On Palestine, Israel, and Zohran Mamdani
- Dr. Bow Tie
- Nov 14
- 9 min read
In which I saw so many people I thought were smart, rational, and caring suddenly get corrupted by Islamophobia and sensationalized stereotypes about one man.
I've fallen behind on posting here in favor of Substack. So this week we'll catch up!
Last summer I read the book The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, by Ilan Pappé, in the aftermath of 10/7/2023 as I tried to create a nuanced and informed opinion on Israel and Palestine. In light of the much-hyped-yet-unsurprisingly-short Trump-mediated ceasefire that ended before his fanboys could sing his praises, I wanted to recommend it.
Apparently, the framing by Israel is that the current “war“ (which is actually a genocide) started with the 10/7 attack. This book is one of many that illustrates the long history and the fact that 10/7 was not a beginning, but a continuation, a response to Israel’s violence by the leaders that Netanyahu himself propped up in order to keep his own reign in place. I made sure to read a book by an Israeli historian, so no one could accuse me of bias (as it turns out that wasn’t enough).
Prior to reading this I read Uncomfortable Conversations with a Jew by Emmanuel Acho and Noa Tishby, where Tishby defined Zionism as the idea that Israel has a right to exist, to its own country (slightly paraphrased), and emphasizes “that’s it.“ However, contrary to her emphasis, it seems multiple Israeli prime ministers (Pappé focuses on David Ben Gurion, but also applies to Benjamin Netanyahu) have indicated, over and over again through their actions, and even their words, that that right to exist means creating a Jewish-dominated country (which is fine if it happens naturally but a theocracy never ends well for other peoples), and destroying anyone already living on the desired land that they, the Jewish people, returned to. For a while there Netanyahu‘s government‘s actions were genocidal in all but name. The one criteria they didn’t fulfill and the sticking point for most pro-Israel people was expecting Netanyahu to literally call it a genocide, and then his cabinet members and later Bibi himself would do just that and emphasize how they wanted to destroy the Palestinian people. Pappé’s book was enraging to read, but it is important to understand how things started (and the how the UN and US enabled today’s genocide).
“The problem with Jerusalem was never its Jewishness...The problem is its ethnic, Zionist character. Zionism does not have the same margins of pluralization that Judaism offers, especially not for the Palestinians.” - Ilan Pappé
My original post stopped here, but I got multiple comments from friends and colleagues who are pro-Israel, and I want to incorporate the responses here without specifically calling them out.
Since 10/7/23 I have acknowledged Israel’s right to exist and even to defend itself. Not everyone agrees with me on that, but I have never wavered on that. But Israel quickly transitioned from victim on 10/7/23 to aggressor over the course of the following year and I went seeking more information on how that could happen. Every time I listened to a Palestinian supporter I had multiple friends immediately decrying everything they said. So I looked for a source that would be “acceptable.” Ilan Pappé is Israeli and has worked as a historian for decades. Now, Pappé is controversial given his previous political involvement in Israel’s Communist party. However, I realize more and more that I live in a country that is both institutionally pro-Israel (even as antisemitism exists here) and has such a bent that what is considered far-left is actually fairly centrist by most other standards, so I was more inclined to give him more benefit of the doubt. Still, I do try to compare him to other, perhaps more neutral, sources.
Acknowledging the history of the Israel-Palestine atrocities or calling Israel’s actions genocidal does not serve to “explain away” 10/7 - I still stand by what I’ve said about how evil it was and my criticism of Hamas, but no one has ever pushed back on that point. No one has argued with me when I say that Hamas committed terrorism and needs to be removed.
I don’t think putting 10/7 in context waters it down. I started out viewing that event in isolation, but I think that is actually a disservice to the Israel-Palestine history, honestly. There are folks who treat it like this started with 10/7 and that is just frankly not true. That in NO way justifies 10/7 or any of Hamas’s actions, but more and more I wonder if Palestine is a reflection of Israel’s PM during every era. And Hamas is honestly a reflection of Benjamin Netanyahu. Which does NOT absolve Hamas of its actions in any way - how any of us chooses to react to our circumstances is ultimately up to each of us, but acknowledging those circumstances remains important.
