Tweet

Justin Podur

23 May, 15 tweets, 2 min read

The Anti-Empire Project is sharing tonight a resource on Anti-Palestinian Racism.

The goals are a) to recognize this as a distinct type of racism and b) to make it easy to identify when an argument or claim is based in such racism and not good faith.

podur.org/2021/05/23/ant…

Some of the key points made in the resource -

Anti-Palestinian racism is distinct from Islamophobia and it is distinct from Anti-Arab Racism, despite overlap and the importance of both of those racisms.

All asymmetries of rights when discussing Israel/Palestine are symptoms of anti-Palestinian racism. Examples:

1a. Israeli "security" vs. Palestinian "freedom".

1b. Israel's unique right to "self-defence" compared to the need for Palestinians to "renounce violence".

1c. Israel's "right to exist" (as a Jewish state) compared to no right at all on the Palestinian side.

1d. The ignoring and repressing of the most egregious Israeli crimes and acts.

1e. The denial of rights to boycott, speech, organizing, or being offended - to Palestinians.

2. All asymmetric language in discussing Israel/Palestine is symptomatic of anti-Palestinian racism. Examples:

2a. The discussion of Palestinian "corruption" as a reason for de-development without discussion of Israeli "corruption".

2b. The use of active and passive voice selectively to exonerate Israel

2c. The denial of the right to self-representation - referring to Palestinians as "Arabs".

3. The lack of a parallel between anti-Palestinian racism and anti-Semitism is symptomatic of anti-Palestinian racism.

4. The muting of Palestinian voices in social media is symptomatic of anti-Palestinian racism.

5. The rewriting of history to impute anti-Semitism to Arab or Islamic culture rather than Western / Christian culture is symptomatic of Islamophobia, anti-Arab racism, and anti-Palestinian racism.

The resource elaborates on all these points. Please use, copy, excerpt, remix, freely! As free as... well, you know.

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

More from @justinpodur

Justin Podur

@justinpodur

28 May

I know you don't want to hear this, but the position that you "love the Palestinian people but hate Hamas" is actually helping Israel kill the Palestinian people.

The propaganda line that "we love the people but hate whoever happens to be leading them" is the standard Israeli position (ie., Israel had the same position on the PLO back in the day, etc.).

The propaganda line "we love the people but hate their leader" is also the standard regime change position. It goes along with regime change campaigns - the US/Canada/etc. just didn't recognize the Syria election, they didn't recognize the Venezuela elections, etc.

Read 10 tweets

Justin Podur

@justinpodur

2 Apr

Here are some things you need to know about politics, economics, and the environment.

1. The rich get what they want from politicians, and you don't.

cambridge.org/core/journals/…

2. Rich people take trillions from poor people each year.

rand.org/pubs/working_p…

3. Rich countries take trillions from poor countries each year.

tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.108…

Read 8 tweets

Justin Podur

@justinpodur

1 Sep 20

An attempt to spell out anti-imperialist moral truism. Or, why Western dissent against Chinese or Russian crimes does not make the world a better place. A thread.

As usual, the starting point is Chomsky. One of his moral truisms is that it is only moral to campaign on issues you can affect.

This moral truism is implicitly about the politics of dissent. A dissenter goes against the common sense of their own society or against the government policy of their own country. Chomsky is all about dissent.

Read 28 tweets

Justin Podur

@justinpodur

17 Aug 20

So, after reading Losurdo's book on nonviolence, a thread on why Hannah Arendt is no guide for leftists (probably most of you know this, so skip if you already knew).

Arendt is famous for a phrase, "the banality of evil", and for the analysis of "totalitarianism". The phrase is of course clever but by now confuses more than it helps, since there are obviously evils that aren't banal and banalities that aren't evil, so whatever.

Totalitarianism is an analysis that has enabled the enemies of equality and the defenders of hierarchy to conflate any attempt at making society more equal with Nazism, because equality and utopias are communism, and communism is totalitarianism, which is Nazism.

Read 16 tweets

Justin Podur

@justinpodur

20 Jul 20

No matter how radical your politics are, twitter has made you into a liberal. How?

Definitions: First, radicalism. Political radicalism arises in the 18th century when people around the French and Haiti revolutions take the declaration of rights seriously – which means abolition.

Radicals accepted the right of armed struggle by slaves and the colonized. Radicals are egalitarian. The radical idea is equality of outcomes. Losurdo writes about this very well.

versobooks.com/books/960-libe…

Read 22 tweets

Justin Podur

@justinpodur

16 Jul 20

Chomsky signed a letter about free speech and something called “cancel culture“, which has prompted a small social media wave of responses.

There is a good piece by Jonathan Cook about how focusing on Chomsky’s signature misses the point. But I am going to focus only on Chomsky here.

jonathan-cook.net/blog/2020-07-0…

My argument: Chomsky’s most powerful message is anti-imperialism. Containing that message has been a preoccupation of the propaganda system since the 1960s.

Read 30 tweets

Support us! We are indie developers!

This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!