It’s dogshit
Hamas and Israeli hardliners are two sides of the same coin. The choice is not one hardline faction or the other; it is between fundamentalists and all those who still believe in the possibility of peaceful co-existence. There can be no compromise between Palestinian and Israeli extremists, who must be combatted with a full-throated defense of Palestinian rights that goes hand-in-hand with an unwavering commitment to the fight against anti-Semitism.
Utopian as this may sound, the two struggles are of a piece. We can and should unconditionally support Israel’s right to defend itself against terrorist attacks. But we also must unconditionally sympathize with the truly desperate and hopeless conditions faced by Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied territories. Those who think there is a “contradiction” in this position are the ones who are effectively blocking a solution.
We can and should unconditionally defend US slave owners’ property rights. But we also must unconditionally sympathize with the truly desperate and hopeless conditions faced by enslaved people.
We can and should unconditionally support Nazi Germany’s right to rid itself of undesirables. But we also must unconditionally sympathize with the truly desperate and hopeless conditions faced by those placed in concentration camps.
Feel free to add your own
Fucking why must we do this, Zizek?
For one, I reject any definition of “defense” that includes bombing territory you do not control. Attacking in retribution is what it is. Second, accepting Israel’s right to “defend” itself can only occur if you accept the right of “Israel” (meaning a Jewish ethnostate at the eastern end of the Mediterranean) to be something that ought to exist in the first place. To do this is to accept Zionism on its face as some sort of axiom. Why should any self-proclaimed socialist accept any ethnostate? A society that does not accept all cultures as equal is not one that should be propped up or supported.
He also accepts the framing of “anyone opposed to Israel is an anti-semite”, but takes the slightly more nuanced view that “anyone who supports Palestinian statehood is not necessarily an anti-Semite”. How brave.
Anyway this is trash. Almost everyone now recognizes that letting white people draw lines on a map is a recipe for disaster except in the case of Israel for some reason.
There are situations where a counter offensive is the only way to defend oneself, though that is definitely not the case for Israel
Everyone is always discussing Israel’s rights, since when do states even have rights? Such deceptive framing. It’s like saying a corporation has rights. Israelis have rights, Palestinians have rights, people individually or in groups have rights, but Israel the state is no more entitled to “rights” than McDonalds is. They just made that shit up, and now demand we respect it as if it’s a natural law, fuck off with that.
This is problematic when NATO is marching across Europe to establish nuclear capabilities on your border that 2 other European armies have invaded you through before. I do actually think Russia’s invasion was a project of national self-defense.
I mean yeah that could be a compelling argument, but there are other justifications that also make sense for that. Crimea wanted to join Russia. They supported joining Russia before Euromaidan and that only made the support go up. Liberals like to ignore that Crimea wanted to secede from Ukraine way before the Russians entered, it was not a vote held at gunpoint.
Those lines are mostly curvy so it’s okay.