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5 tweets,
1 min read
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1. This is a good read, but I’m not sure I fully agree with Emma’s conclusion.
I read the full arc of debate over Omar’s Twitter comments — from initial tweets to heated debates to apologies to post-mortems — as a collective learning moment, leading to many nuanced accounts.
I read the full arc of debate over Omar’s Twitter comments — from initial tweets to heated debates to apologies to post-mortems — as a collective learning moment, leading to many nuanced accounts.
2. E.g., Omar’s apology could arguably be taken as boundary-setting for future discussions, but the entire kerfuffle was effectively an *elevation* of long-simmering debates among liberals regarding Israel, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and progressive values.
3. Criticism of Israel among liberals is not new, nor are uses of anti-Semitic and Islamophobic tropes on all sides, insistence that criticism of a nation-state is not tantamount to anti-Semitism, etc.
The Omar incident, however, did something unusual…
The Omar incident, however, did something unusual…
4. What’s new(ish): elevating of these debates to halls of power AMONG lefty lawmakers that progressives have rallied around as the future of progressivism.
It makes criticisms of Israel far harder to ignore, and strikes me as a giant liberal convo about HOW to talk about it.
It makes criticisms of Israel far harder to ignore, and strikes me as a giant liberal convo about HOW to talk about it.
5. This convo will continue to take place at all levels of progressivism.
It could expose rifts, but there is reason to believe liberal alliances will hold at least in the near-term — if for no other reason than power-building under Trump.
That necessitates “working it out.”
It could expose rifts, but there is reason to believe liberal alliances will hold at least in the near-term — if for no other reason than power-building under Trump.
That necessitates “working it out.”
