Hi Michael > On Aug 22, 2024, at 6:19 AM, RKOB via groups.io <[email protected]> > wrote: > > Dear Mark, > > probably my English is not good enough but I am not sure if I ask your > question correctly. Do you ask me why I think Rashad Khalidi has written > this? (Of course, I do not know.) Or did you mean something else? > > Best wishes!
My question was a rhetorical question, and it's unclear for an international list. But first, let me express solidarity with your legal plight, and I hope there is some recourse remaining in the legal system and that it continues to pull people together. Government agencies and private employers US have begun persecuting people for their speech, notably their opinions on Israel. In my state of Oregon, more than eight-thousand letters of support were submitted to the state legislature urging that they adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Center (IHRC) definition of "antisemitism" [1]. This resolution is "non-legally binding" but is nonetheless being brought to state legislatures that pass and rescind laws. So far, 35 out of 50 US states have passed resolutions supporting the IHRC guidelines by their legislatures [2]. IHRC antisemitism includes "Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor." That would make investigating Israeli as an apartheid state, for example, an antisemitic act. So too, maybe, for Shlomo Sand's historical finding that the notion of "the Jewish people" is an invention; someone might conclude, for this reason, that the right of self determination is irrelevant. Moreover, it might be deemed "antisemitic" to hold that there was never a mass exile or any justification for the European Ashkenazim to "return home," or that Israel citizens should not lay claim to the land but fairly share it instead with the indigenous populations. I can imagine this "non-legally binding" resolution being a step along the path of legal repression. Repression including revoking citizenship or residency has been done in the US past for syndicalists, socialists, anarchists and communists. Authoritarian forces in the US might use Israel as a bludgeon against groups who want to change US foreign policy away from forever wars. The reasons may differ and the legal repression is worse than the US when someone gets sentenced for six month in prison for their speech, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aDKwrivTzM (closed caption and transcript roughly translated into English). Regarding my rhetorical question from https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/31706, Theses on World Perspectives: In the Midst of a Cycle of Wars and Revolutions, I think Khaladi makes two important points: First, the idea that Hamas could start a regional war is an idea based on false assumptions about the regional powers; second, a regional war would only further devastate the people in Gaza and play into the Israeli goal of ethnic cleansing both Gaza and the West Bank. My two cents. thanks, Mark [1] https://www.ajc.org/sites/default/files/pdf/2020-04/IHRA%20Working%20Definition%20of%20Antisemitism%20Booklet%20Web%20-%203.20.pdf [2] https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/states-adopt-ihra-definition-of-anti-semitism -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#31752): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/31752 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/107980589/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
