Political Shorthand
Part One: Zionist!
In the first installment of this series, it is perhaps most fitting to start with a go-to term that’s been resurging around the internet since October 7th of 2023. Not only is critique of the “Zionist!” retort the most relevant for THC’s brand, but it’s the perfect example of the Rorschach that angry mobs attach to anything they hate about another group of people. Michael Malice often mentions that the NPCs among us are programmed with ready responses that are triggered like a mousetrap the minute they can be shoehorned into a conversation. This lazy thinking applies to every other use of political shorthand, as such invalids subconsciously know they are incapable of contributing useful or independent ideas.
What actually is Zionism, then?
Jews exist. They first became a thing in the Land of Israel (then Canaan), back in the 13th Century BCE. That’s over 3,200 years ago, and 1,800 years or so before Muhammed was born. Over the past couple thousand years since then, various groups and militaries have conquered this land in the Middle East. Some of those OG ancient Jews remained in Israel, living under the oppressive rule of the Neo-Babylonians, the Romans (who essentially invented the name “Palestine” adapting the Egyptian/Aegean name of “Peleset”), the Byzantines, and the Ottomans, among others. The Ottomans, who began as mostly Muslims from modern-day Turkey, took over not only Israel, but much of Europe and the Arab world as well, for over 600 years.
Meanwhile, the Jews who left or were thrown out of ancient Israel relocated to various countries throughout Europe, Africa and Asia during this time. In many of these countries, Jews were further persecuted for centuries. They were mass murdered, raped, tortured, enslaved, expelled, or simply treated as second-class citizens. The most recent examples of this mistreatment include pogroms in Tsarist Russia, the Holocaust in Nazi Germany, and numerous atrocities in Muslim-majority nations like Syria, Algeria and Libya throughout the Twentieth Century. This is in addition to any oppression that Jews already experienced alongside their non-Jewish countrymen, such as the Holodomor in Ukraine.
Some of these Hebrews eventually found their way to better treatment in countries like the U.S., Canada and the UK (migrations to Argentina and other countries occurred post-WWII). However, throughout much of the 19th Century, and culminating with the writings of Theodore Herzl, a modern movement began among the Jewish Diaspora called Zionism.
The idea goes something like this:
- We exist in the world, and we don’t want to die or be treated unjustly anymore.
- There are a lot of people who don’t like us, and even the citizens of more tolerant countries still carry the risk of shifting in their treatment of us in times of unrest (e.g., Columbia University students, faculty and administration in New York City).
- Many other religious and ethnic groups have their own countries, such as Vatican City for Catholics, Armenia for Christians, India for Hindus, Jordan for Palestinians, several East Asian countries for Buddhists and several countries for Muslims. There are also countries that have majority populations of these religions, such as Catholic majorities in South America and Protestant and Orthodox Christian majorities in much of Europe.
- Not only would at-risk Jews expect to be safest in their own country (why would we inflict religious hostility upon ourselves?), not only would this remove us from people who hate us, and not only would Israel be only a small patch of desert that most of the world cares nothing about anyway, but it’s also the area of the world that makes the most sense as a Jewish homeland, since it’s where the Jewish people started and where many of them still lived in the modern era.
That is what Zionism is. It’s self-determination and insurance for a group of people who are sick and tired of their own historical persecution and bloodshed. It’s also a godsend for anyone who hates those conniving kikes and doesn’t want them around. It’s a win-win. The beauty and irony of Zionism, is that it gives most of these “anti-Zionists” everything they want, short of exterminated or converted Jews. It’s the dirty Heebs coming up with their own final solution for you.
Zionism has nothing to do with “stealing” land, “apartheid,” coerced conversion to Judaism, any specific national boundaries, taking over European or Western countries, entangling other countries in international affairs, or anything else the leftists or Woke Right (that is, other leftists) have been copy/pasting from third-world shithole propaganda.
The main reason Western anti-Zionists are often presumed to be anti-Semitic, is because this rhetoric is borrowed mostly from Arab sources, which many of these influencers express hate for as well. So, why else would they choose to side with either faction, let alone Hamas and their apologists, knowing full well that Islamist ideology and behavior is anything but progressive or groyper-adjacent? For AntiFa types, it’s a way for them to be racist allies for the “brown Middle Easterners” against the “white Europeans.” For opportunists like Eliyahu Shaffir and Andrea Taitz, collective resentment is one of the easiest ways to scoop up the half-eaten remains of downward-traveling young men, as Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson have already cornered the market on those who aim up.
Of course, there’s also this level of shameless retardation:
This doesn’t seem like someone who’s helping to make you more knowledgeable about anything. Only BLM-style deduction and an appeal to a collectivist “we.” Its emptiness reads like a script from Big Bang Theory without the accompanying laughtrack.
Are there too many Zionists out there who also believe that Israel should depend indefinitely on international military aid? Or that the Israeli government can do no wrong? Or that only Jews should be considered Israeli citizens? Yes, just as there are some American nationalists who believe only white Trad Caths should live here, because the country needs to “look” a certain way. And just like the idea of nationalism has nothing to do with any kind of separatism or ethnic supremacy, Zionism itself is independent of any of those aforementioned opinions. All of those are additional views that a Zionist may or may not hold.
Just as Americans have been told that “real patriots” support the Iraq War, or that “real conservatives” stand for the Pledge of Allegiance (which was written by a socialist), there are also some Zionist activists and organizations who attempt to intersectionalize their namesake descriptor with any other political aim they seek to accomplish. Just as equating patriotism with warmongering is inaccurate, so too is equating Zionism with Jewish supremacy.
At its heart, Zionism is very much in line with the crux of the argument for MAGA, which is “We want to do our own thing in our own little area, and we just want you to leave us alone.” It’s understandable why many in today’s Machiavellian climate cannot grasp this.
