The Zionist Case for Ending U.S. Aid to Israel (ft. Jacob Siegel)
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- Опубликовано: 20 сен 2024
- Jacob Siegel is a Senior Editor at Tablet magazine, a fiction writer, and veteran. He is also a committed Zionist and critic of US policy both domestically and internationally.
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This was such a simultaneously wonderful and frustrating interview-thank you for bringing him on, a service to the community, even as it was a disservice that some of his more problematic assertions were not challenged
Was expecting more of this guest, specifically given the title of the video, oh well
When Jacob says that the goal is to leverage the defeat of hamas into a durable political settlement (by which i assume he means the israeli palestine conflict broadly) that ensures Israeli security. It depends on what you think the chief barriers to that political settlement are, chief among them would be the Israeli settlements in the west bank which have turned the palestinian west bank territory into "the holes in swiss cheese" (quoting sarah roy) which would make a contiguous palestinian west bank impossible.
I guess a right of return would have to be a part of any negotiated two state solution.
@sublationmedia that's a non-starter for anyone that would call themselves a Zionist. Precisely why there's no such thing as an "anti-imperialist Zionist".
I found Jacob's studious avoidance of the actual, material actions of the Israeli government against the inhabitants of Gaza particularly disqualifying of his claim to be attentive to political economic conditions over ideological metanarratives, the latter being apparently the only things he gave any credibility to in discussing the conditions for Palestinians. Not only that, but he only gave attention to very specific, minority (by his own admission) ideological metanarratives (eg Al-Aqsa).
This was a regrettably unspecific, ungrounded presentation from him that rested on things like his inflammatory and unsubstantiated characterizations of the western left meant to generate moralistic outrage rather than any deeper understanding of how and why public sentiment has shifted with respect to Israel's violence against Palestinians.
ah, but did you consider NGO Soros College Indoctrination Wokeness?
Love the show, didn’t care for Siegel. Thanks for repeatedly trying to bring things back to material conditions.
interesting discussion!
I'll consider taking this guy seriously once he stops trying to make his voice fake deep LOL
I’ve been a follower of your work for many years, and a paying subscriber to your Patreon for a few as well. I’ve been so disheartened seeing your coverage of this ongoing ethnic cleansing and genocide of the Palestinian People. I can’t understand how someone with an apparent understanding of historical struggle, cannot see that this is the most mobilising international movement for the left, certainly in my 30 year lifetime.
You host zionists like this, who label Hamas as a ’terrorist organisation’, which is not only extremely reductive (yes Hamas, commit acts of terrorism, but as an organisation they cannot be reduced to merely a terrorist cell), but also allows a framing of the conflict which is ‘state vs terrorism’, the exact media framing that has allow Israel to massacre over 20,000 Gazans.
Why have you not had a guest on who can speak for Palestinian liberation? Or even a Jewish voice who can give an incredibly important anti-zionist perspective. The Jacobin podcast ‘The Dig’, has produced great long form discussion related to the history of Zionism in America and the longstanding ideological opposition to it from leftist Jews, who viewed it as a form of white assimilation of Jewish people into the American Imperialist project.
Unfortunately with this topic you sound like a theorist who is just wants to find ways to to critique genuine liberation movements because they have not read enough Adorno. Of course I want the resistance movements I support to be unashamedly socialist (of which there are many in the Palestinian liberation movement fyi), but when there is an oppressor vs and oppressed it is our duty on the left to stand with the oppressed. It’s what defines the core of my political worldview, and I can’t understand any leftist who is more interested in pontificating from the sidelines than actually supporting the struggle for truth and justice.
If you can explain to me how a Hamas victory would lead to truth and justice I'll change my approach. I do not see an Israel victory leading anywhere good either, by the way. I'm basically with Mearsheimer on this conflict...it's an impasse. The way the Western left has taken it up is disheartening to me because it appears to me to be an alibi for continuing to practice politics in the same way as we've done for generations. It off loads responsibility for change onto a group of people living under inhumane and awful conditions. The Palestinians are boxed in on all sides.
Also, you're wrong about how Jacob frames the conflict. It is not a conflict between the Israeli State and terrorists, but a conflict between the Israeli State and state backed terrorists. That is his frame.
What makes the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas the head of a genuine movement for liberation? We are not witnessing an oppressor vs. oppressed conflict. We are witnessing an conflict that has emerged out of the failure of Wilsonian politics, a conflict between States run through proxies.
I do not think it is my duty to uncritically stand with the oppressed. I reject the oppressed vs. oppressor manichean frame. I stand with the unwashed but not the lumpen.
If you're calling Hamas terrorists, that probably means you're putting 100% faith in the IDF's version of events on Oct. 7, even though they're well-known liars. What we know is that occupied people broke out of their concentration camp. As for who committed acts of terrorism like killing civilians, it looks more likely that it was Israel that did it than Hamas. Don't you watch electronic intifada?
