this post was submitted on 07 Oct 2025
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At this pace, we are about two weeks away from "Israel has a right to defend itself"
Well the fucker has already done an "I believe Israel has a right to exist!" i.e. "Its a good thing to ethnically cleanse and genocide Palestinians to steal their land!"
That's a misrepresentation. He said it has a right to exist "as a state with equal rights," i.e. it has no right to do apartheid and genocide and the political project of ethnostates must be abolished.
i think it's pretty fair to mock him for breaking from the line. why do succs always try to redefine terms and make up new slogans like "humanitarian pauses" and "Israel has a right to exist as a non-apartheid state"? We already have debated this for decades, the international left has already come to a consensus that Israel has no right to exist. Why does he feel he's above the international line? That he's more "mature" and "pragmatic" than the "loony left" that he supposedly emerged from and that makes up his base? What gives him the right to play with slogans and water down principled positions for his own benefit?
Why does he get to ride high on "globalize the intifiada" and "defund the police" and "abolish ICE" and then once he's taken advantage of the leftists who believe in that and stepped on their shoulders, he gets to change it and back away from all of it? It's so obviously cowardice and opportunism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thawabit
These are the red lines. Mamdani plays with them like it's his to toy with. DNC focus groups running roughshod over millions of activists and martyrs
States have no right to exist at all, so I don't see what your point is. If Israel is not an apartheid state, that's the end of the entire project because it being an ethnostate is the most core thing that it's founded on. If you call that piece of land Israel or Palestine, it's immaterial if the state has equal rights, right of return for the displaced, etc.
It is very chauvinistic to speak of "that piece of land" in this way. The only people who can decide what "that piece of land" is called are the indigenous people of Palestine. The perspective of the "you" used in that sentence is irrelevant in all other cases.
And they have happened to call their beautiful country Palestine, it is not up for debate in any way shape or form. Their will is sovereign as the rightful owners of the land and they have the right to self-determination, like any other indigenous population.
Most of that is chest-puffing that ranges from vacuous to reactionary in a way that radlibs call progressive, but I don't think we're going to get anywhere trying to discuss it.
I'm not interested in "Israel" continuing to exist and I think, in even liberal-democratic conditions, it would rapidly cease to exist even in name (we can point to many other former colonies where this happened), but you've completely lost the plot if you think that people are dying for what a piece of land is named rather than how the people who are on it (or those who have been wrongfully denied a place on it) are treated, in no small part because people can and already do call it different things anyway, and will continue to, but you can't merely speak in different words to not be starving. My point in saying this is that what people are fighting for is an end to the blockades, apartheid, genocide, military occupation, and so on, and Zohran has been very clear in opposing those things. I'd rather him take a different line, given the option, but ultimately I think that he correctly identified what's important and is focusing on that.
Like, we can point to ways in which the end of South Africa's apartheid was inadequate, but I don't think it's a major factor at all that we aren't now calling it Mzansi or Azania. From what I can tell, many South Africans do themselves call it Mzansi, and it's consistent as an isiZulu version of an abbreviation of the legal name in the isiXhosa version of the Constitution, "uRhulumente waseMzantsi Afrika," but not directly the slightly-bulkier corresponding isiZulu term for south, "Ningizimu". It's a little confusing to me because there are several languages involved, the Constitution being printed in about 11 of them.
Anyway, if you want to attack Zohran specifically for being a lib on Palestine, you might have a better time by investigating what he said about a one or two state solution, though I don't remember if he addressed that issue directly.
*You wont get anywhere trying to discuss it because you have made a blatant mistake and want to avoid it.
How is pointing out an example of blatant chauvinism that is borderline zionism, i.e. dismissing the fact that the "piece of land" you refer to is actually a truly beautiful sovereign nation whose indigenous inhabitants have decided to call Palestine? Like its not up for anyone else to debate, "that piece of land" is called Palestine. Its kind of disturbing how you think it is "vacuous" or "reactionary" to respect the right to self-determination of the Palestinian people. Thinking the name of "that piece of land" is up for debate already concedes to a zionist framing of the invasion and genocide. The land is already a country called Palestine and it is being invaded by zionists who want to ethnically cleanse the indigenous population via murder and expulsion. This is a fact and it is unacceptable to say otherwise.
Strawman argument. Palestinians are dying because the zionist entity is killing them in a genocide. They are fighting to expel a settler colonial entity and its invaders from their land so they can live in peace. The "piece of land" is already a sovereign country called "Palestine", why would they be fighting for what it is named when it is already called "Palestine"?
Accepting "israel has a right to exist" renders the rest moot because you've already conceded that an invading cancer that has stolen the land of a sovereign nation through a genocide of its indigenous population should continue to exist on said stolen land. That is already a military occupation, an act of genocide, and apartheid. A big concession to a zionist framing of the genocide which does not recognize Palestinian self-determination, a hallmark of liberal zionism. Furthermore the zionist concept of "israel" itself is fundamentally and inextricably a settler-colonial jewish-supremacist ethnostate. You can't say " has a right to exist but I'm fully against the idea of ethnostates!".