Yet anything less than full-throated support of Israel always elicits a “why aren’t you condemning Hamas?” even when I have. And then I read Noa Tishby insisting that Zionism is a benign concept and my friends who didn’t use to be Zionists are suddenly equating antizionism with antisemitism as the Palestinian people are destroyed. Someone on social media tried to compare it to Black people taking back the N-word for themselves. However, I think that’s a deeply flawed comparison for a number of reasons, chief of which is that in the name of Zionism, too many Israeli leaders, especially Netanyahu, are pursuing the displacement (and worse) of another people as a means to “the right to exist” or the right of return. I don’t think that’s a reflection of Jewish or even Israeli people’s values, but it is what we are seeing. The aggressors should not be allowed to redefine terms. I know there are folks that take the anti-Israel sentiment too far, but I think there a lot of us who still believe in a two-state solution for the nations of Israel and Palestine, but who still see Netanyahu’s actions with the IDF as genocidal (even as we criticize Hamas’s actions, but that’s less controversial and easier to do).
Meanwhile, every humanitarian organization that dares to acknowledge or depict what’s happening while trying to work in that region is labeled antisemitic. Trying to claim that everyone is against Israel while America remains institutionally pro-Israel is hard to reconcile. Eyewitness accounts by humanitarian organizations of the IDF creating “safe zones” and then bombing them, unfeasible warnings to leave an area only given hours before it’s bombed, the self-proclaimed “most moral army” “accidentally” bombing ambulances because they may have had Hamas members that turned out to be as real as Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction, but any of these valid criticisms are immediately met with outrage and smear campaigns by Israel. Doctors Without Borders, World Central Kitchen, UNRWA, and anyone who criticizes Israel’s actions (even alongside criticism of Hamas) is labeled antisemitic…meanwhile I get to be genuinely surprised when the media even acknowledges Palestinian famine conditions because too often they dehumanize Palestinians.
I haven’t felt like I can trust anything the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) says for well over a year, and major bodies including the ICJ, the ICC, members of the Knesset, and multiple genocide scholars have identified Netanyahu’s actions through the IDF as genocide, and we see these actions being done in the name of Zionism. Friends tried to say that Zionists are just looking for a homeland to protect against another genocide, yet an entire people are being destroyed as part of that “protection” and the destroyed people are headed by terrible leaders who have, in turn, been propped up by Netanyahu to avoid his own trial proceedings, even interrupting court to go order strikes recently.
“Given this history, it’s clear that Netanyahu and Hamas are both merely symptoms of a deeper problem. The real source of endless war is the Israeli state’s long-standing goal of imperial domination over the Palestinians, toward which end the propping up of Hamas is merely a means.” It goes back even further than Netanyahu - as I said earlier, Palestine is so much a reflection of the actions and attitudes of whoever is in power in Israel, in an often-reactionary way.
My Jewish friends who have previously protested Netanyahu now are silent as he continues to prop up Hamas as a reason to stay in power and avoid prosecution for his own (alleged, if I must) war crimes. Pro-Israeli people have adopted a nationalistic blindness/deafness to Netanyahu’s own words, covering their eyes and ears and insisting that Israel hasn’t met all the conditions for genocide even though they have multiple times over, both-sides-ing the frequent breaks in the ceasefire as if Israel’s breaks between bombings are legitimate overtures for peace. I see people insisting that if Israel was to lay down arms they would be destroyed, but if Hamas and Palestine did so they would finally return to prosperity and nothing I have seen supports that conclusion. It’s honestly giving MAGA in terms of outward blind loyalty as lives are ruined.
Genocide Criteria
Direct killing of Palestinians via bombing and direct soldier shooting, including children
Starvation, blockade of food and aid (Human Rights Watch)
Threatening to continue blockade unless ceasefire deal terms altered by Hamas
Palestinians killed by IDF while approaching distribution points by Gaza Humanitarian FOundation (a US group)
Destruction of civilian infrastructure, deliberate
Serious bodily and mental harm to members of the group
Destruction and denial of access to medical services
Forced displacement
Measure to prevent births (attacking a fertility clinic, among others)
Environmental devastation
However, the commission’s report concludes that President Isaac Herzog, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant have “incited the commission of genocide” in their speeches and statements.
