We must use the word “genocide”

Posts on this subject are obviously fraught, so first:

• I keep an index of resources
• the moral question is simple:
  Palestinian liberation is right & necessary
• the history is complicated:
  I have a survey which addresses many common misunderstandings
• the praxis is complicated:
  antisemitic entryism into the movement for liberation is subtle, pervasive, and unacceptable

For a long time, reasonable people of good conscience could refuse to call Israel’s brutality in Gaza “genocide”. That time has now passed.

I have referred to Israel’s attack on Gaza as “genocidal” since a week after 10/7.

At the same time, I have respected those who have rejected the word “genocide”.

First because the term evokes eliminationist violence — wholesale mass expulsion or even mass murder of a people. I think we must register violences short of that as genocide, but other informed people fear that it dilutes the potency of the term “genocide” to apply it to anything less. In 2024 it was wrong to dismiss the brutality of Israel’s attack on Gaza, but that brutality was short of eliminationist.

Second because Palestinian liberation is a noble cause which has long attracted monstrous supporters, for obvious reasons. Since 10/7 we have seen people exercise the term “genocide” in bad faith, to persuade unsophisticated people of good conscience to embrace transparently antisemitic ideas, to implicitly justify the genocide of Israeli Jews. I respect refusing to grant those voices any ammunition.

I disagreed with those who hesitated over the word “genocide” because my unwholesome interests include attention to how genocides happen. I believe that we must recognize genocide as genocide early, because attacks on peoples as peoples modest in comparison to eliminationism — the most damningly faint praise imaginable — tend to escalate to eliminationism. A broad conception of genocide cultivates a frame of mind which moves us to preëmpt escalation from horrors to yet greater horrors. But my disagreement has been respectful disagreement. All people of conscience have had an obligation to oppose the brutality in Gaza, but there has been room to oppose it using different language.

We have seen the Likudniks in control of Israel’s government escalate step by step since 10/7 in word and deed. One may take that as supporting either the case for using the term “genocide” early … or supporting the case for using it sparingly.

In recent months, Israel’s brutality has crossed the threshold into unmistakably eliminationist violence. One can and must oppose this in terms which avoid antisemitic demonization of Jewish Israelis. One cannot avoid the term “genocide” any longer.

This post was inspired by the Corey Robin Facebook post below, which is sympathetic to the bitterness of the word on many people’s tongues. I know that taste all too well. It is past time to accept it.

This post is not for you. I want to repeat: This post is not for you.

Many of my readers here, Jews and non-Jews, are already clear about the wrongness of what Israel is doing in Gaza. Many of my readers here are already clear that the State of Israel — as it was designed and constructed as an ethnocracy, apartheid state, Jewish supremacist state, what have you — is a historic injustice.

This post is not for you.

This post is for other people, Jews and non-Jews, who read my work, people who are less settled in their position on Israel and Palestine, people who identify with the Zionist project, who have supported the military actions of the Israeli government in Gaza (even if they oppose Netanyahu), people who call for a return of the hostages and a ceasefire and say no more, people who fear that anti-Israel protests on college campuses are a sign of rising antisemitism in the US, people who believe, or hope, that Israel as a Jewish state is a cause worth defending.

This post is for you.

It’s for you because, given the way algorithms go and online communities sort themselves out, you may not have seen some developments in the last few days, among people who hold or once held views similar to yours. I’m posting these statements here (with links), just to give you a sense of how quickly opinion is changing, and that it’s not Israel-haters and antisemites or self-hating Jews who are voicing the alarm.

1. July 15: Omer Bartov, born in Israel in 1954, fought in the Yom Kippur War as a company commander, one of the leading international scholars on Nazism and the Holocaust, writes a piece titled, “I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It.” (A side note: According to statements from the governor of New York and chancellor of CUNY, were a faculty member at CUNY to make such a statement, with its invocation and comparison of Bartov’s Holocaust research and his claims about the war on Gaza, they could be disciplined and fired.)
2. July 29: Michael Ben-Yair, former Attorney General of Israel, writes, “Jews, who went through a genocide 80 years ago, are committing genocide in Gaza.” (Side note: were a faculty member at CUNY to make such a statement, with its invocation and comparison to the Holocaust, they could be disciplined and fired.)
3. August 3: Jeremy Ben-Ami, whose father fought in the Irgun, and who is head of J Street, a mainstream pro-Israel organization in the US, writes, “Until now, I have tried to deflect and defend when challenged to call this genocide. I have, however, been persuaded rationally by legal and scholarly arguments that international courts will one day find that Israel has broken the international genocide convention. Based on the law as I read it, the Prime Minister and others in his government will have to answer for what they have done and will be held accountable … The stain of this abomination will forever be on the Jewish people because we have not stopped this. Far too many have been far too silent.”
4. July 26: Avrum Burg, former Speaker of the Israeli Knesset, former interim President of Israel, former chair of the Jewish Agency, former chair of the World Zionist Organization, writes, “Could it be that the current State of Israel, that its body stronger than ever and its spirit deader than ever, no longer deserves to exist? Not because of what happened on October 7, but because of everything that came before, and everything that has erupted since … The destruction of Gaza is a damning indictment of Israel’s moral bankruptcy. And we must face the truth: Israel without an ethical foundation has no justification to exist.” (Side note: According to statements from the governor of New York and chancellor of CUNY, were a faculty member at CUNY to make such a statement, with its questioning of Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, they could be disciplined and fired.)
5. August 2: Lihi Ben Shitrit, Henry and Marilyn Taub Associate Professor of Israel studies at NYU and director of NYU’s Taub Center for Israel Studies: “As an Israeli political scientist researching Israeli and Palestinian politics, I’m regularly invited by different universities to speak about the Middle East. Inevitably, someone in the audience asks what I think about the allegation that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. While I have been unequivocal about my opposition to the current war, I tell them that I’m not a lawyer or an expert on international law. Therefore I have no authority with which to judge on the question of genocide. This is a copout …… I think there are several reasons for many liberal Jews’ tremendous difficulty in seriously confronting the question of whether Israel is committing genocide, including a misunderstanding of what genocide can look like. None of these, however, if we are truly honest with ourselves, justify turning away from it … I am familiar with emotions of outrage and revulsion with the conduct of the Israeli government and the dissemination of Jewish supremacy, but the question of genocide, I now understand, provoked new feelings I had not encountered before — shame and guilt. As psychologists note, shame and guilt are similar and often appear together, but there are crucial differences. Feeling shame is associated with embarrassment over the actions of members of our group that we think negatively reflect on our group’s identity. Guilt occurs when we feel collective responsibility for the negative actions of our group members. Shame leads to avoidance — hiding, denying or looking away from such actions. Guilt, on the other hand, motivates reparative or restorative responses. Liberal Jews like myself need to overcome our shame, which pushes some of us to avoid or even deny the reality of Gaza. Instead, we must grapple with guilt; guilt not in the sense of personal culpability, but rather in our collective responsibility.”
6. August 1: Dov Waxman, Gilbert Foundation Chair of Israel Studies, UCLA: “I initially rejected the genocide charge, but I have changed my mind …… It has been a long and emotionally difficult process over the past 22 months of horrific violence and heartbreaking suffering in Gaza for me to conclude that Israel is guilty of genocide. The possibility that Israel, a Jewish state legitimized by the Nazis’ genocide of Jews, could itself carry out a genocide was one that I, probably like most Jewish people, could barely countenance. I also struggled to accept the possibility that Jews, the victims of genocide, could become the perpetrators of one. Because my conception of genocide was based on the Holocaust, it was also hard for me to recognize that genocide does not have to involve the deliberate attempt to exterminate an entire people, nor does it have to be the ultimate goal. The Holocaust was significantly different from the genocide in Gaza today in many ways. However, this fact should not prevent us from recognizing that what Israel is doing to Palestinians in Gaza amounts to the crime of genocide.”

Again, for many of you, this is old news, too little, too late. This post is not for you. It’s for those readers of mine, many of whom I know personally, who are still wrestling with these questions, and who feel that the only people who would say that this is a genocide or that Israel is in a condition of profound moral wrong, are people who are not like them. I’m trying to show that people who are like them, or once were like them, have also come to this position.

For opponents of the State of Israel, many of whom are my readers, this may seem like a fool’s errand. I do not think it is.

In my lifetime, I’ve undergone some profound changes of belief in position. As many friends of mine from graduate school will tell you, when I arrived at Yale, I was staunchly opposed to the effort to unionize graduate students. Staunchly. Spoke against it repeatedly. I wound up leading the union and leading it on strike.

On the question of Israel, I was raised in a very Zionist household. My family and I went to Israel in 1977 on a trip sponsored by our temple. I continued to support the State of Israel through my years in college. But a combination of factors, between the ages of 20 and 26, changed my mind. It took me a long time to come to that position. It was painful. It often has involved bitter, emotional arguments with people I love very much, including my mother. So while I understand that for many readers here I am in one camp, and perhaps can’t even be trusted on this question, I do have a very clear memory and sense of where a lot of people who disagree with me on this issue are coming from. And I understand, I think, how uneasy and uncertain one can be, not knowing whom to trust, fearing that antisemitism underlies or accompanies every criticism. I get it. I’m hoping some of these other voices here can provide a path, I hope closer to my own position, but even if not, at least to some understanding.

“From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free”?

Posts on this subject are obviously fraught, so first:

• I keep an index of resources
• the moral question is simple:
  Palestinian liberation is right & necessary
• the history is complicated:
  I have a survey which addresses many common misunderstandings
• the praxis is complicated:
  antisemitic entryism into the movement for liberation is subtle, pervasive, and unacceptable

I want to never lend strength to Israel apologists who disingenuously find antisemitism in anything anyone ever says and does in the name of Palestinian liberation. All people of conscience must vigorously oppose the escalating genocide in Gaza, must not settle for merely ending that horror, must support an end to countless forms of oppression for Palestinians in Gaza, in the West Bank, inside Green Line Israel, and in the diaspora. We must ground commitment to Palestinian liberation in the rightness of the cause, not make it contingent on the movement using the right slogans. We have a genocide to stop.