This is already enough to point out how he is a filthy liberal zionist.
Literally not one pro-palestine person before Mamdani ever said "Israel has a right to exist as a non-apartheid state!". This is non-committal word game mumbo jumbo done specifically to be obscure. Stop playing games with us, stop being obscure, stop concealing our views like they're something to be ashamed of.
He's not representing a movement, he's doing focus tested sloganeering that is triangulated to offend nobody and mean nothing. I ask again, why are succs completely unable to hold to a line?
But a state can have “equal rights” and still be an illegitimate settler state. If one-state israel formally democratized, but didn’t redistribute wealth and political power, thus maintaining Jewish dominance over Palestinians in economics and politics in a nominally liberal democracy, would that be sufficient to fulfill Palestinian liberation? Is “Israel but nice and good” what we want the final outcome of the Palestinian struggle to look like? More importantly, would Palestinians be satisfied with that arrangement?
That line of thinking is paradoxical. The zionist entity is a jewish-supremacist settler colony whose existence itself is predicated on the type of genocide required to steal the land of an indigenous population. The existence of the zionist entity is inextricably and fundamentally linked to the violent ethnic cleansing, apartheid, and genocide of the Palestinian people.
Intentions are irrelevant, the phrase "the zionist entity has a right to exist" functionally means whoever says it gives their ok to the fact that a bunch of settlers got together in the 1940s to murder enough people en masse in Palestine so that they could steal and occupy their land. Furthermore "israel" itself is fundamentally an ethnostate, if it was not an ethnostate it would not exist, very simple.
Settler colonies in whatever form require genocide and apartheid to exist so if they stopped the genocide and apartheid they would cease to exist. Without the ethnic cleansing, theft, and genocide of the Palestinian people, the zionist entity would simply not be.
I believe that the paradox is exactly the point, because he is extremely focused on the substance of the issue and is very insistent when people try to get him to say "has a right to exist as a Jewish state" that he says "has a right to exist as a state with equal rights," i.e. that its right to exist (something that I don't believe any state has, but that's not especially relevant) is predicated on having equal rights, and that the right of any state to exist is so-predicated.
It's exactly the point of why he is saying it this way that there is no Israel without apartheid, because based on his strategy he only has a brief period to deal with the most bad-faith people in existence who have a thousand rhetorical traps for him, and he seeks to redirect any such conversation to the statement "Apartheid and genocide must end," because taking the argument on the terms of the zionist is just going to end in confusion and smears, while focusing on "Apartheid and genocide must end" will not give them the space to do anything except either concede or explicitly defend apartheid and genocide, and we know this because when they have tried to fight it they have looked completely ridiculous to the public, such as at the primary debate.
That there can be no Israel without apartheid is the point. That Israel having only the right to exist if it is an equal state and therefore not having a right to exist at all is the point.
The substance of the issue is that the sovereign country of Palestine has been invaded by fascist ethnonationalists (zionists) who have committed a genocide against the indigenous Palestinians to steal their land and establish a settler colonial entity. To say "israel has the right to exist" basically signals to everyone that you are fundamentally ok with the settler colonial invasion and genocide. Its simple.
You would already be pro-genocide by using this paradox because this is exactly the type of flawed doublethink that liberal zionists use to justify the zionist entity's continued existence as a settler colony. "Israeli" liberal zionists themselves say this ("we should still exist but Palestinians need equal rights!") while happily living in someone's stolen home and serving in the SS.
Furthermore this is just a rationalization for some liberal zionist accepting a liberal zionist framing of an invasion and genocide. You can skip this whole set of mental gymnastics and just say "no I dont believe in settler colonial ethnostates so israel does not have a right to exist" or something similar and then go off on their genocidal crimes against the Palestinian people before the copers start playing the "antisemetism" card.
Sometimes you need to have a backbone otherwise you just legitimize and manufacture consent for genocide on live television. But to be clear at this point the guy is a liberal zionist who doesn't really care so its not really a problem of having a backbone.
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Is it more likely that he’s actually a based commie doing 5D chess to outsmart everyone and hide his power levels, or that he’s just a milquetoast social chauvinist who makes watered down social chauvinist statements?
If you pay attention to what he says about this issue, since he has spoken a lot about Palestine, it is clear that he opposes Israel. This isn't 5D chess, it's a simple rhetorical refocusing that is similar to how he handles almost everything because, even outside of "Does Israel have a right to exist as a Jewish state?" people are constantly throwing insipid gotchas at him that he tries to redirect to cost of living, listening to the expressed needs of New Yorkers, etc.
iirc he said something worse and more libzionist on one of the talk shows
Point me to it
i couldn't find the thread, maybe it was colbert?