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Talk:Zionism
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This article is a joke[edit]
Exclusively cherrypicked quotations and sources like Mondoweiss to paint a distorted picture of what the Zionists believed, what their relationship was with Britain, how they interpreted their actions and why they believed those actions were necessary. Any nuance that might complicate the left-wing anti-Zionist perspective - the anti-Jewish massacres in Mandatory Palestine, the White Paper, the involvement of the Soviet Union in Israel’s creation, the antisemitism and ethnic cleansing faced by Jews in the Muslim world, the reason Palestine was chosen for the Jewish homeland to begin with - is not permitted to exist here. Putinist conspiracy crank and atrocity denier Max Blumenthal (alongside the conspiracy theory and denier-adjacent Mondoweiss) is cited as an authoritative anti-Zionist Jew, while the fact that there are today proportionally fewer anti-Zionist Jews than African-American Republicans is not mentioned at all. And anyone removing the most risible crap from the article gets edit-warred back. Now more than ever it would be valuable to have an actually balanced perspective that pushes back against propagandistic distortions, misinformation and conspiracy theories that have brought together the extreme left and extreme right around figures like Blumenthal and Jackson Hinkle’s “anti-Zionist” antisemitism. Really pathetic imo. 96.248.86.161 (talk) 17:51, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
- [Citation needed] A somebody. (talk) 21:07, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
- Due to The Grayzone being bullshit, the Blumenthal references in this article (there are only a couple) probably should be scrutinized.
- OTOH Mondoweiss is a progressive Jewish blog that runs counter to the standard AIPAC narrative in the United States. And thus has been called some... interesting names... by other Jews as a result, including the always funny No True Scotsman insult of "antisemite" that hardliner Zionists amusingly sometimes use against progressive anti-Zionist Jews. Israel/Palestine is a, er, hot topic, and I'm sure many would disagree with Philip Weiss' perspective. Nonetheless, if the discourse rises to the level of rabble-rousing and baseless name-calling ("conspiracy theory"? "denier-adjacent"?), I tend to throw it in File 13
along with much of the hot air bullshit surrounding Israel / Palestine (about 99% of which is useless emotive garbage). BobJohnson (talk) 21:38, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
- One of the Blumenthal references (outside the lead section) is from 2007 when he was working as a more mainstream journalist, long before he spiraled into whatever he is now. The other one, from 2015 and much closer to when he was more into his current phase, is just cited as an example for there being "not infrequent" criticism of Zionism among Jews. A better citation could be found (maybe polling data for instance) but the first Blumenthal citation as used probably aren't too wild to retain assuming no one bothers. Mondoweiss is cited quite a lot more than him, but I don't know their reliability. As for there being "fewer anti-Zionist Jews than African-American Republicans" — to regurgitate my impressions from recent polling: I thought they're about as common (bearing in mind that more black people may be Republican or Repub-leaning now per some polls than has been widely noted), if not even more common, especially with the younger generation. But it's not the majority opinion among US Jews. Chillpilled (talk) 04:04, 2 May 2024 (UTC)
- My personal opinion is, if Max Blumenthal is correct, then we can probably find someone else saying the same thing. I understand he wasn't as cranky 15 years ago, but IMO the less we use him as a source, the better, especially since not everyone knows (I didn't) that was an ok journalist before The Grayzone spiral. GeeJayKWhere all evil dwells Where every lie is true 12:54, 2 May 2024 (UTC)
- Mondoweiss is of mixed reliability by Media Bias.[1] In this case, however, Media Bias itself commits a faux pas by relying on an ADL accusation as part of their ranking. ADL, for all their positives, is a very questionable source itself when it comes to evaluating anti-Zionism; too often they play the "antisemitism" card for any whiffs of criticism of Israel or Zionism, especially of late from the progressive left. Still, you only need to check the Mondoweiss site [2] to know that it is highly opinionated and uses extremely biased language. I haven't seen anything that rises to the level of fake news on skimming that site yet (let alone a "hate group"), but it certainly wears its anti-Zionism bias on its sleeve, probably to a fault. Generally speaking, I don't think citing opinionated sources is a *big* deal as long as you are aware of the limitations (and fact-check them of course). However, it is better to cite more neutral sources when possible.
- I don't think this article is the greatest "at first glance", but I don't think the OP would like what I envision an article about Zionism to be about that would fit here best. RW concentrates on authoritarianism and fundamentalism (and related topics such as supremacist movements), so it would be natural for a RW article to focus more on this portion of Zionism (as well as some of the things this article does bring up like fundamentalist Christian embrace of Zionism). You wouldn't even need opinionated op-ed citations to write this sort of thing. (Of course, I'm not the one that will do a "rewrite", due to the hornet's nest of extremely opinionated hotheads on I/P, as well as many of the extremist elements of Zionism already covered in their own separate articles.) BobJohnson (talk) 16:04, 2 May 2024 (UTC)
- My personal opinion is, if Max Blumenthal is correct, then we can probably find someone else saying the same thing. I understand he wasn't as cranky 15 years ago, but IMO the less we use him as a source, the better, especially since not everyone knows (I didn't) that was an ok journalist before The Grayzone spiral. GeeJayKWhere all evil dwells Where every lie is true 12:54, 2 May 2024 (UTC)
- One of the Blumenthal references (outside the lead section) is from 2007 when he was working as a more mainstream journalist, long before he spiraled into whatever he is now. The other one, from 2015 and much closer to when he was more into his current phase, is just cited as an example for there being "not infrequent" criticism of Zionism among Jews. A better citation could be found (maybe polling data for instance) but the first Blumenthal citation as used probably aren't too wild to retain assuming no one bothers. Mondoweiss is cited quite a lot more than him, but I don't know their reliability. As for there being "fewer anti-Zionist Jews than African-American Republicans" — to regurgitate my impressions from recent polling: I thought they're about as common (bearing in mind that more black people may be Republican or Repub-leaning now per some polls than has been widely noted), if not even more common, especially with the younger generation. But it's not the majority opinion among US Jews. Chillpilled (talk) 04:04, 2 May 2024 (UTC)
- I mean, someone's welcome to find something else to cite. I promise the principle of basing the reliability of a source from almost two decades ago on its current reputation and recent behaviors is not a can of worms we wanna open though. Way more common for publications and journalists to wildly change course, over even as short a period as a few years, than you'd think. Chillpilled (talk) 01:20, 3 May 2024 (UTC)