@@sublationmedia It’s not about a ‘Hamas victory’ the Palestinian liberation movement, is not Hamas. Hamas just happen to be at this point, the most significant armed resistance to Israeli rule. I don’t want a ‘Hamas victory’, I don’t support Hamas, and I think you are mischaracterising a global left position, which is not the support of Hamas, but rather an understanding of the material conditions which led to their emergence.
“We are witnessing an conflict between States run through proxies”. I am not sure if you’re referring to the armed conflict in Gaza right now, or the Palestinian struggle against Israeli rule. The former framing is wrong, and the later one is wildly wrong. I’ll take it that you are just referring to the current fighting in Gaza. The connection between Iran and Hamas is overstated, the general consensus from western and Arab intelligence agencies is that Iran did not know about oct 7th, they are politically aligned and party funded by Iran, but that does not make them a proxy, they pretty much act independently. Secondly, what is happening right now in Gaza is a resistance movement fighting against an occupier, I know from speaking to people on the ground, that there are many people who had absolutely nothing to do with Hamas before the ground invasion by Israel, but now see no other option than to resist either through armed means or through other methods of supporting the resistance. Would you say that the vietcong were just a proxy for the soviets? I think you’d agree that is a ridiculous framing that removes the agency of the those who are fighting to save their country from colonisers.
Anyway, do you not think it is in the interested of discussion to have a guest on to represent a position of Palestinian solidarity and maybe give some historical context to the Palestinian liberation movement? Many would offer a critique of Hamas from leftist perspective, however they would absolutely refute the idea that they are some sort of Iranian Proxy
@@EtantdonnesThere was a long resistance to the US occupation in Iraq. What was the outcome of that resistance movement? It led to the eventual empowerment of an Iranian proxy government in Iraq.
Unfortunately after the invasion of Iraq there was no viable side to take in the region, although the communists in Iraq collaborated with US occupiers.
Similarly, while the Israeli bombardment of Gaza is a crime, this does not mean that an Israeli defeat will lead to liberation for Palestinians. Instead an Israeli defeat will likely lead to a continuation of both the blockade and the rule of Hamas. That's what the resistance is aiming at, that and disrupting the process of normalization of relations with Israel in the region.
In the US the most that can be hoped for is the election of Donald Trump and the fracturing of the democratic party. Maybe not a bad outcome, or at least not the worst outcome, but hardly liberatory.
It is easy to understand why people who are being bombed would take up arms against the people who are bombing them. That doesn't mean that the political party that set the conditions for this conflict and that may well benefit from the violence deserves the support of socialists.
Does "the struggle for truth and justice" include raping and murdering your way through a music festival? If so, how? Where and why is such an action and the thinking behind it an element of "truth and justice?" If I am supposed to feel nothing for those victims, and we are to be selective in what we feel and how we feel it, why should I feel anything for the Palestinians? Why am I selective in one but not the other? Note here I am not taking a position, merely analysing some of the outcomes of the statement you are presenting.
I don't think this guy has ever heard of asymmetrical warfare. And I'm sorry, what evidence is there thay Hamas has been destroyed? Everything we the public can see merely indicates that Gaza is being destroyed. Not the same thing.
He describes asymmetrical warfare in this interview and does not claim Hamas has been destroyed but says that should be the aim, as opposed to defeating Hamas. Destroying would mean making it impossible for Hamas to continue to fight this particular war. Defeating Hamas would mean ending their ability to organize and survive into the future.
Again he defines what victory would mean but does not claim it actually happened.
@@sublationmediathanks for explaining, now when can we hear from someone from Hamas talking about the non-imperialist case for ending Israel all together? Or...?
@@CapnSnackbeard I don't have any connections to members of Hamas.
@@sublationmedia when you say "left," which direction are you facing?
@@sublationmedia Keep it up Doug, like Zizek says, when both sides are mad at you , you must be doing something right. Keep staying consistent and fighting the fight regardless of all the noise.
The standard of victory for America was what happened to Americans, and the only standard of victory for Israel is the impact within in Israeli society?
So is "standard of victory" a useful framework, at all, when looking from a "humanist" perspective?
Loudly absent is the indiscriminate annihilation of Gazans, and the clear ethnic cleansing campaign this offensive represents. Arguments fly in that Hamas elements embed themselves within civilian populations and thus civilian casualties are unavoidable - not so. You do not need to fire upon them.
What value is there in this perspective? To narrow down the current situation in its entirety to military operations devoid of the context of the past 75 years?
Serbian nationalists could easily have defined its victory as establishing a "Yugoslavia where all Serbs can live", which was indeed their goal. But this goal could more accurately be restated as "Serbian nationalist victory via the creation of a defacto Greater Serbia in which all formerly federated republics are relegated to unequal citizens." The point is that a humanist view would be that ethnonationalist goals expressed militaarily in intermixed regions are necessarily genocidal.
