning the process of removing "settlers" from the Occupied Territories.
The “settlers” have not been the obstacle to a two-state resolution. Rather, Palestinian Arab leadership has always insisted that, despite the formation of an Arab state alongside Israel, millions of Palestinian Arabs — so-called refugees and their descendants — must be permitted to settle in Israel rather than the newly formed Arab state.
My recollection is the settlers are as well as the two systems solution is generally defined by Israel as "whatever our borders are now including the settlements" hence the increasing new "illegal" but de facto approved rogue settlements every year. Or that is my perception when it occasionally pops up every couple.on BBC; I've really never dug into it.
A two state system is meaningless if one state only has a 5x5 meter piece of land as that was all that's left at signing. I've never once seen an offer by Israel to divide the land 50/50 North/South divide. What I generally see is a spaghetti map where Palestinians basically get empty desert, garbage dumps, and no shipping ports, if any, large enough to accommodate modern trade. Likewise land large enough to build an international airport.
Sometimes you take a bad deal to get your accomplish your overall goal. Israel should probably start trying to treat the Palestinians as equals if they want a lasting solution.
I don’t understand your comment. In 2008, among other things, Abbas was offered near-total Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank, with Israel retaining 6.3% for existing settlements. Israel offered to compensate the Palestinians with Israeli land equivalent to 5.8% of the West Bank, along with a link to the Gaza Strip. A similar offer was made to Arafat during the Clinton administration.
Certainly the "51st state" attitude you describe is out there. Driving around rural Indiana recently, I have seen many farm houses flying an Israeli flag under the US flag.
You're misunderstanding your opponents here--or rather, you're only partially understanding them. The people on the other side of this issue are not just SJWs. They're a very uncomfortable coalition of SJWs and foreign policy realists of various stripes. The latter are very concerned about this "Israel is the 51st state" approach, because they think we should act in the interest of the 50 actual US states.
I am one of these people, so let me try to explain the mindset. The reality is that Israel is an ally of sorts (like Ukraine), but as with Ukraine, Israel's interests are not the same as US interests.
Ukraine's dream scenario is to see the US in a shooting war against Russia. This would be a bad thing for the US and the world. Similarly, Israel's dream scenario is for the US to get into a shooting war with Iran. (You've obliquely spoken favorably about this yourself.) This would also be a bad thing for the US and the world, for basically the same reason--in both cases, getting the US into a shooting war would weaken the defenses of our other, more important allies and risk a nuclear incident.
The conflation of Israeli and US interests that's happening on the right is extremely dangerous.
If Israel is the 51st state, then we should spin them off in a package deal with Hawaii, Puerto Rico and Guam. These folks are net tax takers, not payers. How much would we need to pay to offload these liabilities?
“ The social justice activists will code as right wing anyone who stands up for America as a land of opportunity and meritocracy rather than as a land of oppression. ”
The perhaps not so simple fact is that America is both - the oppression occurring overseas (no one is being oppressed inside, if we don’t count Trump, the Jan. 6 folks, conservatives, taxpayers…hmmm).
I get the jist but I still balk at 51st given DC, PR, and the other four inhabited territories with US citizens/nationals. Regardless, lots of interesting ideas in the piece.
Great we need another civil war to wipe out the blatent hatred once and for all of those racist, apartheid red states including "red" Isreal and get back onto a path that treats all of humanity with compassion with equality with respect. Otherwise the path forward I'd pretty dark IMHO.
I believe Hannania makes this point when comparing the left’s fixation with Palestinians’ plight and general ignorance of the Uyghurs’ plight. Since Israel is an avatar of the West, Palestinians hold a special place. Since China is not, the Uyghurs are just some random group in Asia.
Sounds a bit silly. Last I knew we don't send military weapons to China that are used against Uyghurs.
Perhaps. And, of course, "the left" doesn't care (or know) much about the 5 million displaced in eastern Congo or the repression of the Rohinga in Myanmar (nee Burma) or the plight of lots of other people in other places.
