I'm curious as to what it means and what it says about humanity that every person or movement that preaches “nothing less than the liberation of all people” ends up shortly thereafter building concentration camps, mass-murdering both its external and internal enemies, and starving and otherwise immiserating its people until its collapse. (Or in this current example, excusing massacres and chanting for genocide while denying it.)
Is it just like Dostoevsky said? "Starting from unlimited freedom, I have arrived at unlimited despotism. I will add, however, that there can be no solution of the social equation other than mine."
But if you looked at a supposed pro-Palestinian protest and muted the volume and blurred any words, would anyone think that these people were marching for anything resembling peace, liberation, freedom, etc? Or would it just seem like an eruption of blind rage and hatred?
The poor Palestinian people have been incredibly ill-served by being transformed into a Cause. Once a people become a Cause their actual welfare and futures become secondary (or irrelevant) to all the supporters of the Cause, who are usually cheering for some vicarious bloodshed or to be able to witness the most barbaric conception of Justice—watching people you hate get killed. If the Palestinians were treated as just one party to a land dispute where both side had good claims, this could have been worked out long ago. But that would spell the end of the Cause (without any erotic release), thus the bloodshed must continue.
Great essay. Re: "Had the Arabs peacefully accepted partition, there would have been a Palestinian state larger than any now seriously proposed back in 1948," I recently imagined a counterfactual history in a recent note: https://substack.com/@ellisgeist/note/c-78418567
Malcom X praised Zionism from his Black Nationalist point of view. He wanted a Zion for Black Americans in the American South. The Nation of Islam followed Islam, and pan-Africanism drew original ties to North Africa and the Arab world, and lauded, from a secular point of view, “the one thing that every race of man in the world respects, and understands,” as X wrote, and I think this is interesting.
I don’t know every taking about jihad. I’m not familiar with its religious origin, and not heavily invested in NOI but I think this is relevant now. I started trying to write about this earlier this year.
There are interesting (though far from precise) parallels between the diasporic Jewish and American black experience. Sometimes this affinity manifests itself positively, in black identification with Pharaoh's ex-slaves seeking the Promised Land (as in the rhetoric of MLK Jr). But the Black Hebrew Israelites, a bizarre cult that claims blacks are "the real Jews," represent the pathological version of this phenomenon. (Though interestingly, there is a group of Black Hebrew Israelites who moved to Dimona, Israel, and now serve in the IDF.)
Related, I recently read a piece on why Ta-Nehisi Coates hates Israel (https://www.compactmag.com/article/why-ta-nehisi-coates-hates-israel/): "The problem with Israel is that it shames him. How can it be that the Jews carved their Israel out of the desert, and yet no place in Africa, least of all Liberia, remotely resembles Wakanda?" Anti-Zionism as Wakanda envy is a plausible psychological theory for black antipathy toward Israel (which is far from universal).
Yeah, that makes sense. And yeah, I’ve seen Black Hebrew Israelites once, playing music and holding up signs in center city Philadelphia. If I remember correctly they were holding up Stars of David and wordy signs about the true Israelites (them). It was pretty strange to see. That’s crazy there’s some who serve on the IDF. I guess it partly shows how every group has a fringe, subcultural or “subcult” perhaps though I don’t know enough about it to agree it’s a cult, and would guess it’s probably more benign, kind of weird, and idiosyncratic than hard-core culty (like some leftist leftism dogma has been getting)
It's probably more accurate to state that there are cults that adhere to Black Hebrew Israelite beliefs, ie, that American blacks are the descendants of ancient Israelites (which is, of course, an absurd claim). Some, as you say, are simply idiosyncratic, but others are avowedly racist and call for (and commit) violent crime, eg, "the Nation of Yahweh."
I'm curious as to what it means and what it says about humanity that every person or movement that preaches “nothing less than the liberation of all people” ends up shortly thereafter building concentration camps, mass-murdering both its external and internal enemies, and starving and otherwise immiserating its people until its collapse. (Or in this current example, excusing massacres and chanting for genocide while denying it.)
Is it just like Dostoevsky said? "Starting from unlimited freedom, I have arrived at unlimited despotism. I will add, however, that there can be no solution of the social equation other than mine."
But if you looked at a supposed pro-Palestinian protest and muted the volume and blurred any words, would anyone think that these people were marching for anything resembling peace, liberation, freedom, etc? Or would it just seem like an eruption of blind rage and hatred?
The poor Palestinian people have been incredibly ill-served by being transformed into a Cause. Once a people become a Cause their actual welfare and futures become secondary (or irrelevant) to all the supporters of the Cause, who are usually cheering for some vicarious bloodshed or to be able to witness the most barbaric conception of Justice—watching people you hate get killed. If the Palestinians were treated as just one party to a land dispute where both side had good claims, this could have been worked out long ago. But that would spell the end of the Cause (without any erotic release), thus the bloodshed must continue.
God forbid you or your tribe become a Cause!
Great essay. Re: "Had the Arabs peacefully accepted partition, there would have been a Palestinian state larger than any now seriously proposed back in 1948," I recently imagined a counterfactual history in a recent note: https://substack.com/@ellisgeist/note/c-78418567
Dunces are the majority.
Malcom X praised Zionism from his Black Nationalist point of view. He wanted a Zion for Black Americans in the American South. The Nation of Islam followed Islam, and pan-Africanism drew original ties to North Africa and the Arab world, and lauded, from a secular point of view, “the one thing that every race of man in the world respects, and understands,” as X wrote, and I think this is interesting.
I don’t know every taking about jihad. I’m not familiar with its religious origin, and not heavily invested in NOI but I think this is relevant now. I started trying to write about this earlier this year.
There are interesting (though far from precise) parallels between the diasporic Jewish and American black experience. Sometimes this affinity manifests itself positively, in black identification with Pharaoh's ex-slaves seeking the Promised Land (as in the rhetoric of MLK Jr). But the Black Hebrew Israelites, a bizarre cult that claims blacks are "the real Jews," represent the pathological version of this phenomenon. (Though interestingly, there is a group of Black Hebrew Israelites who moved to Dimona, Israel, and now serve in the IDF.)
Related, I recently read a piece on why Ta-Nehisi Coates hates Israel (https://www.compactmag.com/article/why-ta-nehisi-coates-hates-israel/): "The problem with Israel is that it shames him. How can it be that the Jews carved their Israel out of the desert, and yet no place in Africa, least of all Liberia, remotely resembles Wakanda?" Anti-Zionism as Wakanda envy is a plausible psychological theory for black antipathy toward Israel (which is far from universal).
Yeah, that makes sense. And yeah, I’ve seen Black Hebrew Israelites once, playing music and holding up signs in center city Philadelphia. If I remember correctly they were holding up Stars of David and wordy signs about the true Israelites (them). It was pretty strange to see. That’s crazy there’s some who serve on the IDF. I guess it partly shows how every group has a fringe, subcultural or “subcult” perhaps though I don’t know enough about it to agree it’s a cult, and would guess it’s probably more benign, kind of weird, and idiosyncratic than hard-core culty (like some leftist leftism dogma has been getting)
It's probably more accurate to state that there are cults that adhere to Black Hebrew Israelite beliefs, ie, that American blacks are the descendants of ancient Israelites (which is, of course, an absurd claim). Some, as you say, are simply idiosyncratic, but others are avowedly racist and call for (and commit) violent crime, eg, "the Nation of Yahweh."