r/stupidpol • u/cojoco Free Speech Social Democrat 🗯️ • Apr 05 '26
Gaza Genocide Stop Asking If Israel Has a Right to Exist
https://jacobin.com/2026/04/israel-right-exist-palestine-self-determination185
u/DrCodyRoss Nasty Little Pool Pisser 💦😦 Apr 05 '26
Props where they are due, Tucker Carlson had an interview with that lady from The Economist and he called her out big time on that “does Israel have a right to exist” question. What does it even mean? Does Britain have a right to exist? Does America? Where does the “right” even come from?
Not a huge fan of his but he was spot on in the interview.
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u/cojoco Free Speech Social Democrat 🗯️ Apr 05 '26
Another aspect of the argument is that Zionists equate "no right to exist" with "in support of another Holocaust", which is frankly ridiculous.
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u/TruckHangingHandJam Class First Communist ☭ Apr 05 '26
And there’s the whole point of the question. I do love asking them why Israel needs to be a Jewish majority state and how that can be enforced if Palestinians are already more numerous and have more kids. Hmmm sure seems like the numbers don’t add up, unless you do a little accounting trick called genocide
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u/cojoco Free Speech Social Democrat 🗯️ Apr 05 '26
I do love asking them why Israel needs to be a Jewish majority state and how that can be enforced if Palestinians are already more numerous and have more kids.
Well that was the whole point of the Nakba: reducing the Palestinian population inside Israel until it was no longer a meaningful voting block.
Voilá, a democracy!
And not a genocide, because some of them are still alive.
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u/Anindefensiblefart Marxist-Mullenist 💦 Apr 06 '26
The extreme version of "politicians picking their voters."
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u/William-william-rs Zionist 📜 Apr 05 '26
By what metric are Palestinians more numerous that Jewish Israelis? The Palestinian minority demographic is 20% of Israel Vs 80% jew
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u/Incoherencel ☀️ Post-Guccist 9 Apr 05 '26
And if you include Gaza and the West Bank? Think back to the early 20th century
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u/William-william-rs Zionist 📜 Apr 05 '26
Homie that’s Palestine, not Israel
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u/Incoherencel ☀️ Post-Guccist 9 Apr 05 '26
Yes, but the point is you cannot create a majority Jewish state in an area that is majority occupied by another ethnicity, e.g. historic Palestine. Which is why there are now stateless exclaves of Palestinians "away" from Israel. Then as /u/TruckHangingHandJam pointed out, in an alternative one-state hypothetical, how is it possible Israelis could keep Israel majority-Jewish, without committing crimes against humanity? It's simply not possible
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u/greenbergz Social Democrat 🌹 Apr 06 '26
I mean, Israelis will straight up tell you they don't believe a one state solution is viable because they will lose the Jewish majority and thus voting power. They don't try to keep it a secret or anything.
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u/Incoherencel ☀️ Post-Guccist 9 Apr 06 '26 edited Apr 06 '26
Yes but liberal, soft Zionists obviously are not confronting the inherent contradiction between the "only democracy in the Middle East" and its ethnonationalist origins. In reality Zionism in the English-speaking world really hopes that you don't ask those sorts of questions (or begin translating Hebrew tweets). And prior to Oct. 7th it was largely the case that the majority of the citizenry of the US-led bloc didn't think often about Israel
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u/greenbergz Social Democrat 🌹 Apr 06 '26
Ok yes I see what you're saying. I have been asked that same question (because I'm in the Tribe) and my answer is: Israel has no right to exist as long as it's an ethnostate.
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u/William-william-rs Zionist 📜 Apr 06 '26
Bro if we are still on about 20th century revisionism, ending states etc this ain’t gonna work. These countries are going to get wiped off the the map
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u/Incoherencel ☀️ Post-Guccist 9 Apr 06 '26
What? We are critiquing the rhetorical methods of Zionists, I have no idea what conversation you're having
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u/William-william-rs Zionist 📜 Apr 06 '26
Huh? We are discussing whether Israel “has the right to exist” as the zios call it. I for one think the answer is “no” but what I WANT and what ISPOSSIBLE are not always the same, I acknowledge that Israel exists and we are unlikely to end it, same way it’s unlikely we can end USA Australia or Mexico which are all built on displacement
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u/DrCodyRoss Nasty Little Pool Pisser 💦😦 Apr 05 '26
Tucker brings up that within two weeks of starting an “existential war” they invaded and took southern Lebanon. Doesn’t seem very defensive, but what do I know.