But I confess to weariness with people saying bad things and then brushing off criticisms by saying “who cares while there is a genocide?” I hope we would agree that saying “kill the Jews” would be unacceptable, so it is possible for slogans to matter.

“From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free” is a far cry from “kill the Jews”. Most who use it mean neither more nor less than a call for Palestinian liberation. I do not fault them.

But the slogan itches at me. Rhymes make good chants, but the alchemy of combining “from the River to the Sea” with “Palestine will be free” gives this particular slogan unsavory implications which are not obvious to gentiles. We must closely examine it as rhetoric and see how that lands with Jews not because those are overwhelmingly important in themselves, but to contextualize the movement for Palestinian liberation choosing it as the slogan they promote.

From the River to the Sea

Defenders of the slogan dismiss Jews’ uneasiness with the expression “from the River to the Sea” as disingenuous, for good reasons. We have decades of both Palestinians and Israelis using “from the River to the Sea” as a call for solidarity between Palestinians and Israelis. But that usage emerges in dialogue with other history.

The phrase “from the River to the Sea” can be found in print well before the founding of Israel, used in aspirations to claim the whole territory for an ethnically homogeneous nation. Both Arabs and Zionists did this.

It also brings to mind the expression “push them into the Sea”, used — again both by Arabs and by Zionists, again dating back to even before Israel was founded — to name intent to expel people from the territory. Most Jews recognize it first from Israel hardliners who rationalize the Nakba — the genocidal expulsion of Arab Palestinians at the founding of Israel — with a claim that Palestinians fled their homes at the direction of Arab leaders who told them to flee in order to clear the way for Arab armies to “push the Jews into the Sea”. Reasonable people could once believe that story, since the founding of Israel was chaotic with conflicting accounts on all sides, but decades ago scholarship conclusively established that it is a pernicious lie, inverting how it was Israeli brutality rather than Arab hostility which sent 700,000 Palestinians out of their homes.

So saying “from the River to the Sea” is not a call to commit horrors, but it is not simply disingenuous to register that the more history one knows, the more hearing it summons such calls to mind. That does not disqualify use of the phrase in itself, but those ambiguities combine with ambiguities in the other half of the slogan ….

Palestine

“Palestine” can mean several different things —

1. The loosely-defined region extending far to the east of the Jordan River, including both what we now call Israel and Jordan (archaic, since this usage was typical of the late Ottoman Empire)
2. The current quasi-sovereign Palestinian Authority comprised of Gaza and the West Bank
3. A hypothetical truly sovereign successor to the Palestinian Authority with the same borders, no longer subject to Israeli military interference or settlements
4. The territory of British Mandate Palestine which between WWI-WWII included the whole area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, now broken into Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza
5. A hypothetical egalitarian unified state with equal rights for all, on the same territory as British Mandate Palestine, replacing both Israel and the Palestinian Authority
6. A hypothetical secular Arab ethnic state, on the same territory as British Mandate Palestine, replacing both Israel and the Palestinian Authority, with Israelis oppressed, stateless, or murdered
7. A hypothetical theocratic Muslim state, on the same territory as British Mandate Palestine, replacing both Israel and the Palestinian Authority, with Israelis oppressed, stateless, or murdered

This ambiguity confuses many conversations about Palestinian liberation.

Naming Palestine in the same breath as “from the River to the Sea” excludes ^#1-3 … which rejects the legitimacy of a two-state resolution to the Israel-Palestine conflict.

There are good reasons to oppose a two-state resolution. I favor ^#5, a unified democracy, as ideal. But two states are a legitimate alternative one could regard as preferable on the merits … or just as more achievable.

Not only Zionists say this. The PLO publicly accepted a two-state resolution in principle back in the late 1980s. Hamas have at least nominally accepted it for about a decade; there are good reasons to doubt their sincerity, but they did say it.

It is weird to use a slogan which takes the two-state option off the table.

The slogan has room for “Palestine” to mean ^#5, ^#6, or ^#7. Most people using the slogan unmistakably intend to it to mean ^#5, the democratic, egalitarian version.

But many real advocates for Palestinian liberation demand the genocidal, undemocratic options ^#6 or ^#7. The original PLO charter called for ^#6, a secular Arab state denying citizenship to Israelis. The original Hamas charter called for ^#7, a theocracy. Plenty of people still take those positions today.

It is weird to use a slogan which excludes a two-state resolution while not excluding the displacement or genocide of Israelis.

Palestine will be free

With genocidal visions of Palestine on the table, what does “free” mean? The slogan does not say Palestinians will be free, it says that Palestine will be free. To Arab ethnic nationalists, a “free” Palestine means a state only for Arabs. To Muslim theocrats, a “free” Palestine means a state dedicated to Islam.

Plus Jews cannot help hearing a rhyme with the Nazi dream of a “Judenfrei Reich”, a Nazi slogan for the utopia they wanted to create through genocide. Will Palestine “be free” of Jews?

A cocktail of allusions

Again, we know that most people do not mean the expulsion of Jews when they use the slogan. But it evokes the prospect in several ways in the space of just ten words. Knowing what most people mean does not prevent feeling a sting from that.

I would say that Jews have an obligation to just handle how that spooks us, but yet more context complicates things further.

Antisemitism

Assuming universal or inherent antisemitism among Palestinians & Arabs is a racist fantasy. Contrary to what Israel hardliners claim, the movement for Palestinian liberation is not fundamentally antisemitic. Those hardliners’ use of big platforms to misrepresent any criticism of Israel as “antisemitism” makes it harder for everyone to think. It tempts advocates for Palestinian liberation to dismiss all concerns about antisemitism as nothing other than Israel apologetics.

We must resist a paranoid temptation to find antisemitism in everything. We must resist naïvely dismissing antisemitism as irrelevant. Antisemitism is tricky, subtle and complex and hard even for well-informed people to think about. Most gentiles are not just poorly informed — they rarely know just how complicated the territory gets.

Many people — Palestinians, Arabs, and otherwise — have antisemitism woven deeply into their thinking about Israel-Palestine. As exemplified in the subtle problems with the slogan inspiring this post, most of that antisemitism reflects ignorance or confusion rather than bigotry.

Fascists and other overt bigots often pose as “anti-Zionists” or supporters of Palestinian liberation. Sometimes they just use that pose as camouflage, to make their antisemitic propaganda sound reasonable. Sometimes they try to bend the movement for Palestinian liberation into an instrument of their efforts through entryism.

There are even Jewish cults muddying the waters with disingenuous opposition to Israel motivated by disgust that Israel is not the theocracy they dream of having.

With all that chaff and more in the air, “from the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free” is only one among a host of examples of antisemitic rhetoric Jews encounter while trying to stand for Palestinian liberation.

Social justice praxis

I cut Palestinians a lot of slack for intemperate language & ideas. One must respect Palestinians’ experience of their own oppression.

But accepting confusions and bigotries without comment plants landmines in the road to a more just future.

It is profoundly unfair that the movement for Palestinian liberation bears this extra burden of avoiding & addressing antisemitism. Worse still navigating so many bad actors working in all directions. But rising antisemitism creates an obligation which frankly the movement has not met. Too many refuse to admit any antisemitism at all.

I was prompted to finally assemble this post by people telling me, “Golly gee, there is no good reason to feel spooked by the slogan. Your grumbling is no different from white people rejecting the slogan ‘Black lives matter’. You obviously will never accept any slogan because you just oppose Palestinian liberation.”

Of course there are plenty of people who object in bad faith, but I hope I have made clear how I speak from solid support for Palestinian liberation and have substantive reasons to object to this particular slogan. It is maddening that so many people serious about social justice praxis seem to forget it when gentilesplaining to Jews about antisemitism.

How much does this matter?

In the current moment, few concerns in any domain rank with the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Jews’ feelings about clumsy slogans do not remotely make the cut. Support for Palestinian liberation rests on justice, not on the conduct of the movement. We must avoid tone policing which says, “Golly, I would support the cause if you were nicer about it.”

But we can walk and chew gum at the same time, and this slogan connects to the broad relationship between Jews and the movement for Palestinian liberation.

Jews do not bear a special obligation to speak out about Israel-Palestine but we do have an opportunity in our voices bringing a different weight than gentiles’. But the more vigorously we support the cause, the more we encounter its large & small manifestations of antisemitism. We feel raw. It throws grit in the gears. The slogan is one more damm thing, doing antisemitism even when innocent of bigotry or malice.

The point, at last

It’s not about Jews’ feelings, or the reasons for Jews’ feelings. But one cannot understand what is important without having that background. Here’s the real thing:

The leaders of the movement study the history of the conflict. Many of them do know all of this context. They have heard these objections before, from other supporters of the cause. They know how this particular slogan lands differently with Jews than with gentiles.

Why do they encourage people to use this slogan despite that?

Indeed, they have plenty of other slogans. But we hear this one a lot. So they prefer it. Why? I find it hard to resist the conclusion that they choose this slogan because of the reaction Jews have to it.

At best, that choice is antisemitically callous toward Jews, a signal that those leaders do not want our support.

At worst, it maliciously uses dogwhistles which gentiles do not register to provoke Jews into seeming unreasonable, compounded by them gaslighting us by saying “don’t center your feelings, you have no good reason for them”.

With so much nonsense which the movement cannot control, I cannot imagine a charitable explanation for them embracing this heartache.

I will continue to grit my teeth and accept the slogan among countless other microagressions from the movement. I encourage Jews who feel as I do to do the same. The cause is more important than our feelings.

