"The issue is never the issue. The issue is always the revolution".
David Horowitz actually made this a maxim he attributed to a radical in the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS): "The issue is never the issue. The issue is always the revolution". Horowitz used this concept to argue that political activists on the left use specific social grievances merely as tools to gain power.
Example: Socialist/Communist Greta Thunberg
2018 to 2024 - "Climate Change is the only important issue - it will kill us all"
2025 to Now - "The Palestinian struggle for a state is the only important issue - if we don't solve it we will all die."
Thunberg threw away the Green Flag of Eco-Fascism and replaced it with the Green Flag of Islam and now wears today's new Swastika - The Keffiyeh - with great pride.
It took her about an hour after she realized that global warming is an issue that no one cares about anymore in a political sense. Even The New York Timese wrote about this dead end for climate change a few months ago. In this election cylce Democrat candidates will talk more about the Middle East than the Weather.
Trust me - in another few years she will take up the banner of "Artificial Intelligence is a Plague upon humanity."
There is no ‘Palestine’ to begin with. They are Arabs. And the cult of Palestinianism which is the mind virus of the 21st century infecting the West was created by the KGB and Arafat in 1964. This con exists to erase and destroy the Jewish people and our connection to our ancient homeland. By continuing to engage in this nonsense instead of fighting it gives a fake and illegitimate people legitimacy.
Teljesen igaz, nincs Palesztina. Ők arabok. Teljesen felfoghatatlan, miért veszik át folyamatosan ezt a fogalmat, minden mondattal erősitve azt izraeli, zsidó részről is.
The Western Left has constructed a sacred totem and mythology out of the Palestinians, all designed to meet various political, social and psychological needs.
In this mythology, the Palestinians become a proxy Christ and a successor to the proletariat in one, both eschatologies and their goals pressed into the same symbolic form. This encompasses all the needs and passions of religion: a desire for redemption and atonement, for a higher meaning and purpose, a chosen community organized around a spotless sacred victim where the Elect and the Damned (Jews, again!) are simple and clear, as is the morality that flows from this.
But the Western Free Palestine! cult has become entirely vampiric and needs a constant fresh supply of Arab and Jewish blood. Both wings of the Islamo-Left alliance are more than willing to fight down to the last Palestinian, as the Islamists have always used them as cudgels and human shields and as the Leftists have closed off all possibility of compromise or coexistence: you don't negotiate peace with the evil Zionist entity, that would be a metaphysical betrayal, but you only demonize it via ritual denunciation and dedicate your life to its destruction (preferably from a safe distance).
Anti-Zionism is a hate movement that has successfully camouflaged itself behind all sorts of post-Marxist jargon about radical liberation, supposed compassion for displaced Arabs, and the usual self-flattering empty liberal bromides about Justice and Equality. But the movement will be hard to displace because Progressive morality is shared by just about all university graduates and everyone in culture, education and global media—and the suffering of Palestinians and their children have become the must-have item for our age of conspicuous compassion.
The more miserable the Palestinian people are, the stronger grows the movement supposedly meant to support and liberate them. There is no possible settlement that will appease them here short of the destruction of Israel.
We Jews have always been useful heat-shields for the European Elite, who were mainly Historically Antisemitic. Payback too from some parts of The Services, who now run the protest movements like Amnesty, and The Media, for the Element amongst us who stood against Apartheid. There is no comparison of course: The Arabs in Gaza and Judea and Samaria were offered Statehood five times, and they refused, choosing War instead. And Hamas has not moved one centimetre from their charter calling for the Annihilation of Israel, and their military-religion of Martyrdom, thus making peace impossible now.
In king Solomon story about two women fighting over an infant, he suggested splitting the child with a sword, the real mother refused to have half of her child
Although I agree with Andres Spokoinys’ thesis, Einat Wilf has a concise definition of “Palestinianism.” It is the refusal of the Palestinians of a state of their own (see most recently Gaza), and the rejection of Israel behind any borders.
I claim no Jewish affiliation but I am a ardent supporter of Israel. This essay succintly captures the on going struggles for both Palestinians and Israelis. Fortunately, the government of Israel puts its citizens' interests for a secure and viable country ahead of ideological insanity. The Palestinians are the perpetual victims saved and used by their Arab neighbors, Hamas, the Palestinian Authority, the UN it's agents, various NGOs and myopic media. Is there any wonder why the interminable strive continues and has minimal hope of ending? "Palestinianism" represents an incarnation of evil, despotism and carnage.