As early as 7 October 2023, Prime Minister Netanyahu vowed to inflict… ‘mighty vengeance’ on ‘all of the places where Hamas is deployed, hiding and operating in, that wicked city, we will turn them into rubble’,” Pillay said.
His use of the phrase ‘wicked city’ in the same statement implied that he saw the whole city of Gaza [Gaza City] as responsible and a target for vengeance. And he told Palestinians to ‘leave now because we will operate forcefully everywhere’.”
Gallant said days after 7 October 2023 that Israel was “fighting human animals, and we act accordingly”. Herzog meanwhile stated that “it’s an entire nation out there that is responsible” for the Hamas-led attack.” -https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8641wv0n4go
Admittedly, there was some sentiment that drove me to share this post. For one, I saw someone share a meme last week with a Trump-shaped light at the end of the tunnel when the ceasefire was announced, as if 1) Trump hadn’t said he wanted Netanyahu to “finish the job” of genocide, 2) that he hadn’t prolonged the conflict by talking to Bibi about only releasing some of the hostages with Biden’s negotiations, and 3) It wasn’t entirely hollow as a bid for the Nobel Peace Prize. Leaving aside the fact that it barely lasted 6 days before Netanyahu broke it on a technicality.
For another thing, The amount of Islamophobia directed at NYC mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani with the assumption that because he doesn’t follow the typical American political rule of full-throated support of Israel, he is antisemitic and will be “bad for Jewish people.” This all-or-nothing attitude really irks me. Rolling Stone and other outlets have pointed out all the myths people raised against him, including debunking the idea that he has said anything antisemitic (because criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza is not antisemtitic). Some of my Jewish friends were upset as they claimed he did not denounce the phrase “globalize the intifada.” Yet that’s a case where that word means different things to different people, and as much as Israel/Zionists want to define it through the Second Intifada event, Palestinians in general use the original Arabic definition in the setting of the longer history. There are extremists on both sides there, but Mamdani honestly navigated that nuance well (and he DID say he would discourage its use). I know Israel views it as a black-and-white matter in terms of definition, but it just isn’t.
He is against creating an ethnocentric or theocratic nation, but has not denied Israel’s right to exist. His objections to a religious or ethnocentric country come up because, whether you “agree” or not, Israel is destroying another people of another religion as a final step in a series of land grabs. That’s my objection, too - if Zionism was solely about Israel’s right to exist, that would be fine, but Zionist actions are annihilating a people in order to displace them from the space Israel wants instead of coexisting (which was happening IN previously established Israel, but doesn’t seem to be the name of the game anymore).
Someone brought up his association between the IDF and the NYPD - he’s clarified that his remarks are about the fact that the NYPD has undergone training exercises with the IDF, in an era where overmilitarization of police is doing more harm than good.
I don’t think his call for peaceful resistance and appropriate criticism of Israel without antisemitism is up for debate (bearing in mind that he is running for mayor of NYC and will have no influence on the conflict overseas).
Meanwhile, Benjamin Netanyahu in 2024 said “We are going to fulfil our promise that there will be no Palestinian state. This place belongs to us,” Israeli finance minister Smotrich said “This reality finally buries the idea of a Palestinian state because there is nothing to recognise and no one to recognise,” and recently Itamar Ben-Gvir said “My right, my wife’s, my children’s, to roam the roads of Judea and Samaria are more important than the right of movement of the Arabs.” And they aren’t the only ones (trying to dismiss them as right-wing members of the party doesn’t help since Israel’s government is pretty right-wing). Combine that with the actions and the lies from the IDF and genocide becomes more apparent.
It’s at the point where I feel that too many things are labeled antisemitic when they are just criticisms, similar to how I react when American nationalists think that criticizing the US is unpatriotic.
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