But solidarity does not require that I pretend not to see a problem.

Wouldn’t it be better if the movement did Jewish allies the kindness of abandoning this slogan for any of the countless better alternatives?

FREE PALESTINE

PALESTINIAN LIBERATION NOW

Israel’s “right to exist”

Posts on this subject are obviously fraught, so first:

• I keep an index of resources
• the moral question is simple:
  Palestinian liberation is right & necessary
• the history is complicated:
  I have a survey which addresses many common misunderstandings
• the praxis is complicated:
  antisemitic entryism into the movement for liberation is subtle, pervasive, and unacceptable

Many commentators allude to the question of “Israel’s right to exist”. Noah Berlatsky calls shenanigans on that turn of phrase in his post The Right To A State And State’s Rights:

Only individuals can have rights. Nationalist projects, however, are addicted to claiming rights for themselves.

Just so. His post lays out the ugly implications in asserting that nations have “rights”, not least in apologetics for the Confederacy and Jim Crow in US history.

That said, most people addressing Israel’s “right to exist” are not really engaging with any such theory. People generally reject “IRTE” in response to Israel hardliners referencing “IRTE” to rationalize wrongs Israel has committed. People generally defend “IRTE” in response to the common and ultimately antisemitic suggestion that Israel is a uniquely (or at least extraordinarily) illegitimate nation-state.

That attack on Israel’s legitimacy is not a fantasy of Israel hardliners. The original PLO charter in 1964 — three years before Israel’s occupation of Gaza & the West Bank — asserts:

Palestine is the homeland of the Arab Palestinian people; it is an indivisible part of the Arab homeland, and the Palestinian people are an integral part of the Arab nation.

Palestine, with the boundaries it had during the British Mandate [which includes all of Israel], is an indivisible territorial unit.

[⋯]

The Jews who had normally resided in Palestine until the beginning of the Zionist invasion will be considered Palestinians.

[⋯]

The liberation of Palestine [⋯] will safeguard the country’s religious sanctuaries and guarantee freedom of worship and of visit to all, without discrimination of race, color, language, or religion.

Most of the 2½ million Jews in Israel in 1964 had no other home — they were refugees from the Shoah, refugees from other states in MENA, Zionists who moved between WWI & WWII, and their descendants born in Israel. That charter sought to deny them citizenship in the Arab state of Palestine which the PLO wanted to displace Israel to create.

The PLO went on to recognize Israel’s legitimacy three decades later, demonstrating that one can both stand for Palestinian liberation and accept that the state of Israel has fundamental legitimacy. But not all advocates for Palestinian liberation have done the same; implicit (or even explicit) rejection of Israel’s legitimacy remains common, carrying with that the suggestion that one wants to see the displacement of Jewish Israelis. Asserting Israel’s “right to exist” is a bad way to respond, but it does address a real point in contention.

I avoid the expression “Israel’s right to exist”. I recommend that others do the same. We must talk about Israel-Palestine as crisply as possible. But I find it a lot more forgivable than many rhetorcial moves people make in this space which have bad unintended implications. And I embrace the extremely modest defense of Israel which it tries to offer:

• I reject claims that a state has a “right” to exist while seeing millions of Israelis who have never known another home as cause for recognition that the state of Israel is legitimate.
• I reject the Westphalian order of nation-states as the right way to structure geopolitics while accepting it as the reality of the world we have now, which compels recognition that the state of Israel is legitimate.
• I consider Israel’s government illegitimate because of their longstanding apartheid policies and current genocidal attack on Gaza, while distinguishing that from my recognition of the state of Israel as legitimate.
• I consider a single democratic state of Palestine vastly preferrable to the liberal Zionist dream of a soft-ethnonationalist Israel — more just, committed to inviting immigration by diaspora Jews, recognizing a truly sovereign neighbor state of Palestine in Gaza & the West bank — and even consider that liberal Zionism unworkable, while still counting liberal Zionism as a respectable position out of recognition that the state of Israel is legitimate.

Responsibility for Gaza

Posts on this subject are obviously fraught, so first:

• I keep an index of resources
• the moral question is simple:
  Palestinian liberation is right & necessary
• the history is complicated:
  I have a survey which addresses many common misunderstandings
• the praxis is complicated:
  antisemitic entryism into the movement for liberation is subtle, pervasive, and unacceptable

A capture (and slight refinement) of a bushy Bluesky discussion starting from Starfish saying:

I think [older Democratic electeds] don’t really get that to people younger than say, shit … 40-50 at this point? Israel as the plucky underdog just kinda doesn’t track on an instinctual level. In some ways, the “Israeli Defense Forces as unstoppable supermen” propaganda worked too well, ironically enough.

70 year-olds: Arab-Israeli wars are when every single neighbor of Israel invades it at once and almost win

50 year-olds: Arab-Israeli wars are when Israeli F-15s shoot down 11,000 Syrian MiGs

30 year-olds: Arab-Israeli wars are when the IDF turns somewhere into the lunar surface

I agree that this generation gap in experience explains a lot about the Discourse.

And Loud Penitent offers a counterpoint which opens up bigger questions. (All the boxed quotes which follow are his.)

I think that applies primarily to Gentiles.

Part of the problem here is that for a lot of Jews 10/7 was a pretty explicit reminder “oh yeah these people would like to butcher and rape you and it will not matter if you want peace.” (“These people” here is referring to Hamas, not Palestinians generally — many of whom behaved far better towards their grieving Jewish neighbors than other Gentiles in the moment who were Alive with the Words.)

And a lot of [those Jews] — us, really, I include myself — were really hoping to use 10/7 as an example of “look, our concerns are not wholly unjustified! People really do want us dead! Hamas are actual monsters!”

And then what felt like the entire rest of the public just shrugged and went “so anyway.”

And a minority, smaller but extremely vocal, basically went, “Actually that’s great, more of that, you’re next Zio. Are you a good Jew or a bad Jew?”

This underlines why a lot of Jews like me who call for Palestinian liberation and vigorously fault Israel say that we must name Hamas’ culpability as well.

This underlines why a lot of Jews like me who recognized Israel’s attack on Gaza as genocidal a few weeks after 10/7 are mortified by the antisemtism implicit in so many people unsatisfied with pointing to the immense real wrongs, adding fantastical misrepresentations — calling it an inevitable consequence of Zionism, claiming it emerges from Israel’s longstanding plan to annex Gaza and expel-or-kill all Gazans, framing common horrors of war as demonstrations of Israel’s unique brutality.

people who don’t recognize “so yeah that’s what happens when a war is fought in a dense urban area & one side utterly refuses to surrender, did we just erase WW2 from memory?”

This underlines why a lot of Jews like me insist that — without diminishing Netanyahu’s & the Likudniks’ moral responsibility — advocacy for Palestinian liberation must also recognize how Hamas chose the rivers of blood shed in the last year and a half, callously disinterested in Palestinians’ lives.

Netanyahu is not motivated by wanting the release of hostages … but Israelis are, and demanding the hostages’ release is not just a rationalization of Israel’s attack. Hamas keeping hostages is both morally and legally unjustified.

The elephant in the room is that the reason the Gaza war has turned so horrific is because Hamas has kept refusing to surrender despite in every other respect than keeping its hostages, being unequivocally and dramatically defeated.

Like, in ways that basically any government that gave a fuck about its people would normally be going “alright time to throw in the towel.”

But Hamas does not, and everyone goes “how brave and plucky of them, glory to the resistance!” and not seeing that Hamas is openly doing the meme of: “Some of you may die but that’s a sacrifice I am willing to make.”

[Israel’s] demands are extremely actionable, I’d argue, it’s just that Hamas doesn’t want to do them, because it would constitute their total surrender.

But Hamas’ response is essentially to proclaim that they are entitled to remain free and in power after embarking on a monstrous pogrom, that at most they should be entitled to a return to the status quo, and that they are willing to tolerate any number of Gazan dead to permit this.

They cannot win a war that (in at least its latest phase) they very deliberately started with feverish hopes of total victory, so instead their strategy has essentially become “lose as dramatically and horrifically as possible until the rest of the embarrassed world steps in to stop it.” And the thing is … this isn’t actually how international laws of armed conflict work! Hamas does not actually have a right to expend its people’s lives in perpetuity to preserve their own! There is no “good game, now back to your starting positions!” or “stop! stop! he’s already dead!” clause!

If Hamas is losing a war they started and refuses to give up their (illegally held) hostages or surrender, the international legal response is, bluntly: “Skill issue.”

One can say that at some point the number of Gazan dead has exhausted the moral license for Israel to reclaim its citizens from their illegal, barbaric captivity by force of arms.

But this is a moral appeal. It is not a legal one. And [then one] must honestly admit one is saying it is OK to keep hostages.

Basically the entire basis for negotiations, however necessary, is built on the poisoned foundation of considering the taking of hostages for ransom an acceptable Hamas strategic doctrine, & folks act like they have a right to it.

Like in a classical sense the answer would be “you want to keep holding the hostages, contest them by violence.”

Hamas cannot contest them by violence, because they’re weak, useless cowards who suck at anything other than butchering unarmed or unwary people, so they have civilians do the dying.

Ongoing negotiation is vital, but I cannot imagine it bearing fruit until neither the Likudniks nor Hamas are the agents at the table, since neither of them care to end the bloodshed.

Free Mahmoud Khalil

Posts on this subject are obviously fraught, so first:

• I keep an index of resources
• the moral question is simple:
  Palestinian liberation is right & necessary
• the history is complicated:
  I have a survey which addresses many common misunderstandings
• the praxis is complicated:
  antisemitic entryism into the movement for liberation is subtle, pervasive, and unacceptable

DHS agents broke into the home of Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil and detained him without charges. Khalil holds a Green Card for permanent residency; the Trump Administration is evidently trying to revoke it and deport him.