Aaron Rubin is on point. Imposition of a Palestinian state in the service of the 1974 Phased Plan has nothing to do with a fabricated Palestinian people. Palestinianism a perfect vessel for the Progressive agenda as a weapon against Israel that cannot be reconciled with Israel's survival, and more broadly the Jewish people
"Pride marches become platforms for “Palestinian liberation.” I've always found the homosexual support for "Palestinians" ridiculous because in the Arab worldview that perversion would mean the deaths of those supporters if they were stupid enough to go there. Israel is shorthand for the loony ideas from climate nonsense and anything these lefties consider using Éretz Yisra'él as the focus of their anxieties. Such silliness and virtue signaling are all they've got. Meanwhile, Israel keeps driving on regardless.
Book, From Time Immemorial, Joan Peters, exposed the fact that the Palestinians are the only people on earth given the status of being Refugees in Perpetuity, for Ever. Five Arab countries attacked Israel in 1948, after the war some 650 thousand Arabs were displaced. The reason there is even a single Arab refugee is because Arabs attacked Jews. Jews predate Islam. Close to a million Jews were expelled from MENA where they lived for centuries, Israel absorbed most. Diarna, Our Homes, a digital library of Jewish history and culture, 3 thousand sites have been identified so far. Today, you cannot find Jews in this vast area, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria and the other nations. The forced removal of Jews from the Arab and North African Muslim world is the true Apartheid.
I have a 1st edition of that book signed by the author. It is a brilliant book.
I recommend it highly. Peters began on the "Palestinian side" before she wrote the book. She took a completely different view after doing her research in Israel.
Here are some facts. No other displaced people, from WWI, WWII, or any other man-made political crisis are ever designated as refugees. When a political crisis drives out thousands or millions of people there is no refugee problem. Between Poland & Russia, 1.5 million were displaced, 12-17 million displaced on the German side, 1.2 million Kurds were displaced by Turkey, 1.5 million Christians were expelled from Iraq. Chances for them to return home are nonexistent.
The current state of Western discourse: they are being easily influenced by trends, where elites, media, politicians, and universities adopt specific causes primarily as status symbols.
Unfortunately, these choices frequently have little to do with objective right or wrong. Instead, they seem to stem from an embrace of anti-Western sentiments, despite the fact that these individuals thrive within the very societies they criticize—opportunities they likely would not find anywhere else.
The book was published in 1984, and the PLO Charter was drafted in Moscow in 1964. Soviet Russia & Communist bloc countries worked with the PLO to redefine the Palestinian cause by calling it anti-imperialism, a cause that appealed to the Left and the Islamic world. It makes total sense.
This excellent article nails it well. It is disturbing in that the universality of Palestinianism and its’ broad acceptance of Israelis/Jews being the architects of humanity’s distress bodes ill for Jews and the world. The future is dark
“No longer about” them? It never was. It was always about their desire to destroy Israel. Every time they attack and kill and every time they flip the narrative. You'd think someone in the world outside of Israel could open their eyes and see it too. They probably do, they just don't want to.
This is on target. You almost have to wonder if the radicals really want the Palestinians to win. If they win, no cause any longer. The Chinese make sure the info. on the Uyghus does not get out. In Sudan, neither side is likeable. To the stupid kids on college campuses, Russia vs. Ukraine is boring , because both are European and white. OOPS. Palestinianism fits everything these kids want. You are right, schools are not being built, because that would defeat their purpose. No one said it is fair, but here we are.
Yes, 'Palestine" has come to represent something cosmic in the left's cosmology ...and emerging in far right's world view too as far as the Jews as the source of evil. As regards the Palestinians as a "nation" goes ....it wasn't a nation when it was occupied by Egypt and Jordan. Nation could better be applied to the Kurds who were promised a nation after WWI.....or Tibet who had their sovereignty and culture and language stripped in "genocide" and Han settler colonialism by the millions to ensure Tibet remains forever subjugated. The Jews were the source of all evil as "rootless cosmopolitans" and now in their homeland, far from normalized, this tiny nation is demonized. And some Jews and post Jews from Jewish ancestry ....much like Marx...we have the antisemite Sanders who wants all aid to Israel forever ended.. These anti Zionist "Jews" are vocal and get attention in NY Times, The Guardian, The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books. Palestinianism has given these post Jews....finally.....an identity to which they can be fervently reverent and involved. For the Western post Chrisitian and even some Christian Gentiles, new version of more of the same. For Muslims, it fits the hadith about the end times and defeating the Jews. All converges on the Jews
Brilliant. This is why I say we are all Israelis now, whether we like it or not.
"The issue is never the issue. The issue is always the revolution".
David Horowitz actually made this a maxim he attributed to a radical in the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS): "The issue is never the issue. The issue is always the revolution". Horowitz used this concept to argue that political activists on the left use specific social grievances merely as tools to gain power.