On the other hand, I am struck by the difference in coverage of the wars in Palestine and in Ukraine (both of which get lots of American weapons). The coverage of Palestine seems to be structured around "Israel did this and killed this many Palestinians." The coverage in Ukraine seems more like the allies in World War II. They've lost this territory. They've taken out this Russian strategic asset. Never about "this many Russians were killed." The implicit morality is 180 degrees.
A big difference is that Ukraine was attacked by massed Russian troops. Of course, Israel sees itself as constantly under attack, and indeed there are constant little attacks, greater or lesser destruction of Israeli homes and infrastructure, wounding or killing, evacuation or "run to the shelters". But most mainstream coverage doesn't find this worthy of noticing, perhaps because it is felt to be in some way deserved. "If they hadn't been so unfair to the Palestinians ..." The focus is on the wrongs of the Israelis and the Russians, with little concern for the faults of the other side.
(And, yes, some people like Robert Wright do say that the Ukrainian government was unfair to the Russians, and that the US government needlessly disrespected and frightened the Russian government, but they are very much a disfavored minority.)
"this many Russians were killed"
Several politicians do talk about how many Russians are killed, but in a positive sense. Lindsay Graham seemed like he was having an orgasm when interviewed and talking about how he wanted to kill as many Russians as possible. I don't think it quite rises to the same euphoria Palestinians feel over killing Jews, but its the same basic human impulse.
And Russian troops moved into Ukraine when Ukraine troops were massing to enter ethnic Russian areas and had already bombed some targets.
"Ukraine troops were massing to enter ethnic Russian areas" IN UKRAINE in order to confront Russian supported separatists.. That in no way justifies an invasion and orders of magnitude greater atrocities than might have been prevented.
That's irrelevant from a US perspective, nearly every US military engagement since, but including the War of Northern Aggression, has involved the US invading another nation over their handling of their own domestic issues to "help" them solve it in a way we want with "them" being whichever party in that nation we prefer. Russia was just following US policy in that case.
"the War of Northern Aggression" Was that the one that started with firing on Fort Sumpter?
"involved the US invading another nation over their handling of their own domestic issues to "help" them solve it."
No doubt we've meddled countless times but in my lifetime many/most invasions involve a a third country. Iraq invading Kuwait is one.
On Ukraine what you are missing is in the US it's not about Ukraine, we have, and never will, like them. It's about opposing Russia. As far as the woke crowd is concerned Ukrainians are just another group of honkies, i.e. that war is white people's problems and diverting resources away from where it should go, rich African crime lord family immigrants to the US who are pretending to be black to get public funds.
You are correct the concern about Russia is much greater than for Ukraine. The concern is that if not opposed, Russia will be emboldened to invade other countries, and China to invade Taiwan.
I don't have an opinion to state on who hates Ukraine or on African crime lord families.
The right is no more interested in those places. Those places aren't relevant to this issue for the reason I've already stated.
I agree the US disrepected and frightened Russia, seemingly needlessly. I can see the argument US threatened Russia. I don't know how US was unfair.
It is indeed interesting how attention on Ukraine focuses more on the territory than the atrocities against the people.
I agree the left seems to ignore the "constant little attacks." In that respect Israel seems nothing like a 51st state.
Palestine (Hamas govt) committed wrongs in Israel. I'm not aware of any wrongs Ukraine committed in Russia, excepting maybe a terrorist type attack after the invasion.
According to many Russians, the US government was unfair in supporting the 2014 overthrow of the pretty much duly elected pro-Russian government of Ukraine.
Duly? Really? Lol.
International observers at the time, including Western European ones, said it was the most clean election Ukraine ever had including over the subsequent ones by the current regime who flat out suspended the elections.
Was it dirty, sure yet it was arguably more fair than the US installed regime.
It was "unfair" by not honoring the Russian Monroe Doctrine equivalent while expecting them to honor ours. Goose gander.
The Monroe doctrine did not prevent Cuba or other western hemisphere countries from aligning with Russia. It did not prevent Russia from providing defensive weapons. It did prevent Russia from providing offensive weapons to attack other countries. US did not provide Ukraine offensive weapons to attack other countries. "Russian" Monroe Doctrine has been honored.
NATO expansion into the Baltics and offensively invading a historic Russian ally to install an Islamic regime in southern Serbia isn't honoring staying out of their neighborhood. You forget Cuba was in response to the US putting nukes in Turkey.