I have contributed ^$18 to support him and his legal defense. I encourage all people of consicence to make contributions if you can. I encourage making contributions in multiples of ^$18, exercising Jewish custom as a sign of solidarity, even if one is a gentile.

Team Trump are after Khalil because he is a Palestinian involved in organizing anti-Israel protests at Columbia University. They are violating due process in several ways, including that they stonewalled habeas corpus until that got too much attention. I have seen no credible argument that he violated any law.

I am not an Israel hardliner. When I call moves in support of Palestinian liberation antisemitic I extend a lot of grace to people who have just not thought through the implications of what they say. I remind y’all of that to contextualize that Khalil has said things about Israel-Palestine which I find repulsively antisemitic.

That is not a deterrent to my donation to his defense; it is one of the reasons why I consider it important. The Trump administration’s attempt to deport Khalil is a wedge to create openings for arbitrary deportation. To truly stand for liberal democracy — the universality of rights, for due process, for limits to state power — we must fight for them on the behalf of the people we like the least.

More commentaries

Vox has a characteristically thorough explainer; one can expect them to add to it with new developments.

On Truth Social, the President said:

Following my previously signed Executive Orders, ICE proudly apprehended and detained Mahmoud Khalil, a Radical Foreign Pro-Hamas Student on the campus of Columbia University. This is the first arrest of many to come. We know there are more students at Columbia and other Universities across the Country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity, and the Trump Administration will not tolerate it. Many are not students, they are paid agitators. We will find, apprehend, and deport these terrorist sympathizers from our country — never to return again. If you support terrorism, including the slaughtering of innocent men, women, and children, you presence is contrary to our national and foreign policy interests, and you are not welcome here. We expect every one of America’s colleges and Universities to comply. Thank you!

Journalist Jeff Sharlet reads that post closely:

Trump celebrating an illegal detention by name tells us a great deal.

1. This wasn’t overreach; it’s the plan.
2. Fact that Khalil is legal resident w/ no evident Hamas sympathies isn’t a glitch; it’s the point.
3. Gaza protesters are means to an end; real target is higher ed.

I know there are going to be good people who have a hard time with that 3^rd point. But after a few decades on the rightwing beat, I can tell you Gaza protesters are, to fascists, only the latest excuse. Trump not only doesn’t care about fighting antisemitism, real or imagined; he’s stoking it.

Journalist Josh Marshall underlines:

Those who know me know I was highly critical of what I saw as some of the rhetorical excesses of the campus protests. Khalil and I wld probably get into a spat immediately. It’s all the more important for people who believe as I do to say clearly, the protections of the law are for everyone.

This is not only outside of our traditions and values. It’s flatly illegal. This is the first step to others, not just green card holders but citizens getting rounded up in the middle of the night. Green cards can be revoked. But only for specific reasons. And only after a judicial process.

If the government has a real arguemnt, tell it to a judge. Trump wants everyone to feel afraid, foes and friends. Their liberty is at his whim. That’s a King not a president. We’re Americans. We’re not slaves or supplicants. Elected officials serve us. We don’t answer to them. We talk back to them.

Blogger Emptywheel describes in detail that it’s not the shameless executive power grab in plain sight, it’s the attempt to retcon it afterwards:

⋯ it appears that the Trump Administration made a shameless power grab without doing their investigative work first. So what we see going forward may be nothing more than an attempt to retcon it, to change their story after the fact to adjust for new facts

[⋯]

There’s that old adage, which seems inoperative since Nixon, that it’s not the crime, it’s the cover-up. With Trump and under expansive authorities of Article II, it often looks like it’s not the initial power grab that might create legal problems. It’s the attempt to retcon that power grab after it becomes clear the facts were not what Trump or others believed when the Administration took action.

Over and over, Trump 2.0 has taken aggressive steps based off bullshit, much of it coming from Elon or other far right propagandists. And over and over, Trump’s top people keep creating problems for themselves as they try to adjust the (legal) narrative to match their evolving understanding of the facts.

So as we go forward with discussions about Khalil, don’t necessarily assume that legal justifications that the government could have used were yet the legal justifications they may argue going forward.

John Ganz makes similar points:

The details here are very important: agents of the state without charging a crime or presenting a clear legal basis have detained a legal resident and are threatening him with deportation

[⋯]

The state cannot make it up as it goes along. It can’t seize people in the night and invent flimsy pretexts later. And if it does, then we no longer live under the rule of law, we live in a police state.

NPR reports a chilling interview on 13 March:

Journalist Michel Martin:
Mahmoud Khalil says he acted as a spokesperson for pro-Palestinian demonstrators and as a mediator with Columbia University, where he was a graduate student. As you know, Mr. Edgar, any conduct that can be legally sanctioned must be described. So, what is the specific conduct the government alleges that Mr. Khalil engaged in that merits removal from the United States.

DHS Secretary Troy Edgar:
I think what you saw there is you’ve got somebody that has come into the country on a visa. And as he’s going through the visa process, he is coming in to basically be a student that is not going to be supporting terrorism. So, the issue is he was let into the country on this visa. He has been promoting this antisemitism activity at the university. And at this point, the State Department has revoked his visa for supporting a terrorist type organization. And we’re the enforcing agencies, so we’ve come in to basically arrest him.

Martin:
A White House official told the Free Press that there’s no allegation that he broke any laws. So, again, I have to ask, what specifically constitutes terrorist activity that he was supporting? What exactly do you say he did?

Edgar:
Well, like I said, when you apply for a visa, you go through the process to be able to say that you’re here on a student visa, that doesn’t afford you all the rights of coming in and basically going through this process, agitating and supporting Hamas. So, at this point, yeah, the Secretary of State and the State Department maintains the right to revoke the visa, and that's what they’ve done.

Martin:
How did he support Hamas? Exactly what did he do?

Edgar:
Well, I think you can see it on TV, right? This is somebody that we’ve invited and allowed the student to come into the country, and he’s put himself in the middle of the process of basically pro-Palestinian activity. And at this point, like I said, the Secretary of State can review his visa process at any point and revoke it.

[⋯ more talking in circles ⋯]

Edgar:
I think if he would have declared he's a terrorist, we would have never let him in.

Martin:
And what did he engage in that constitutes terrorist activity?

Edgar:
I mean, Michel, have you watched it on TV? It's pretty clear.

Michel:
No, it isn’t. Well, explain it to those of us who have not or perhaps others have not. What exactly did you do?

Edgar:
Well, I think it’s clear or we wouldn't be talking about it. I mean, the reality is that if you watch and see what he’s done on the university …

Martin:
Do you not know? Are you telling us that you're not aware?

Edgar:
I find it interesting that you’re not aware.

Martin:
I think you could explain it to us. I think others would like to know exactly what the offenses are, what the propaganda was that you allege, what the activity was that you allege. Well, perhaps we can talk again and you can give us more details about this.

The interview ends there, without an answer.

Edgar demonstrates authoritarian sensibilities. They reject rule of law, institutional limits, or any other check on the direct exercise of power; indeed, they find the liberal insistence on clear & explicit rules and adjudication of those rules morally disgusting. They say You Just Know and actively evade naming how, because they value “loyalty” which does not ask.

And “I find it interesting”? That’s a threat.

Ellie Mystal warns that we are asking the wrong questions:

The only relevant question is not “How can the government do this?” It is “How can we who oppose this fascist regime?”

[⋯]

People expect or hope for the law to restrain Trump and his regime’s use of violence. People keep waiting for Trump to clearly and unambiguously “break” the law, as if doing so will trigger some kind of failsafe protocol causing the statue of Abraham Lincoln to self-animate out of its chair like a democracy-defending golem. But (as I have written many, many times) the law simply doesn’t work like that. The law is not an objective set of rules that snap into action when they are violated. Instead, the law is an argument. It can be bent, stretched, or straight-up ignored by the side that wins power.

Every authoritarian ruler throughout history, from Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix to Vladimir Putin, has had an argument for why their actions are “legal.” I can scream till my vocal cords snap that the government’s actions are illegal, but successful dictators make their actions “legal” through iron-fisted control of both the courts and whatever ineffectual legislatures they allow to exist. Trump is no different. He’s got an argument for why he can abduct a man from his apartment in New York and send him to a for-profit concentration camp in Louisiana. He’s got an argument for why he can revoke the green card of an activist for exercising his free speech rights. He’s got an argument for why he can deport people who oppose genocide as long as they’re non-white.

Adam Serwer says Mahmoud Khalil’s detention is a trial run:

Trump’s assault on basic First Amendment principles may begin with Khalil, but it will not end with him. Trump’s ultimate target is anyone he finds useful to target. Trump and his advisers simply hope the public is foolish or shortsighted enough to believe that if they are not criminals, or deviants, or terrorists, or foreigners, or traitors, then they have no reason to worry. Eventually no one will have any rights that the state need respect, because the public will have sacrificed them in the name of punishing people it was told did not deserve them.

The Trump administration began its drive for absolute power by ignoring congressional appropriations of foreign aid, which are laws. It calculated that Americans would be callous enough not to care about the catastrophic loss of human life abroad and that the absence of backlash would enable the administration to set a precedent for defying duly passed laws without consequence. Trump began his assault on antidiscrimination law with a vicious campaign against trans people — but has already broadened that campaign into a sweeping attempt at a great resegregation of American life. The detention of Mahmoud Khalil begins a dangerous new phase, in which the Trump administration will attempt to assert an authority to deprive people of due process based on their political views.

[⋯]

It does not matter if you approve of Khalil’s views. It does not matter if you support the Israelis or the Palestinians. It does not matter if you are a liberal or a conservative. It does not even matter if you voted for Trump or Kamala Harris. If the state can deprive an individual of his freedom just because of his politics, which is what appears to have happened here, then no one is safe. You may believe that Khalil does not deserve free speech or due process. But if he does not have them, then neither do you. Neither do I.

