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This was much better than the Crimethinc piece and a world better than that myopic statement out out by It’s Going Down.

Criticism:

As an anarchist in the United States, I want to know more about the solidarity work the Israeli Left and anarchists are involved with. A deeper dive into the Israeli Left and anarchist movement would be helpful… something more than describing how “liberal” or weak or small it is. I believe that even if it is a reformist movement that is nothing like the revolutionary and insurrectionary movement needed, it is still the seed from which anarchist solidarity grows.

Second, I think leaving Iran out of the geopolitical conversation is an unfortunate omission. Many of your Jewish comrades fear Iran’s interests in this land and I think it would be wise to address those fears head-on. This would also include an overview of the spread of Islamic nationalism (not just Arab nationalism), since Hamas and many other groups are motivated by Islamic nationalist interests. The spread of “Islamic State” ideologies in the middle-east is an obvious situation that is brought up in discourse concerning other middle-eastern conflicts, but is suspiciously omitted from the discourse around Israel-Palestine. The Christian Zionists are happy to take advantage of this omission to paint a picture of conflict between insultingly called “Judeo-Christian” civilization and Islam as the primary issue in geopolitics… including Israel-Palestine.

Finally, I try to focus on the decolonization of Jewish identity. By that, I mean the colonization that has been in practice for 2,000 years. A colonization that has been especially focused on the assimilation of Jews to so-called “Western” and “White” identities and values. This includes a critique of the British manipulation of Eretz Yisrael/Palestine that encouraged antagonisms between Jews and Arabs and the Jewish idealization of a “Western” form of government that became the nation state called Israel. Fundamentally, this colonization is the simultaneous erasure of Jewish indigenous identity and over-emphasis on Jewish European identity. I believe part of decolonization in Eretz Yisrael/Palestine must include this decolonization of Jewish identity to foster a deep solidarity among all who live in the land and in opposition to the nation state.