Not a bit.
I think it is appropriate to expect better of a putative ally than a hostile power.
For at least 40 years the global left has conceived as Israel as being next in line after Rhodesia and South Africa (and all the other decolonization efforts) and indeed even since it became clear to be working in Africa the progressives have been explicit about using the same anti-apartheid-era-South Africa 'playbook' pressure-ratchets against Israel to grind it down over time and get the Jews to capitulate to the Arabs the same way that the white South African regime did (you can judge for yourself how well that went and continues to go.) Before he was President Obama articulated this exact strategic approach though this was not widely reported for some reason.
The point it, Israel isn't the 51st state, every other country in the world is the 51st through ~250th states, and some place or heretical group or subculture is always the current year most wanted thorn in the side, and then when that's smashed it only means it's time to cross it off as another notch in the arc of history's belt and move down to the next target on the list that never ends. Every knee should bow. This is what Hazony was getting at with his notion of ideological 'Imperialism'. To the progressives in terms of judgment there aren't 50 or 250 states but just one world state with borders that will be swept away in the fullness of time, or in the alternative, 8 billion+ states of the atomic individuals who likewise all face such judgement.
"you can judge for yourself how well that went and continues to go."
I'm curious if you think black South Africans are better or worse off than under apartheid.
And the Left ignored the genocide in Zimbabwe just after majority Black rule in the early 1980s when Mugabe sent his thugs into Matebeleland and murdered about 20 000 Ndebele - a tribal group in opposition to Mugabe’s ruling Shona tribe. The White regimes in South Africa and Rhodesia never did anything like this… nor Israel.
It seems obvious to me that life would be better in a white run South Africa. Especially if you lifted the western embargoes that made life difficult apartheid era South Africa.
This seems like standard "better to reign in hell than serve in heaven" stuff. Blacks would rather live a shithole run by their own then have better lives but lower relative status.
TBH I think it was irrelevant for the vast majority of blacks in South Africa. Your poor dirt farming tribesman out in the rural areas near Angola isn't any better today nor likewise the urban poor living in shanties both of which constituted the overwhelming majority of South African blacks; in fact both might have even been better off given higher social services and less corruption diverting it.
Just like feminism and most other revolutions, it's really only "better" for niche highly vocal portions of upper middle class, i.e. even I would agree it was better for high IQ corrupt uppity blacks who wanted political power to enrich themselves and become the new urban elite. It may have even been better at the lowest level as well, i.e. maybe black convicts are treated slightly better but I doubt it. My guess is for the overwhelming number of South African blacks it was simply six of one, half dozen of the other in practice.
On that other hand I think it's pretty obvious it was worse for coloreds (which Americans define as black though they aren't in South Africa just like they aren't in Brazil).
You should read Trevor Noah's book. Besides being relevant, it is a fun, interesting read.
Who?
If Israel were the 51st state, the feds would be in the West Bank forcing the settlers to respect the civil rights of the Palestinians, might look a little like this https://youtu.be/R8O-m5gO31k?si=B-6z3p0mxCtWXwZN
All I want is for American/Western leaders to act in the defense of their peoples in the manner the Jewish leaders of Israel act in the defense of theirs.
Apparently that's FAR outside the overton window of acceptable politics. go figure.
“What I would suggest is that the hatred of Israel is derivative of this hatred of America.”
100%
That whenever television or radio interviews of “Israelis” often include some guy (or gal) speaking with an “American” accent does not help the equation on the left (which reliably requires “otherness” a bonafides). Fun times.
It might also help if they quit always interviewing Jews like the Mexican president, Weinstein, Epstein, and Senator Schatz, etc and instead interviewed more "ethnic" Jews that physically looked more Palestinian complete with heavy accent or even better, Beta Israeli's turning it instead into "white Palestinians" trying to kill black Israeli's. Play the race angle and quit trying to paint Jews as white but instead paint themselves as being the oppressed party by evil whitey. The woke forget Palestinians aren't brown Arabs but Phoenician whites similar to the other non-Arab white Syrians and Lebanese. Americans tend to think all "sand n*ggers" are Arab and Israel should work against that narrative while pushing Jews as black ala Beta Israeli's.