Anti-commentary

Over on Bluesky, Judith Shulevitz wrote a thread which showed up shared on my feed as a bad example, and I want to foster some precision about what is wrong with it.

I strongly defend Mahmoud Khalil’s right to have rights, due process, and all the other protections to which his green card entitles him. The way he is being treated is egregious and wrong. But I think we should be clear about what he has done. His actions do not constitute protected speech because even free speech is constrained by rules — time, place, manner, and other legitimate restrictions. He hasn’t been punished by any disciplinary body, but he’s no martyr.

Take the case we’ve all followed closely: the occupation of the Barnard library.

First, he was part of a group that barged onto the campus without permission — the campus is not open. Then he was part of a group that barged into the library, knocking over or manhandling (not clear which) a security guard to the point at which he had to go to the hospital.

Is protest allowed indoors? No. Here’s FIRE: Because of concerns about disruption, noise, and even fire safety, colleges may generally impose more restrictive rules on what students can do inside buildings.

Then Khalil was part of a group shouting through a bullhorn into a library. It is expressly forbidden to do that, because’s it’s a dramatic disruption of the educational process. Call it the hecklers’ veto of studying. Then he was part of a group that handed out leaflets stamped by Hamas, among other things, and put up a poster of Sinwar.

That’s not something that should be prosecuted by the government — it should have First Amendment protection — but private universities don’t have to abide by the First Amendment; they do have to abide by Title VI. The material they distributed celebrated the massacre of Israelis. That is a violation of rules against threatening or harassing a group on the basis of national origin, and maybe on the basis of religion.

And let’s think for a minute about what they were protesting: the expulsion of students who burst into a class taught by an Israeli and shut it down and refused to leave. Meanwhile, they handed out flyers (well, since the students refused to take them, they flung then on the ground) that featured, among other things, a giant jackboot stomping on the Star of David. None of this is protected speech. It’s also effectively heckling — preventing the teacher from speaking.

So Khalil is no hero. It’s just that there is no basis in law, as far as I can tell, for the way the government is mistreating him.

I saw a lot of people responding to the merits of her critique of Khalil. I think:

• Khalil’s Palestinian liberation advocacy serves a vital cause but is pretty darned bad in the particulars
• Shulevitz’ commentary addresses some real questions about his advocacy in ways I sharply disagree with
• Shulevitz’ take on his advocacy efforts is still legitimate
• It is bad to chew on the particulars of his advocacy like this

Yes, Shulevitz bookends her thread with the actually important thing, the lawlessness authoritarianism of the government’s actions.

But.

While I don’t like to rest too much on faulting the tone of commentaries, it does in fact matter how the kicker saying “it’s just that” trivializes the important thing. It does in fact matter how this comment sweeps past the main thing to spend most of its time examining Khalil’s failings.

We have to make the important thing the important thing.

Against the Big Bad Boycott

Posts on this subject are obviously fraught, so first:

• I keep an index of resources
• the moral question is simple:
  Palestinian liberation is right & necessary
• the history is complicated:
  I have a survey which addresses many common misunderstandings
• the praxis is complicated:
  antisemitic entryism into the movement for liberation is subtle, pervasive, and unacceptable

Big Bad Con is a tabletop roleplaying convention founded with a deep commitment to social justice and a healthy community space. This year, people have organized a Big Bad Boycott demanding a strong “anti-Zionist” statement from the Con organization.

I have been itching to clean up my long Twitter thread about it into a crisp post, but have not been able to carve out the time. Because the issue is pressing, I am settling for this somewhat clumsy capture of the thread (with just a few tweaks for clarity and legibility) for sharing elsewhere.

Initial thread

I oppose Israel’s genocidal attack on Gaza, and Israel’s longstanding apartheid military policing of Gaza & the West Bank. I am not a Zionist.

So I oppose the ill-informed, irresponsible Big Bad Boycott with sadness in my heart. I feel sadness because the Boycott organizers obviously speak from a sincere commitment to justice. All people of conscience must stand in opposition to Israel’s genocidal attack on Gaza in this moment. But the terms of the boycott are irresponsible.

(I offer this commentary having never having attended BigBadCon, though I have given the Con modest financial support from the beginning, and I count many Con organizers & participants as part of my personal gamenerd community.)

Had the organizers of the Boycott called for the Con to make a public statement in opposition to Israel’s ongoing genocidal attack on Gaza, I would have considered it outside the scope of the Con’s responsibility, but noble.

This is not that.

The Boycott’s core statement has a host of problems. They summarize their position as a “stand against the normalization of genocidal views within our spaces”, but that summary is misleading.

The Big Bad Boycott demands

a public values statement indicating that Big Bad Con is an anti-Zionist space

That is a far stronger demand than expressing opposition to genocide, in ways which I assume that the boycott organizers do not understand.

“Zionism” does not mean support for the current genocide, or for the Nakba, or for the disenfranchisement of Palestinians. Zionism means neither more nor less than support for the continued existence of the state of Israel in some form.

Again, I am not a Zionist. I respect, even agree with, many anti-Zionist arguments. But given what “Zionism” actually means, even if one faults it as wrong one must respect it as a legitimate position. Many Jewish Israelis who have worked hard for justice for Palestinians understand themselves as Zionists, by which they mean that they love the only home they have ever known. Demanding an anti-Zionist BigBadCon demands their exclusion.

The Boycott summary faults BigBadCon for having “censored anti-Zionist language from event programming”. This is a misleading description of the events documented in the Boycott’s own letter, in which the Con organizers asked for the omission of an event plan in which ‘all panelists were asked to sign onto a statement [which] included the phrases “anti-Zionist” and “from the river to the sea”’. That is much more than Language In Event Programming.

Many say “anti-Zionism” as a noble call for justice across Gaza, the West Bank, and Israel. But Jews have good reasons to also hear “anti-Zionism” as a call for the expulsion of Jewish Israelis from the only home they have ever known.

Many say “from the river to the sea” as a noble call for justice across Gaza, the West Bank, and Israel. But Jews have good reasons to also hear that as a call for the expulsion of Jewish Israelis from the only home they have ever known.

The Big Bad Boycott summary calls on BigBadCon to “commit to consulting with Palestinians, Arabs, Muslims, and anti-Zionist Jews”. Thinking about Zionism is hard. Excluding non-Zionist and liberal Zionist Jews from discussion is irresponsible. Placing conditions on Jewish participants but not Palestinians is irresponsible; Palestinian anti-Zionists who advocate genocide exist. And one should reflect on how, and why, the Big Bad Boycott assumes that non-Palestinian Arabs & Muslims have a stake in this conversation.

I have yet to read the Big Bad Boycott letter as closely as I would like. For now, I want to examine just one segment which worries me, an early email from one of the Big Bad Boycott organizers to the Con, saying that Big Bad Con …

… asked to remove anti-zionist language from its event description due to the presence of zionist staff and/or donors at Big Bad. I find this news troubling, given that zionists are currently participating in and supporting a genocide in Palestine.

This passage is true in a trivial sense. Yes, there are Zionists participating in & supporting the genocide in Gaza. Just as there are vegetarians with the same culpability. The passage obviously means something else; it clearly implies that Zionists all participate in, or at least support, the genocide in Gaza. That is simply not what “Zionist” means.

That passage, and the whole tenor of the Big Bad Boycott, says that Zionists should be excluded from the Con community. Much stronger than Anti-Zionist Language In Event Programming.

I recognize that the Big Bad Boycott sponsors believe that they are calling for nothing other than the exclusion of advocates for genocide. If they were, I they would have my support. But they are not. In their ignorance, the leaders of the Big Bad Boycott have actually called for the exclusion of Israeli Jews who oppose the horrors committed under the flag of the home they love.

It should be evident why Jews would be touchy about this.

Again, I respect what the leaders of the Big Bad Boycott sincerely believe that they are doing. But they are responsible for what they are actually doing. Their demands are irresponsibly sloppy & ill-informed; they are harmful to the community.

Because I respect the noble motives behind the Big Bad Boycott, I urge BigBadCon to engage in good faith dialogue with its leaders, and to publicly address their demands. But I also urge BigBadCon to firmly refuse the current demands.

Little follow-ups

The Boycott organizers say:

Any claims to being both pro-Palestine / anti-genocide and a Zionist are inherent contradictions.

That is offensively false.

It occurs to me that it would be better to instead demand that BigBadCon commit to confronting the legacy of colonialist ideologies in TTRPGs more generally.

Seeing BigBadCon talking about doing “staff education about Zionism and Palestine”. I offer some resources I keep handy:

• Settler colonialism & history
• What “Zionism” means
• What “anti-Zionism” implies

It really itches me that the Big Bad Boycott faults the BigBadCon organization for “censoring” an event description. A con organization does not just have a right to edit the con program, they have a responsibility to.

A decade back, I played a part in protest against a different con because they allowed an event description which insulted trans people. Con organizers have an obligation to ensure that the program welcomes & supports all members of the community.

Reasonable people may differ about whether BigBadCon made the right editorial decision in response to the event description submitted to them. But the Boycott is wrong to suggest that it was wrong for them to exercise editorial control at all.

I saw that a Quillette pseudo-journalist is criticizing the Big Bad Boycott, and I vigorously reject any support from them. I keep an index of resources about how Quillette respectability-wash the far right.

I have not seen anyone calling the Big Bad Boycott “financial violence”, but for what it’s worth, I concur with critiques of that position. I think the Boycott is wrong. But it is a legitimate instrument for pursuing a legitimate aim.

