There are absolutely, in my opinion, people who self-identify as liberal Zionists who have turned a blind eye to the atrocities, or outright celebrated them and demanded more of it in Israeli society and in American society, as well.
But not all of them.
No, of course, not all of them. There are varying degrees here.
But you do sometimes describe people here in really, really sweeping — and, to them, really offensive — ways. I mean, one that came to me nonpolitically, just through Jewish people I know, is when you described Abdul El-Sayed canvassers in a Jewish district as akin to people arguing for miscegenation in a K.K.K. neighborhood.
Maybe it’s worth just playing that clip.
Archival clip of Piker: This has got to be the wildest door-knocking operation of all time. Trying to get perhaps the most Zionist district in the country, or not the most, but like one of the more Zionist wealthy districts in the country, to vote for a Muslim anti-Zionist. Brave soldiers, all of them. Thank God they don’t probably own any guns, you know.
This is the equivalent, straight up — look, I don’t think this is insensitive to say, this is the equivalent of going to that like Klan, K.K.K. neighborhood to stump for like a Black candidate who’s running on an expressly pro-miscegenation campaign or something, like to abolish miscegenation laws.
I think it’s crazy to describe an entire neighborhood of Jewish people whose positions you actually don’t know as akin to K.K.K. members.
OK.
Among other things, what is, I think, offensive to many Jewish people about this is just: Describe a district where you actually don’t know what the people think. You don’t know what their relationship to Israel is. Sometimes you’ll talk very much about policing this boundary between what people think about Israel — which is, I think, up for political contestation — and just Judaism.
And among the things that I thought were a problem about that was the demolition of that boundary.
Yeah. This was a Jews for Abdul canvas that was going to homes with “Democrats for Mike Rogers” signs outside of it. And from my estimation, I don’t think that — I mean, we also found out that there were plenty of people who did not find it unconscionable to vote for a Muslim anti-Zionist. So that wasn’t the case at all, and I have talked extensively about how much this false conflation and loyalty to Israel is exaggerated in the news. And ironically enough, how dangerous that is in terms of creating and fomenting more antisemitism.
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