Except that they expect to be in charge. Revolution comes and goes, but the Nomenklatura expect to be forever.
If Israel would like to become or 53rd state (get in line behind DC and Puerto Rico) its leadership should commit to align itself with the US positio on the eventual creation of a Palestinian state. And it is hard to see how that can be done w/o beginning the process of removing "settlers" from the Occupied Territories.
The “settlers” have not been the obstacle to a two-state resolution. Rather, Palestinian Arab leadership has always insisted that, despite the formation of an Arab state alongside Israel, millions of Palestinian Arabs — so-called refugees and their descendants — must be permitted to settle in Israel rather than the newly formed Arab state.
My recollection is the settlers are as well as the two systems solution is generally defined by Israel as "whatever our borders are now including the settlements" hence the increasing new "illegal" but de facto approved rogue settlements every year. Or that is my perception when it occasionally pops up every couple.on BBC; I've really never dug into it.
A two state system is meaningless if one state only has a 5x5 meter piece of land as that was all that's left at signing. I've never once seen an offer by Israel to divide the land 50/50 North/South divide. What I generally see is a spaghetti map where Palestinians basically get empty desert, garbage dumps, and no shipping ports, if any, large enough to accommodate modern trade. Likewise land large enough to build an international airport.
Sometimes you take a bad deal to get your accomplish your overall goal. Israel should probably start trying to treat the Palestinians as equals if they want a lasting solution.
I don’t understand your comment. In 2008, among other things, Abbas was offered near-total Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank, with Israel retaining 6.3% for existing settlements. Israel offered to compensate the Palestinians with Israeli land equivalent to 5.8% of the West Bank, along with a link to the Gaza Strip. A similar offer was made to Arafat during the Clinton administration.
That demand is equally an obstacle to a two state solution.
Certainly the "51st state" attitude you describe is out there. Driving around rural Indiana recently, I have seen many farm houses flying an Israeli flag under the US flag.
You're misunderstanding your opponents here--or rather, you're only partially understanding them. The people on the other side of this issue are not just SJWs. They're a very uncomfortable coalition of SJWs and foreign policy realists of various stripes. The latter are very concerned about this "Israel is the 51st state" approach, because they think we should act in the interest of the 50 actual US states.
I am one of these people, so let me try to explain the mindset. The reality is that Israel is an ally of sorts (like Ukraine), but as with Ukraine, Israel's interests are not the same as US interests.
Ukraine's dream scenario is to see the US in a shooting war against Russia. This would be a bad thing for the US and the world. Similarly, Israel's dream scenario is for the US to get into a shooting war with Iran. (You've obliquely spoken favorably about this yourself.) This would also be a bad thing for the US and the world, for basically the same reason--in both cases, getting the US into a shooting war would weaken the defenses of our other, more important allies and risk a nuclear incident.
The conflation of Israeli and US interests that's happening on the right is extremely dangerous.
Being surrounded by people who would happily cut off your head concentrates the mind.
If Israel is the 51st state, then we should spin them off in a package deal with Hawaii, Puerto Rico and Guam. These folks are net tax takers, not payers. How much would we need to pay to offload these liabilities?
“ The social justice activists will code as right wing anyone who stands up for America as a land of opportunity and meritocracy rather than as a land of oppression. ”
The perhaps not so simple fact is that America is both - the oppression occurring overseas (no one is being oppressed inside, if we don’t count Trump, the Jan. 6 folks, conservatives, taxpayers…hmmm).
Should be Mexico.
Can Israel win the isolationist America? Disengagement from Europe is disengagement from Israel.
I get the jist but I still balk at 51st given DC, PR, and the other four inhabited territories with US citizens/nationals. Regardless, lots of interesting ideas in the piece.
Great we need another civil war to wipe out the blatent hatred once and for all of those racist, apartheid red states including "red" Isreal and get back onto a path that treats all of humanity with compassion with equality with respect. Otherwise the path forward I'd pretty dark IMHO.
Excellent observation.
But Israel, at 9 million, only offsets about half of the illegal immigration to the 48 states.