A long exchange with a Boycott supporter

This exchange starts with me saying how I want to speak to a couple of things about this post in support of the Big Bad Boycott which represents things which I find frustrating about the Boycott in general:

After the most recent update from BigBadCon, I and [others] will be joining #bigbadboycott. I love Big Bad Con, and believe that while likely most of the staff have their hearts in the right place, their failure to roll back their censorship is unacceptable —

This was the most simple and central demand of the boycott. I was so certain it would be addressed I hadn’t even considered it a possibility that they wouldn’t, so I didn’t originally sign on. I was clearly wrong.

Additionally, their insistence that “from the river to the sea” has multiple meanings is, whether intentional or not, a dangerous concession to genocidal propaganda.

I sincerely hope they will change their course in the next seven days before the boycott becomes official.

From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free 🇵🇸

I respect the Boycott pushing back against the Con’s editorial choices about event descriptions. A con program is an instrument by which the con defines its community; the community absolutely has a stake in it.

I am frustrated by the Boycott characterizing the Con’s editorial control of the program as “censorship”. Con organizers do not just have a right to exercise editorial control over event descriptions, they have a responsibility to, as custodians of the con community. I take the point about con organizers’ editorial control over the program very seriously because I am a veteran of a different con suffering a crisis over the org’s failure to protect vulnerable members of its community in its program.

Second, I am mortified to see the con saying “‘from the river to the sea’ has multiple meanings” characterized as “a dangerous concession to genocidal propaganda”. The multiple implications of the phrase is a fact.

I am confident that this individual and all organizers & participants in the Boycott mean nothing other than liberation & justice for all people in the Levant when they say “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”. But no, that is not the only implication. The phrase “from the river to the sea” has long been used by people advocating the expulsion of Jewish Israelis. It has long been used by Israel hardliners who advocate the expulsion of all Arab Palestinians. It. Has. Multiple. Meanings.

The phrase “from the river to the sea” evokes “push them into the sea”, which has been used to advocate the expulsion both of Jewish Israelis and of Arab Palestinians. Anyone well-informed about the history of Israel-Palestine recognizes this. It is simply a fact that the phrase “from the river to the sea” comes burdened with multiple meanings. It is, frankly, chilling to see people call recognition of this bare fact “a dangerous concession to genocidal propaganda”.

Boycott organizers have echoed that refusal to accept facts:

claiming that “anti-Zionist” and “from the river to the sea” have a “plurality of meanings” is a Zionist capitulation, whether it is intended as such or not

Fergawdsake, actual f•cking Nazis commonly call themselves “anti-Zionist” as a coy way of claiming not to offer antisemitism. Damm straight it has a plurality of meanings. Claiming otherwise is unsafe for Jews.

Understand, I would vigorously support a boycott of a con which forbade the use of the expressions “anti-Zionist” or “from the river to the sea” in con events. The Big Bad Boycott is doing something very different.

I admire the organizers & supporters of the Big Bad Boycott working to have the Con community clearly stand against the ongoing genocide in Gaza, as it should. I urge them to reconsider the terms on which they do this.

The author of the thread I was criticizing showed up in my mentions with a very generous-spirited reply:

Hey, first of all I appreciate the fact that you censored my name and pfp [blurring out those identifying details from a screenshot of the thread, to deter harassment] and it seems you are interested in good faith discussion. I can’t fit everything I want to say in one tweet so bare with me for a few minutes—

First of all, my position on the boycott will not be changing. It is tragic, especially when it seems to me that many of the Big Bad staff are in agreement with Palestinian liberation. It sucks that a battle is happening here rather than against worse organizations like the DNC. But I also think it is perfectly reasonable that a group is threatening to boycott an event after the language they want to use in their event has been restricted. Whether or not “Censorship” is the correct term seems immaterial here.

Secondly and more importantly, as far as I am aware, every “official” use of the river-sea slogan is explicitly NOT anti-Jewish / a call for removal. The 1968 PLO charter and its later revisions explicitly say that Jews will not be evicted, only people who oppose liberation. The 2017 Hamas charter also explicitly states that it “rejects the persecution of any human being or the undermining of his or her rights on nationalist, religious or sectarian grounds”. If there are more similar official uses of the phrase, please let me know about them.

Of course there will be racists and antisemites who try to co-opt the movement and its terminology. In my expirience both in my local community and online, the liberation movement has been very proactive about calling them out and ousting them from pro-Palestine spaces. But I think giving their interpretations of the phrase credence is akin to saying that because equal rights for lgbtq people has been used to justify imperialist projects (including in Palestine), we shouldn’t use pro-lgbtq language.

I’ve spent a lot of time studying this but I am not an expert so please do let me know if there are things I am missing here. I do believe we are ideologically aligned for the most part and do want to hear what you have to say. I can promise to at least look into it

I replied:

Delighted to have you come to me this way, I really appreciate it. Let me reïterate: I respect you and the Boycott movement on two fundamentals. Doing the Boycott is legitimate, and all people of conscience must stand against the genocidal attack on Gaza and for Palestinian liberation. I say that partly because I have been trying to think of a way to respond which does not land at sounding pretty harsh, and feel that I have failed. So I want to be very clear where I am coming from.

I share your sense of tragedy over this conflict. There is stuff to say about [that], but I don’t want to start [there].

Editorial decisions about the Con program affect the Con community, so the community has a stake in those decisions. I both think the Boycott is a bad idea and consider it wholly legitimate. This distinction between “good” and “legitimate” is important in addressing the way the Boycott talks about the Con org “censoring” the event description.

The semantic weight of “censoring” is far from the most important thing, but it is substantive. It is fair for the Boycott to fault the editorial choices the Con org made over the event description in the program. It is very bad for the Boycott to imply that the Con org is wrong to make any editorial choices about event descriptions.

It is very easy to imagine event descriptions which you and I would vigorously agree that the Con org should forbid. The term “censorship” is pejorative and suggests that doing so would be illegitimate.

Further — and again, this is not of central importance, but it is worth naming — faulting the Con for “censoring anti-Zionist language” is weirdly incomplete. The issue is not that the language was anti-Zionist, it was the particular form it took. We can imagine a proposed event description including “kill all Zios” which we would all agree the Con would be right to forbid. So the question is whether the Con was right to forbid this particular anti-Zionist language.

It is reasonable to fault the Con org for having made the wrong decision about that event description. I’m going to mount a defense of their decision, but honestly I don’t feel all that strongly about it. I do feel strongly about the Boycott demands extending far beyond calling for a reversal of that decision about that event description.

So let’s talk about “from the river to the sea”.

Your invocation of “official” use of the slogan is strange. Why should that matter?

In objecting to the use of “from the river to the sea” (FTRTTS) and “anti-Zionist”, the Con org were addressing how those would be read, not what the event organizers meant. [The BigBadCon organization’s] evaluation may not be right, but [the Con organizers grounding their decision in] this standard is correct. I am confident that you are sophisticated enough in social justice advocacy principles to recognize that the Con should be considering impact, not intent.

As I said upthread, I both read most use of FTRTTS (including this one) as a call for liberation which I support and still feel dread when I hear it. I grit my teeth through that because supporting Palestinian liberation is more important than my feelings. But no, it is not unreasonable for Jews — especially Israeli Jews — to feel more threatened by [FTRTTS] than I do. (In a bit, I’ll address some of the historical particulars that you bring up.)

And “anti-Zionism” is even more charged than FTRTTS. I know that you and most “anti-Zionists” mean that you oppose disenfranchisement and worse of Palestinians. But that arrogates the meaning of “Zionism” away from actual Zionists [who] understand Zionism to mean nothing more or less than supporting the continued existence of Israel in some form. Zionism includes opposition to the oppression of Arab Palestinians, from its beginnings through the present. Israeli Jews who have actively worked against the oppression of Palestinians understand themselves as “Zionists” simply because they love the only home they have ever known. The event description excluded them.

Saying, “golly, the ‘anti-Zionist space’ the event description named and the Boycott now demands across the Con is not an attack on Israeli Jews who oppose the genocide in Gaza” is disingenuous. Why should they read it that way?

I have had exchanges with left “anti-Zionists” who say that celebrating Israel’s independence day is cause enough to drive someone out of their community. Why would someone reading the Con program assume that an “anti-Zionist space” means otherwise?

Understand, I am not necessarily defending celebrating Israel’s independence day. Heck, I am critical of celebrating the US’s Independence Day! But I think it is obvious why it would be unreasonable to demand that — since US history is riddled with slavery, genocide, and other brutality — the Con should exclude anyone who celebrates the US Independence Day.

Again, I don’t take you or the Boycott or most advocates for Palestinian liberation as meaning that Israeli Jews who love their home should be excluded from the community. But all y’all are responsible to know that you are saying something which will be heard that way.

OK, so finally I can come to your historical observations arguing that no one should read FTRTTS or “anti-Zionist space” these ways. Frankly, I find this naïve in accepting disingenuous arguments from the Palestinian liberation movement. There is a whole body of rhetoric by the movement for Palestinian liberation which says that Arab Palestinians have only ever wanted to live together in the Levant in peace and harmony, while “Zionists” all sought a violent purge of Arab Palestinians.

Horseshit.

Again, I know that you and the Boycott organizers & supporters and most people standing up for Palestinian liberation in the face of genocide in Gaza want a just, inclusive Palestine in which no one is disenfranchised. But you raised the history.

I know the PLO Charter quite well. It states clearly that they seek an Arab state in the whole of Palestine. It only counts “Jews who had normally resided in Palestine until the beginning of the Zionist invasion” as Palestinians.

The PLO Charter says “Jews [⋯] are citizens of the states to which they belong”, not of their imagined Palestine. Most Israeli Jews are not just the descendants of refugees from genocide, they are descended from refugees from Arab states. It must be said that I am not offering Because The Shoah as justifying every wrong committed by pre-Israel Zionists or Israel. My point here is about the PLO’s vision, obviously significant in understanding Palestinian liberation movements.