Example: Socialist/Communist Greta Thunberg
2018 to 2024 - "Climate Change is the only important issue - it will kill us all"
2025 to Now - "The Palestinian struggle for a state is the only important issue - if we don't solve it we will all die."
Thunberg threw away the Green Flag of Eco-Fascism and replaced it with the Green Flag of Islam and now wears today's new Swastika - The Keffiyeh - with great pride.
It took her about an hour after she realized that global warming is an issue that no one cares about anymore in a political sense. Even The New York Timese wrote about this dead end for climate change a few months ago. In this election cylce Democrat candidates will talk more about the Middle East than the Weather.
Trust me - in another few years she will take up the banner of "Artificial Intelligence is a Plague upon humanity."
Truest words ever spoken.
There is no ‘Palestine’ to begin with. They are Arabs. And the cult of Palestinianism which is the mind virus of the 21st century infecting the West was created by the KGB and Arafat in 1964. This con exists to erase and destroy the Jewish people and our connection to our ancient homeland. By continuing to engage in this nonsense instead of fighting it gives a fake and illegitimate people legitimacy.
Brilliant EJV. Thank you
Teljesen igaz, nincs Palesztina. Ők arabok. Teljesen felfoghatatlan, miért veszik át folyamatosan ezt a fogalmat, minden mondattal erősitve azt izraeli, zsidó részről is.
The Western Left has constructed a sacred totem and mythology out of the Palestinians, all designed to meet various political, social and psychological needs.
In this mythology, the Palestinians become a proxy Christ and a successor to the proletariat in one, both eschatologies and their goals pressed into the same symbolic form. This encompasses all the needs and passions of religion: a desire for redemption and atonement, for a higher meaning and purpose, a chosen community organized around a spotless sacred victim where the Elect and the Damned (Jews, again!) are simple and clear, as is the morality that flows from this.
But the Western Free Palestine! cult has become entirely vampiric and needs a constant fresh supply of Arab and Jewish blood. Both wings of the Islamo-Left alliance are more than willing to fight down to the last Palestinian, as the Islamists have always used them as cudgels and human shields and as the Leftists have closed off all possibility of compromise or coexistence: you don't negotiate peace with the evil Zionist entity, that would be a metaphysical betrayal, but you only demonize it via ritual denunciation and dedicate your life to its destruction (preferably from a safe distance).
Anti-Zionism is a hate movement that has successfully camouflaged itself behind all sorts of post-Marxist jargon about radical liberation, supposed compassion for displaced Arabs, and the usual self-flattering empty liberal bromides about Justice and Equality. But the movement will be hard to displace because Progressive morality is shared by just about all university graduates and everyone in culture, education and global media—and the suffering of Palestinians and their children have become the must-have item for our age of conspicuous compassion.
The more miserable the Palestinian people are, the stronger grows the movement supposedly meant to support and liberate them. There is no possible settlement that will appease them here short of the destruction of Israel.
Re: “There is no possible settlement that will appease them here short of the destruction of Israel.” You neglected to add “and Jews worldwide.”
Well, they will accept some tokens and/or dhimmis. And I have no doubt that the owners and writers of the NY Times would be just fine.
We Jews have always been useful heat-shields for the European Elite, who were mainly Historically Antisemitic. Payback too from some parts of The Services, who now run the protest movements like Amnesty, and The Media, for the Element amongst us who stood against Apartheid. There is no comparison of course: The Arabs in Gaza and Judea and Samaria were offered Statehood five times, and they refused, choosing War instead. And Hamas has not moved one centimetre from their charter calling for the Annihilation of Israel, and their military-religion of Martyrdom, thus making peace impossible now.
In king Solomon story about two women fighting over an infant, he suggested splitting the child with a sword, the real mother refused to have half of her child
Although I agree with Andres Spokoinys’ thesis, Einat Wilf has a concise definition of “Palestinianism.” It is the refusal of the Palestinians of a state of their own (see most recently Gaza), and the rejection of Israel behind any borders.
I claim no Jewish affiliation but I am a ardent supporter of Israel. This essay succintly captures the on going struggles for both Palestinians and Israelis. Fortunately, the government of Israel puts its citizens' interests for a secure and viable country ahead of ideological insanity. The Palestinians are the perpetual victims saved and used by their Arab neighbors, Hamas, the Palestinian Authority, the UN it's agents, various NGOs and myopic media. Is there any wonder why the interminable strive continues and has minimal hope of ending? "Palestinianism" represents an incarnation of evil, despotism and carnage.
A brilliant piece of work.
