Historian. Postdoc @Yale Center for Study of Antisemitism. Book: TAKING AMERICA BACK: THE CONSERVATIVE MOVEMENT AND THE FAR RIGHT // Yale Press // Spring 2024
I'm having a book launch event! April 9 at Yale (4:00pm), featuring Hasia Diner, Lila Corwin Berman, and Joe Fronczak.
It's free and open to the public, so if you're in the area please come! (There will also be free booze after.)
Danny Danon, at least, is citing polls that 83% of the Israeli public is in favor of the "voluntary" resettlement of Gaza Palestinians outside of the Gaza Strip.
And to be clear, polls have consistently shown for years now that these policies have widespread support in Israeli society.
A 2016 Pew survey found that almost half of Jewish Israelis supported expelling Arabs from Israel.
Second, Gessen's comparison hinges on the rejection of the common portrait of Gaza as an "open-air prison" and instead to a ghetto in a Nazi-occupied country. It's a provocative comparison, yes, but it's based on the ghetto as a form/technology *of control.*
And Gessen, to her credit, is quick to point out that while the Nazis' fears of Jewish "disease" was wholly phantasmagorical, there is a material basis for the Israeli claim that the wall separating Gaza and Israel is necessary.
So yes, it's a provocative claim, but I think it's a necessary one -- just as I am increasingly convinced that Holocaust educators need to start teaching the Nakba, too. Because as historical events the Holocaust, Zionism and the creation of Israel, and the Nakba are all deeply intertwined.
The best argument against removing Trump from the ballot is political. Moyn raises a few basic objections:
1) The events of January 6 are still broadly contested
2) Previous controversial cases involving the presidency -- like US v. Nixon -- reflected political consensus, did not seek to make it...
3) Barring Trump from the ballot would be a SCOTUS power grab
4) Conservatives would not accept the legitimacy of the decision and it could provoke a repeat of 1/6
5) It could make Trump more popular
6) It would be perceived as a repeat of "Bush v. Gore"
Alas, @econmarshall.bsky.social is right here (from the other app): Leo undoubtedly takes the cake from Rufo as the most effective right-wing activist. But instructive that both Rufo and Leo aren't particularly invested in mass politics but favor institutional capture instead.
This is the part that's stuck with me the most, because it's the IRL dynamic of pretty much all of social media since 10/07: people yelling past each other by invoking "facts" about the conflict that are all patently untrue.
And I also appreciate Gessen's noting -- it's something that I've thought about a lot too, recently -- that "Shoah" and "Nakba" etymologically mean the same thing in Hebrew and Arabic, respectively. Catastrophe.
I've said before that one of the reasons many Americans -- especially younger American Jews -- are so critical of the war in Gaza and the occupation writ large is *because* of Holocaust memory and education, which is something reflected in Gessen's piece.
It really was such a tremendous pleasure to talk to teachers about the importance of Holocaust education, *especially* in this moment. *especially* in this moment. Thank you again to Jacob, Colleen, Heather, and the Gross Center at Ramapo College!
twitter.com/Jacob_Labend...
A huge problem with the discussion of antisemitism in America right now is that far-right Christian nationalist antisemitism directed *specifically* against diasporic Jews in this country is almost certainly a greater danger to American Jewish safety than campus antisemitism.
REMINDER: The CfP for the Yale Working Group for the Study of the Global Far Right for the Spring 2024 semester closes this FRIDAY, December 15.
We welcome work from grad students, postdocs, and faculty from across disciplines. Details here:
t.co/LYkpuNHLj8
It does seem significant that Massad, even in his triumphalist narrative of 10/07 (published, it should be noted, within a day of the attack) *did* acknowledge the horrors inflicted on civilians.
Whatever else this is, it does seem distinct from many of the other triumphalist tweets that weekend.
I also worry, per Matt's point here (I'm cross-posting this from Twitter), that this will merge with the anti-woke campaigns against higher education from the far right and destroy what's left the university as a center for free inquiry.