In the vision of the PLO Charter, only a handful of Israeli Jews could be citizens of Palestine. Article 16 welcomes Israeli Jews as guests in Palestine, not citizens. So sure, the PLO Charter does not call for the murder or expulsion of Israeli Jews, it just announces plans to make them into stateless people, disenfranchised in the only home many of them had ever known.

And human rights language in the Hamas Charter is simply risible. Hamas are authoritarian theocrats. They don’t even respect the human rights of Arab Palestinians.

If you are pointing to the PLO & Hamas charters as reasons why Jews should not find FTRTTS and “anti-Zionist space” threatening, you are just not equipped to understand why the Con org responded as it did or why I am skeptical of the Boycott … you are just not equipped to gauge how diligent the movement for Palestinian liberation has been in avoiding bad allies … and you are just not equipped to understand how American Jews who support Palestinian liberation are touchy about antisemitism in this moment.

In demanding that BigBadCon declare the entire Con an “anti-Zionist space”, the Big Bad Boycott requires Jews to read that phrase more generously than [BigBadCon] can reasonably expect, and is calling for a lot more than [BigBadCon declaring] opposition to the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

That brings me back, finally, to the tragedy of the conflict over the Big Bad Boycott. Advocates for the Boycott are willing to crash an institution deeply dedicated to social justice over a stronger demand than y’all understand.

It is right and necessary that the Con community hold the Con org accountable for a truly inclusive space which supports marginalized people. It is unmistakable that the org are responding to the Boycott with the care & seriousness it merits.

I respect Boycott supporters like you who want to stand against the oppression of Arab Palestinians as we all should. I do not respect the Boycott organizers, who are responsible for escalating to bad demands.

This is doubly maddening because I think the Boycott is missing an opportunity to call for a broader reckoning with colonialism which would be relevant to both the TTRPG community and the horrors in Gaza.

I have gotten way too long-winded for Twitter here! And I have said things more harshly than I would like. This thread is clumsy in the name of not leaving you hanging too long. Please understand that I respect you acting out of good conscience, toward a good cause.

Threads from Thirsty Sword Dreadlord Latinx

On antisemitism

Big Bad Con Boycott has an issue with semantics, in that they hide behind it and then accuse their critics of doing the same. Of course, this is about Anti-Zionism. They want this term to be as broadly applied as possible without having to take responsibility.

Currently, Anti-Zionism has two definitions being used in discourse and that is:

1. opposition to colonial violence of a Jewish religious enthnocracy.
2. opposition to the existence of Israel and refusal to acknowledge imperial antisemitism and Jewish diaspora

The boycott’s Anti-Zionism is vehemently hostile and extends to demanding the names and ostracization of volunteers and donors who they accuse of harboring these sentiments, however they also get defensive and hostile when asked to explain what exactly they mean.

The most obvious reason BBC boycott doesn’t want to engage in defining Anti-Zionism is that leaves them open to accusations and straw-man fallacies and that definitely is a huge risk. I can’t play that down enough: there are people against the boycott are doing this.

However, bad faith accusations are never an excuse to engage in bad faith accusations which is what the boycott has done since mid August, almost a month before they threatened the convention to go public with accusations of being Zionist sympathizers. August 13^th, was the first time the boycott called Big Bad Con “Zionist sympathizers” here on twitter, less than one week after they declared their Anti-Zionism boycott of Gencon a failure.

I can’t remark on the Gencon boycott beyond that some of the same people who participated are now involved with the most recent Big Bad Con boycott, however, they have been has escalating the use of Anti-Zionism rhetoric from this point. Big Bad Boycott has so far accused volunteers and attendees of Zionism for the following:

• Censorship of the panel description
• Expressed concerns for the security risk the uncensored panel descriptions would bring to the con by Zionist supporters
• Expressed concerns about the convention’s charity status being jeopardized by making a public statement of being Anti-Zionist
• Expressed concerns that the boycott broad application of Anti-Zionism would be received by the Bay Area’s Jewish community.
• Expressed concerns about the boycott’s accusation that volunteers are protecting Zionist sympathizers who are a danger to people of color.
• And [expressed concerns] that the boycott is specifically targeting critics of the boycott as Zionist sympathizers.

Yet no clear definition of Anti-zionism

That is until last week when a member of the boycott stated on Discord …

• Israel itself is a colony on stolen indigenous land and Jews, as colonizers, have no right to that land.

and more importantly

• Palestinian pain takes precedence over antisemitism.

Malignant ignorance of this stance gives me chills especially when applied to Anti-Zionism. It has no regards to the marginalization of Jews, historical or in the present day.

The Big Bad Boycott’s definition of Anti-Zionism is to exclude and marginalize any Jew or gentile who has a connection to the people and the land of Israel regardless how we use that connection to oppose the crimes against humanity Israel commits. For advocating for that connection, and the refusal to set it aside, Jews and gentiles like me are accused of playing “semantics and tone-policing”, when, in actuality, we demand a free Palestine and condemnation of the state of Israel without denying Jewish pain.

I have seen screenshots of a key bit of this discussion on Discord. Thirsty Sword Dreadlord Latinx is distilling the sense of the exchange rather than simply quoting it. But I can attest that his summary is an astringent but fair representation.

On a troublingly naïve aspect of the Boycott

On the boycott’s and my views on censorship of the panel at Big Bad Con. Censorship is a loaded word and it is abused heavily in right-wing circles. It’s why I get really angry when I see it used, but in this case the term does fit the definition of what has happened, but censorship happens for multiple reasons, and in this case the staff stated it was for security purposes, which the boycott refuses to acknowledge beyond a heavy dose of skepticism. The relationship continues to break down because the boycott doesn’t recognize the threat.

As stated by the staff, through leaked communications between Big Bad Con and the boycott, the con was concerned about vulnerabilities to website and to convention itself. Despite the boycott’s incredulity and ignorance, this threat is real and is growing day by day. A journalist of a right-wing online magazine has already taken notice of the boycott as well has written about two of those involved in a prior incident [I won’t state who nor which magazine]. The boycott is joking about this, but this is exactly the concern the staff have.

My particular concern is about the website and its security. Those who are familiar with our community for the past few years know how much the volunteers struggle to keep the site functioning especially when it comes to assigning spots for attendee at events … least to say, the website is very important to the convention and there are groups hostile to social justice and marginalized people and there are those who can could take advantage of that fact from anywhere in the world.

Those familiar with alt-right online threats know what can happen, but examples are doxxing of volunteers, swatting and harassment of attendees and volunteers, especially if they have highly visible social media presence, and DNS attacks. This is what the staff were referring to.

Hence, this is why the staff of Big Bad Con thought the removal of those key terms from the panel was necessary and I agree with them, and why the boycott's ideological opposition and condemnation is so frustrating. This boycott is righteous, but they are often wrong.

Note that the change in language of the panel ALSO included requiring the panelist to give signed commitment to Anti-Zionism which has complicated relationship with Jewish identity and antisemitism, which I have little understanding of and so I shouldn’t comment beyond this note.

Apropos of which, in the email exchange shared in the long Boycott letter, they asked BigBadCon to name any Zionists in the org. It should be obvious why that is a scary request, as discussed here:

A thread from (Mike) Draco on the Boycott’s theory of change

I told boycotters that painting BigBadCon and staff as being pro-genocide is fucked up and really not “reaching out out of love” and got hit with “so your issue is with the tone of our language”.

No, I think suggesting “YOU ARE EVIL GENOCIDE APOLOGISTS UNLESS YOU DO WHAT WE WANT” is a thing you say to someone you love is deeply, horrifically warped.

I tried to be clear that no, I’m not against boycotts. If this was GenCon (which y’all mysteriously did not boycott despite their lack of masking and SJ [social justice] oriented statements), a huge convention that has actively chosen to, for example, not enforce masking and doesn’t have a history of going above and beyond for folks then fine. Or if you're boycotting a business that is explicitly making anti-LGBTQ or pro-Trump statements or whatever have at it!

I’m asking for people to consider that they are throwing rocks AT THEIR FRIENDS, INSIDE THE GLASS HOUSE YOU SHARE WITH THEM.

But I got “so boycotts are fine when you agree with them” in response.

And I sighed so damn hard.

To not be a hypocrite because I often criticize people who have complaints but no solutions:

I’m very curious why — when deciding to go more public with this issue — your group decided to immediately jump to a boycott instead of trying to first rally more public support. The boycott was the first I’d heard of the issue and hearing that y’all tried to go McCarthyist on con staff didn’t strike a good first impression. Did you ever apologize for that ridiculous demand or even admit it was wrong to make?

I know many people are likely not reading your whole (40 page long now) letter, including the 6 pages of e-mails. I’ve read most of it. I didn’t see any admissions of error, only continued brow-beating of staff, which matches my discord experience, and staff was much more polite. This is what I am referring to:

I’m emailing as a TTRPG professional who intends to attend Big Bad Con this year and a Scholarship Recipient. I have received troubling news from Esther, another Scholarship Recipient (CCed here), that one of the panels they are on was asked to remove anti-zionist language from its event description due to the presence of zionist staff and/or donors at Big Bad. I find this news troubling, given that zionists are currently participating in and supporting a genocide in Palestine. It would be beyond disappointing to learn that Big Bad is refusing to stand against genocide and is, in fact, supporting this genocide by siding with zionists. I hope that Big Bad does not make the same mistake that Gen Con made.

Can you please confirm the following?

• Who amongst Big Bad Con’s staff and/or donors identifies as a zionist?
• Does Big Bad Con openly and publicly hold anti-zionist values and support a free Palestine?

Please feel free to include in our email chain whomever among Bid Bad staff is relevant to address this concern. I hope to hear from you soon.

