Comments on: Ideological revolution in Zionism must include feminist values, rhetoric

By: Philos

Philos — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 11:06:04 +0000

SH, I disagree with you. I think a technical fix would dull the English language. What I do is alternate. In one paragraph I will use “he” and in another “she”, and for the duration “one.”

By: sh

sh — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 10:02:56 +0000

I agree with your Mom, Zoe. Not being American, this he-she alternation business in a piece gets on my nerves no matter what it’s about (Zionism is old and outdated in many other respects too). But in general, why not use “s/he” or invent a new English word to deal with this problem? I either use the ungrammatical “they” or write “he or she”, which is no doubt in the wrong order, but this she here permits herself un-PC liberties from time to time.

By: Philos

Philos — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 10:14:39 +0000

“The powerful idea of empowering the “New Jew,” one who would emerge strong and defiant from the shtetl in order to plow his land and defend himself, is exclusively male. In fact, in early Zionism, women are entirely relegated to the home. Women’s sole purpose in early Zionist ideology is to produce new Zionist sons.”
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If it looks like fascism, walks like fascism and quacks like fascism; what is it? What is it?! That’s right, that’s right, it’s fascism but this is a Zionist fascism.
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By: Cortez

Cortez — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 05:45:38 +0000

“I’m well aware that Beinart was writing to American Jews. The fact that he was writing only to American Jews about things that primarily concern Palestinians is kind of the problem.”
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But it is a problem created and largely still controlled by the Israeli government that has close ties American Jews and that relies on American Jews for support within their government. Americans Jews do have the power to influence this situation for the better, and its good Beinart realized that.

By: Steve

Steve — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 05:35:06 +0000

As terrorists outside of Israel sit frustrated at their inability to wipe Israel out, Israel-haters from other countries support discrimination against Israeli Jews. Wild stuff.

By: Alyssa Goldstein

Alyssa Goldstein — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 04:30:02 +0000

JG: I’m well aware that Beinart was writing to American Jews. The fact that he was writing only to American Jews about things that primarily concern Palestinians is kind of the problem.

By: JG

JG — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 04:12:01 +0000

Alyssa,

Bear in mind that Beinart was writing this column to American Jews. Certainly, with his clumsy neologisms, he was not advocating that anybody change the maps just yet.

Zoe wrote:
“What subtle message is transmitted through the conjunction of the feminist language revolution and Beinart’s liberal Zionist argument?”

Beinart named 3 Israeli authors — all men. (David Grossman, Amos Oz and A. B. Yehoshua)

By: Sinjim

Sinjim — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 02:33:13 +0000

Remember to use gender-inclusive language as you dispossess a native people of their homeland and their rights. It’s the liberal thing to do.

By: Alyssa Goldstein

Alyssa Goldstein — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 02:17:44 +0000

“Our Zionist forefathers were busy with an ideological, political and military revolution, and most likely did not need to bother themselves by imbuing Zionism with feminism.”

I mean…this seems a bit historically anachronistic. Early Zionists would not have thought of feminism in the terms that we do today. Max Nordau probably thought of himself as pretty radical for saying that women could, and should be muscle Jews, even if their physical fitness was ultimately so that they could be better mothers. It’s also contradictory to say that a group of “forefathers” can imbue something with feminism. Groups of men don’t get to sit around and decide to make their ideology feminist or not.

Also, Peter Beinart seems to think that it’s American Jews who get to decide what the West Bank should be called, rather than the Palestinians who actually live there, and that American Jews get to tell Palestinians how to run the BDS movement. He doesn’t appear remotely interested in what Palestinians think. He is, in short, supremely arrogant.

I wonder how much, say, the Palestinian women who were recently out protesting at Qalandia on International Women’s day would care that Peter Beinart uses “she” as a default pronoun, when he obviously doesn’t care in the least about their voices. You can go on about the pronoun “she” and democracy and liberal zionism and isn’t all of that so great, but you’re still supporting a state that privileges its Jewish citizens above all others. There’s nothing “liberal” about that.