How many times did you mother dropped you when you were infant, surely not twice
Aaron Rubin is on point. Imposition of a Palestinian state in the service of the 1974 Phased Plan has nothing to do with a fabricated Palestinian people. Palestinianism a perfect vessel for the Progressive agenda as a weapon against Israel that cannot be reconciled with Israel's survival, and more broadly the Jewish people
"Pride marches become platforms for “Palestinian liberation.” I've always found the homosexual support for "Palestinians" ridiculous because in the Arab worldview that perversion would mean the deaths of those supporters if they were stupid enough to go there. Israel is shorthand for the loony ideas from climate nonsense and anything these lefties consider using Éretz Yisra'él as the focus of their anxieties. Such silliness and virtue signaling are all they've got. Meanwhile, Israel keeps driving on regardless.
Book, From Time Immemorial, Joan Peters, exposed the fact that the Palestinians are the only people on earth given the status of being Refugees in Perpetuity, for Ever. Five Arab countries attacked Israel in 1948, after the war some 650 thousand Arabs were displaced. The reason there is even a single Arab refugee is because Arabs attacked Jews. Jews predate Islam. Close to a million Jews were expelled from MENA where they lived for centuries, Israel absorbed most. Diarna, Our Homes, a digital library of Jewish history and culture, 3 thousand sites have been identified so far. Today, you cannot find Jews in this vast area, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria and the other nations. The forced removal of Jews from the Arab and North African Muslim world is the true Apartheid.
I have a 1st edition of that book signed by the author. It is a brilliant book.
I recommend it highly. Peters began on the "Palestinian side" before she wrote the book. She took a completely different view after doing her research in Israel.
Here are some facts. No other displaced people, from WWI, WWII, or any other man-made political crisis are ever designated as refugees. When a political crisis drives out thousands or millions of people there is no refugee problem. Between Poland & Russia, 1.5 million were displaced, 12-17 million displaced on the German side, 1.2 million Kurds were displaced by Turkey, 1.5 million Christians were expelled from Iraq. Chances for them to return home are nonexistent.
Yes she was on the PA side when she started. Research took her in the opposite direction. I have her book too, I have to look for it.
The current state of Western discourse: they are being easily influenced by trends, where elites, media, politicians, and universities adopt specific causes primarily as status symbols.
Unfortunately, these choices frequently have little to do with objective right or wrong. Instead, they seem to stem from an embrace of anti-Western sentiments, despite the fact that these individuals thrive within the very societies they criticize—opportunities they likely would not find anywhere else.
Please look and read it again - there are no Palestinians in her book she proves it.
The book was published in 1984, and the PLO Charter was drafted in Moscow in 1964. Soviet Russia & Communist bloc countries worked with the PLO to redefine the Palestinian cause by calling it anti-imperialism, a cause that appealed to the Left and the Islamic world. It makes total sense.
Wow you lucky it was a great book.
This excellent article nails it well. It is disturbing in that the universality of Palestinianism and its’ broad acceptance of Israelis/Jews being the architects of humanity’s distress bodes ill for Jews and the world. The future is dark
“No longer about” them? It never was. It was always about their desire to destroy Israel. Every time they attack and kill and every time they flip the narrative. You'd think someone in the world outside of Israel could open their eyes and see it too. They probably do, they just don't want to.
This is on target. You almost have to wonder if the radicals really want the Palestinians to win. If they win, no cause any longer. The Chinese make sure the info. on the Uyghus does not get out. In Sudan, neither side is likeable. To the stupid kids on college campuses, Russia vs. Ukraine is boring , because both are European and white. OOPS. Palestinianism fits everything these kids want. You are right, schools are not being built, because that would defeat their purpose. No one said it is fair, but here we are.
"No longer"? It never was.
Yes, 'Palestine" has come to represent something cosmic in the left's cosmology ...and emerging in far right's world view too as far as the Jews as the source of evil. As regards the Palestinians as a "nation" goes ....it wasn't a nation when it was occupied by Egypt and Jordan. Nation could better be applied to the Kurds who were promised a nation after WWI.....or Tibet who had their sovereignty and culture and language stripped in "genocide" and Han settler colonialism by the millions to ensure Tibet remains forever subjugated. The Jews were the source of all evil as "rootless cosmopolitans" and now in their homeland, far from normalized, this tiny nation is demonized. And some Jews and post Jews from Jewish ancestry ....much like Marx...we have the antisemite Sanders who wants all aid to Israel forever ended.. These anti Zionist "Jews" are vocal and get attention in NY Times, The Guardian, The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books. Palestinianism has given these post Jews....finally.....an identity to which they can be fervently reverent and involved. For the Western post Chrisitian and even some Christian Gentiles, new version of more of the same. For Muslims, it fits the hadith about the end times and defeating the Jews. All converges on the Jews
Now they are blaming israel for the migrants invading spain. The liables never stop.
So true.