I really, truly, struggle to see how you leap from this response from BigBadCon staff …

Hello Hamnah and Esther,

We appreciate your concerns about Big Bad Con’s stance concerning the phrasing around [the panel organizer]’s panel. We want to make it clear that we do not track the political affiliations of any of our attendees, donors or staff and there have not been any demands made on us by any outside groups, individuals, donors, staff or otherwise. As an institution, no matter what our personal beliefs are, we do not want to draw Zionist attention to our public site, and Big Bad Con in general, through easily searchable phrases. We will not risk the safety of our marginalized attendees, staff, or volunteers.

As you know from attending Big Bad Con in years past, we go to great lengths to protect all of our attendees. Through our scholarship program we help women and people from marginalized genders, people of color, disabled, and lgbtqia+ individuals attend the con. Through Big Bad World we encourage and incentivize our attendees to live our community standards of respect, support, and kindness. Our anti-harassment, public health safety, and accessibility policies are all designed to ensure the wellbeing, safety, and inclusion of everyone who attends.

We are committed to taking action in lieu of statements when we can, in allyship with marginalized people. Every year, we have a fundraising run called the Wolf Run, which raises money for a charitable cause of our choosing. This year, we are donating the proceeds of the Wolf Run to Doctors Without Borders, a non-partisan group providing medical aid in Gaza.

To summarize: In the interests of protecting our staff and attendees, we asked that the more inflammatory language in the panel description be removed while keeping the majority of the values statement intact. We have made no other requests to [the panel organizer] or the other panelists, and have published the panel listing on our website with the amended values statement provided to us by [the panel organizer] in preparation to host the panel at our event this year.

Sincerely,
Nathan Black and the Big Bad Con Community Coordinators

… to accusing [the BigBadCon staff] of being pro-Zionism and complicit in genocide.

Endgame

BigBadCon: Our Stance in Support of Palestinians

Posted to the BigBadCon blog on 27 September:

Big Bad Con denounces genocide, apartheid, and human rights violations. We believe in every person's right to self-determination, autonomy, and liberty.

We believe in the decolonization of Palestine, which we define as full equal rights for all people who dwell on the land. We do not condone calls for violence or expulsion of anyone in the region.

We call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and an embargo on US military support for Israel. We call for an end of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, and the invasion of Lebanon.

What does this mean for Big Bad Con?

Big Bad Con is a gaming convention dedicated to our community standards of Respect, Support, and Kindness. While we cannot significantly affect the events on the world stage, we can however ensure that our own community is a safer and welcoming space.

When we use the terms “Zionism” and “anti-Zionism”, we base them on the definition provided by the Jewish Voice for Peace: “While it had many strains historically, the Zionism that took hold and stands today is a settler-colonial movement, establishing an apartheid state [in Israel] where Jews have more rights than others.” Using this definition, we align ourselves in opposition to the oppressive actions of this form of Zionism, and stand in allyship with those oppressed by it. This is what we mean when we say that we are an anti-Zionist space.

The claim that anti-Zionism is antisemitism is a means to deflect criticism of Israel’s governmental actions. We reject the claim that anti-Zionism is antisemitic, and reject the use of this claim as a silencing tactic against Palestinians and those who stand in solidarity with them.

We cherish the Jewish members of our community. We will not tolerate anti-Zionism being used as an excuse for harassment.

Our anti-harassment policy forbids hate speech and we expect everyone, especially when discussing difficult topics, to embody our community standards and treat each other with Respect, Support, and Kindness. Inclusion in our spaces is based on behavior, not by beliefs or identities.

The use of phrases and slogans to stand for complex sets of values is an important part of establishing a welcoming and supportive environment for those working to liberate themselves and others from oppression.

We acknowledge that phrases and slogans are used to stand for complex sets of values. Phrases such as “Black Lives Matter”, “never again”, “anti-racist”, “anti-Zionist”, and “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” are calls for the end of oppression and the liberation of oppressed peoples.

Context matters, and we presume the good faith of activists using these phrases. However, the use of these or any other phrase as a call for violence will not be tolerated in the Convention space.

We recognize that Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims are often subject to Islamophobic discrimination, dehumanization, and violence. We recognize that Jews are often subject to antisemitic discrimination, dehumanization, and violence. We abhor Islamophobia and antisemitism, and will not tolerate them in our spaces.

Big Bad Con was called on by our community to demonstrate our position as a convention dedicated to supporting marginalized communities. We know that our allyship on these issues has been insufficient and we acknowledge the impact this has had on our community as we worked on this document.

What are we doing to help?

In addition to our above public statement, we are also responding with direct action. We call on our community in turn to join us in providing immediate support to the following relief efforts.

We have donated a total of ^$5,000 to the following relief funds. From now until October 27, 2024, we will match donations (up to another $5,000 total) to these causes:

• Crips for eSims for Gaza, a digital lifeline for people in Gaza cut off from the internet.
• Palestine Children’s Relief Fund, addressing urgent humanitarian needs and supporting long-term recovery efforts in Gaza.

To have your funds matched use this fundraiser link to donate to PCRF or email donate@bigbadcon.com with a receipt for your donation to Crips for eSims.

Big Bad Boycott response

The summary:

We have accepted Big Bad Con’s response to our demands. They have put out a pro-Palestine values statement, retracted anti-Zionist and pro-Palestine censorship, and committed to consulting with relevant groups in the TTRPG space over the next year. Though the statement is not as strong as we would have liked, we accept it in good faith as a demonstration of effort on the part of Big Bad's staff. We have given Big Bad our feedback on the statement and hope they will amend it to be more firmly anti-Zionist and pro-Palestine.

Since the boycott demands have been met, the #BigBadBoycott will not move forward on Oct. 1^st. As per the terms of the boycott, we will not be hosting an alternative convention.

At the same time, we understand that Big Bad's leadership has acted and failed to act in ways that have been harmful to the community, especially to people of colour (PoC). Many have expressed a loss of trust in Big Bad Con as a space as it currently stands. We have expressed as much to the staff and have suggested courses of action they can take to do the long, hard work of appropriately stewarding a space for PoC. It is our hope that, over the next year, we will see Big Bad’s leadership do that work.

Their long demand letter which has a lot of detail about their communications with Con organizers has more, including this comment on the Con’s response:

We have a few thoughts on ways in which the statement could be further strengthened:

“We believe in every person’s right to self-determination, autonomy, and liberty.”

While we agree with the sentiment behind this sentence, “self-determination” is a term that Zionists often use to justify and excuse the colonization of Palestine. In this instance, we would suggest revising the sentence to “We believe in every person’s right to dignity, autonomy, and liberty.”

“We believe in the decolonization of Palestine, which we define as full equal rights for all people who dwell on the land.”

This sentence could call for decolonization in stronger terms – as it is, it reads like a two-state solution redefinition of decolonization. Decolonization means land back. Hamnah and I advise at minimum removing the second clause, and ideally, changing the clause to “which we define as sovereignty over the lands returned to Palestinians.”

“We do not condone calls for violence or expulsion of anyone in the region.”

This sentence comes across as condemning resistance to oppression that must sometimes necessarily manifest in violence. There are a plurality of approaches to liberation among Palestinian communities, and it’s not for us as non-Palestinians to define the terms and methods of their liberation for them. In other words, it’s not our place to tell Palestinians what steps to take to decolonize their lands. Historically, across the world, social progress has been made in part due to violent arms of various resistance movements. We would, at the very least, remove this sentence. Ideally, we would change the sentence to “We believe all resistance to oppression is valid and justified.”

“We call for an end of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza”

This sentence invalidates Israel’s occupation of Palestine as a whole. The lands we now call “Israel” are part of occupied Palestine. Thus, when we call for the decolonization of Palestine, we mean all of those lands. Hamnah and I would change this sentence to “We call for an end of Israel’s occupation of Palestine”. This is especially pertinent because the statement cites Jewish Voice for Peace in its opposition to Zionism. It is important to note that JVP actively does not support a two-state solution and does not support Israel as a state. It is inconsistent to cite JVP while using language that suggests anything less than full Palestinian sovereignty over their own lands.

“Context matters, and we presume the good faith of activists using these phrases. However, the use of these or any other phrase as a call for violence will not be tolerated in the convention space.”

We urge the con to continue to develop more precise understandings of how you will determine when these phrases are deployed as “calls for violence.” At the very least, there should be some assurance for folks who do choose to use these and other liberation-minded phrases that, for instance, they will not be expelled from the con due to another attendee taking offense to the phrases and reporting them as a “call for violence.”

Commentary

The BigBadCon response to the #BigBadBoycott declares the con an “anti-Zionist space”, taking care to explicitly define what that does and does not mean, so that antisemitic dogwhisles don’t sneak through that rhetorical door. Using the Jewish Voice For Peace description of Zionism not only rules out ‘zionism’ which exists only in the antisemitic imagination … it also explicitly sets aside numerous real forms of Zionism, including Israelis who oppose their government’s wrongs while still loving their home.

I have serious hesitations about JVP. For example, And their 21 Grief Technologies document says:

Hearing Hebrew language can be deeply traumatizing for Palestinians. Therefore, prayers are best said in English or Arabic, rather than Hebrew. It is not our place to redeem our tradition on the backs of Palestinians. Enough has been taken.

And one of their local chapters said:

“death to israel” is not just a threat. it is a moral imperative and the only acceptable solution. may the entire colony burn to the ground for good.

But drawing on JVP to specify clearly what “Zionism” BigBadCon opposes in making a statement against Zionism has advantages. It benefits from the credibility to strong opponents of Israel of being such strong opponents of Israel. And that description avoids the unwholesome implications of “anti-Zionism” I warned against above, so I support that usage by the Con.

I have a hard time not seeing a bad faith motte-and-bailey move in the Boycot organizers grumbling about an expectation of a more expansive conception of “anti-Zionism” et cetera after their loosely-framed demands were met.