I’m surprised this doesn’t get mentioned more, but Antony Blinken is a Jewish Zionist. That doesn’t seem like a good mediator here. He also has spent his whole career assisting in this kind of mass cruelty abroad. He worked under the Clinton and Bush whitehouses on national security. He was a staff member for the Senate foreign relations committee and advocated for the war in Iraq, which Biden then supported as the chair of that committee. Then he worked on the national security council under Obama and advocated for Obama’s disastrous intervention in Libya.
Also, I really feel like it’s weird that this doesn’t get more attention, so I’m going to repeat it: he’s a lifelong Zionist Jew. I know that phrase feels gross, but that’s literally his own self perception. It kind of feels like he’s a blood-soaked American imperialist who always cheerleads violence and could conceivably be characterized as basically a dual national with Israeli loyalties. He shouldn’t be secretary of state, let alone involved in this issue.
If, by “Zionist Jew”, you mean that he is a Jew that thinks that Israel has some right to exist in some fashion - which is what Zionist actually means - you are describing the vast majority of all Jews, and by extension arguing that no Jew should be allowed to be involved in this discussion.
Maybe I’m wrong, but I have a strange idea that you wouldn’t similarly support barring any Muslim from being involved in the talks.
That’s not a useful or accurate description of modern Zionism that is used by Zionists or antizionist Jews. If it were, it would leave room for a two-state solution, for instance. But the leadership of the modern Zionist movement and the Israeli government has been working aggressively since the Oslo accords to prevent the formation of any Palestinian state and also to ethnically cleanse Israel of its Israeli Palestinian population (I’m talking here about Palestinians with Israeli citizenship, who for years have been second class citizens and faced threats of mass expulsion from their own elected leaders).
The Zionist movement largely has two camps, and if we include the Jewish antizonist movement, we have a general third:
Liberal Zionists - Those who support a welcoming homeland for Jews which is democratic, and of negotiable boundaries.
Religious Zionists - Those who believe unwavering in a god-given right to the full territory between the River Jordon and the Mediterranean Sea, and that their right justifies the removal of non Jews by any means.
Antizionist Jews - Those who believe that current inhabitants, the displaced former residents, and the children of both have a legal and moral right to remain and/or return to their family lands and live with full rights alongside those who’ve immigrated in the last century and the children of these immigrants.
Blinken is, as far as I’m aware, a liberal Zionist. The problem is that liberal Zionists have ceded Israeli policy fully to religious Zionists, and have been trying for at least a decade to somehow insist on using their own vision of Zionism as the framework for debate when critics challenge the obvious theocratic and genocidal impulses of religious Zionism as articulated plainly by the leaders of the movement, Itamar Ben Gvir (head of the police and prisons) and Bezalel Smotrich (finance minister). Netanyahu says nothing, but as he refuses to even lie and pretend to support a Palestinian state, his actions and tactical silence have shown him to be a religious Zionist in all ways that matter.
Also, I wouldn’t immediately disqualify a Muslim for the role any more than I’d disqualify a politically neutral Jew. But I would certainly object to an outspoken Muslim advocate of Palestinian Liberation in the role for the same reason I’d say that Blinken is not qualified to be a neutral and faithful representative of the US. The issue isn’t the circumstances of his birth: it’s his lifelong political involvement in the nationalist movement of one side.
I was raised singing the Hatikva (the Israeli anthem) every morning in school alongside the Star Spangled Banner, btw. I’m coming at this with plenty of first-hand knowledge.
I’m surprised this doesn’t get mentioned more, but Antony Blinken is a Jewish Zionist. That doesn’t seem like a good mediator here. He also has spent his whole career assisting in this kind of mass cruelty abroad. He worked under the Clinton and Bush whitehouses on national security. He was a staff member for the Senate foreign relations committee and advocated for the war in Iraq, which Biden then supported as the chair of that committee. Then he worked on the national security council under Obama and advocated for Obama’s disastrous intervention in Libya.
Also, I really feel like it’s weird that this doesn’t get more attention, so I’m going to repeat it: he’s a lifelong Zionist Jew. I know that phrase feels gross, but that’s literally his own self perception. It kind of feels like he’s a blood-soaked American imperialist who always cheerleads violence and could conceivably be characterized as basically a dual national with Israeli loyalties. He shouldn’t be secretary of state, let alone involved in this issue.
If, by “Zionist Jew”, you mean that he is a Jew that thinks that Israel has some right to exist in some fashion - which is what Zionist actually means - you are describing the vast majority of all Jews, and by extension arguing that no Jew should be allowed to be involved in this discussion.
Maybe I’m wrong, but I have a strange idea that you wouldn’t similarly support barring any Muslim from being involved in the talks.
That’s not a useful or accurate description of modern Zionism that is used by Zionists or antizionist Jews. If it were, it would leave room for a two-state solution, for instance. But the leadership of the modern Zionist movement and the Israeli government has been working aggressively since the Oslo accords to prevent the formation of any Palestinian state and also to ethnically cleanse Israel of its Israeli Palestinian population (I’m talking here about Palestinians with Israeli citizenship, who for years have been second class citizens and faced threats of mass expulsion from their own elected leaders).
The Zionist movement largely has two camps, and if we include the Jewish antizonist movement, we have a general third:
Liberal Zionists - Those who support a welcoming homeland for Jews which is democratic, and of negotiable boundaries.
Religious Zionists - Those who believe unwavering in a god-given right to the full territory between the River Jordon and the Mediterranean Sea, and that their right justifies the removal of non Jews by any means.
Antizionist Jews - Those who believe that current inhabitants, the displaced former residents, and the children of both have a legal and moral right to remain and/or return to their family lands and live with full rights alongside those who’ve immigrated in the last century and the children of these immigrants.
Blinken is, as far as I’m aware, a liberal Zionist. The problem is that liberal Zionists have ceded Israeli policy fully to religious Zionists, and have been trying for at least a decade to somehow insist on using their own vision of Zionism as the framework for debate when critics challenge the obvious theocratic and genocidal impulses of religious Zionism as articulated plainly by the leaders of the movement, Itamar Ben Gvir (head of the police and prisons) and Bezalel Smotrich (finance minister). Netanyahu says nothing, but as he refuses to even lie and pretend to support a Palestinian state, his actions and tactical silence have shown him to be a religious Zionist in all ways that matter.
Also, I wouldn’t immediately disqualify a Muslim for the role any more than I’d disqualify a politically neutral Jew. But I would certainly object to an outspoken Muslim advocate of Palestinian Liberation in the role for the same reason I’d say that Blinken is not qualified to be a neutral and faithful representative of the US. The issue isn’t the circumstances of his birth: it’s his lifelong political involvement in the nationalist movement of one side.
I was raised singing the Hatikva (the Israeli anthem) every morning in school alongside the Star Spangled Banner, btw. I’m coming at this with plenty of first-hand knowledge.
Thanks for this insightful comment.