It requires an immense flattening of context and narrowing of perspective to look simply at THIS military conflict in specific to justify the Israeli response.
I think you’re misunderstanding the field this conversation is focusing on. There is no attempt to dilute the most ethically universally absolutely objectively Just possible end to this conflict. Jacob is discussing the goals that countries are setting for themselves and the clear historical example of how it’ll lead to failure by the countries’ own standards. Trying to talk universal ethics in order to convince generals is a fools errand. More or less the same way as it would be to tell a hamas fighter that universal ethics denounces killing universally. Interest is imminently accessible to all, ethical or unethical groups and individual alike. Whether the goals of Israel are ethically justifiable is not the question in this conversation, that question is discussed on many other forums. In here the discussion seems to be focused on how what the state imagines for its own good is entirely impractical in comparison to a similar western barging into another state and trying to militarily displace local rulers which are aggressive to it.
The value in this course of action is having a clearer understanding of the current reaction from a side. And also why the US might recognize supporting such a perspective materially is more of a hassle than it’s worth. Recognizing the various interests of various players on the global scale is meaningful even if neither of them is truly just. It’s at least useful in talking to them and seeing what pushes them away from a more ethical path, which can be more properly addressed through recognition of their motives and the impracticality for their own goals that comes from following those motives
Also it’s not absent from this video. Check 46:29
@@benzur3503 It is most certainly absent - dodging the question of Israeli brutality historically and never once going any further than "occupation" means it is absent.
But okay, to the point you make in the actual bulk of this comment: by no means is it useless to understand the interests at play from the state or actors involved. But the guest mentions Hamas' actions as antihumanistic and gives no such claim in the opposite direction. He entered those terms into the discussion, and as such it is fair to ask, then, what value the rest of such an analysis has if primarily there is an obfuscation of the antihumanist actions of Israel. A level-headed exploration of strictly military aims and interests this man's analysis is not.
@@prvoloptaskiafter reaching the end, no it is not even dodged. 55:00. It would aid you in understanding people if you hear them before deciding what they say.
@@benzur3503 Again, I did not deny that he speaks about occupation, I deny that he acknowledges ethnic cleansing that is clearly visible.
Im going to have to keep listening because im really confused when he says "I see this as a conventional military operation in a dense urban environment against an entrenched enemy with international support...." Is... Is he saying hamas is the entrenched enemy? I ask because you say he is a zionist, so i would think he is in support of israel state... But everything he said is only true of Israel...
Israel has had decades to be "entrenched in dense urban environments" and israel has huge international support in MORE then just lip service.
This guy is going to have to work extra hard to say something that doesnt come out of his mouth as obvious doublespeak bullshit.
Ha. I don't need to listen to this psychopath delusional power hungry bafoon I'll remove the bull politically correct speak he used and quote the very next thing he says after my quote in the post above
"what lens do I see this conflict through? The one where I see anything the way I want to justify Israel winning over some enemy they made."
He literally only sees this as an issue of "Hamas is evil and needs to be stopped any way possible, but usa giving us support is making us look bad."
"Entrench" - establish (a military force, camp, etc.) in trenches or other fortified positions (think of the tunnels)
Within Gaza Hamas soldiers are entrenched and the IDF is not.
As for the international support I presume he's talking about Iran's funding of Hamas before October 7th.
Thanks. I'm trying to give him a fair shot, but obviously not enough to restrain myself in the comments out the gate!
So nice that he thinks destruction of Hamas is possible and desired over defeat of Hamas. That "we can't stop their will to fight but we can remove their ability to fight" Truly a paragon of benevolence. Yes it's true, if you kill everyone that opposes you and destroy their weapons... They will be gone. Congratulations. He literally does not care about human life unless it's in service of what he believes is the good life.
I can't understand people like this.
@@larkohiyait is the more achievable military goal that he thinks Israel has *the capacities* to enact. What he’s saying here is that the Israeli military can’t threaten Gazans to abandon Hamas. He’s saying that Israel is (according to itself) pursuing a military goal that is not achievable.
You're going to get hate for it, but thanks for having Siegel on. Despite being pro-Palestine, I find his analysis much more rational and productive than the detrimental platitudes many Palestine activists virtue signal on. He's also good on my ultimate position which is to cease US aid to Israel. It's strange people get so worked up about him.
People get worked up about him because you're supposed to play the foreign-policy progressive idealist about the Palestinians but play the battle-scarred realist about the Israelis. Siegel plays realist about both. I say "plays realist" because you might disagree with his analyses and claim it's just a tone or aesthetic he's adopting to mask ideologically motivated conclusions, but hey, he's at least not flipping his entire approach based on who's his friend and who's his enemy.
Someone’s been listening to Scott Ritter 🍎