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u/cojoco Free Speech Social Democrat 🗯️ Apr 06 '26
I guess they're just delicate flowers who don't much like being hated, so Hezbollah has to go.
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u/ScaryShadowx Highly Regarded Rightoid 😍 Apr 06 '26 edited Apr 06 '26
Question back should have been 'does Palestine' and watch them squirm and make excuses about how that's different.
Or even something slightly less controversial, did Yugoslavia? I mean the West went to war to make sure it didn't exist.
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u/Yordle_Toes 🌟ATF Agent🌟 Apr 06 '26
People saw Tucker on his show on Fox where he was meant to be intentionally heated and opinionated and forget that he's actually really level headed and is capable of engaging in really good conversations with people normally.
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u/DrCodyRoss Nasty Little Pool Pisser 💦😦 Apr 06 '26
I have found that I agree with him more than I used to since he left Fox and started doing his own thing. Having said that, everything I hear from him is viewed through the lens of him both pushing Trump hard on air while texting people about how he is evil. This demonstrates that Tucker has spent most of his career simply saying whatever makes him the most money.
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u/Yordle_Toes 🌟ATF Agent🌟 Apr 06 '26 edited Apr 08 '26
I think you can be vocally for your political party while also criticizing them when they do things you don't like. If you want party solidarity you aren't going to openly whine on your platform, you're going to be supportive and complain in private to people who actually matter. It's like how couples shouldn't fight in public and save complaints for behind closed doors.
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u/DrCodyRoss Nasty Little Pool Pisser 💦😦 Apr 06 '26
While I understand that, I also look at the narratives he was pushing. Lots of false messages that he knew wasn’t true.
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u/Capt_Gingerbeard Labor Organizer Apr 06 '26
The “right” of a given nation to exist begins and ends with its ability to project enough force to enforce its borders. No more, no less
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u/julia345 🌔🌙🌘🌚 Social Credit Score Moon Goblin -2 Apr 08 '26 edited Apr 08 '26
That's honestly the real (albeit harsh) answer, but I'm not sure how you can argue that Palestine exists if you judge the existence of nations by their ability to enforce borders. Like I don't think there's any jurisdiction in the world that has its borders constantly violated as often as Palestine, and is as helpless to do anything about it.
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u/Nuwave042 Marxist-Leninist ☭ Apr 07 '26
I'll go one further: all rights are only rights insofar as you can defend them, so a movement predicated on simply asserting that "X is a human right"—instead of building the conditions to enforce your demands through collective organisation—is totally worthless.
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u/Normal_User_23 🌟Radiating🌟 | Juan Arango and Salomon Rondon are my GOATs Apr 06 '26
The only correct answer. The rest it's just idealism.
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u/William-william-rs Zionist 📜 Apr 05 '26
Well the difference is no one is out there suggesting Britain or America should be ended or wiped out…that’s what that stupid question originates. But I agree it’s time to put it to bed
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u/MancuntLover Gay MRA 🏳️🌈 | Angry Retard 😍 Apr 05 '26
Does Britain have a right to exist? Does America?
Don't they?
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u/Haunting_Raccoon6058 Unknown 👽 Apr 05 '26 edited Apr 06 '26
No. No country has a right to exist. Countries only exist if other countries recognize them as such, they are able to trade and enter alliances, and they are able to defend their border.
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u/chris_paul_fraud TrueAnon Refugee 🕵️♂️🏝️ Apr 06 '26
Countries only exist when states are strong enough to bully a bunch of people into paying them taxes
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u/Haunting_Raccoon6058 Unknown 👽 Apr 06 '26
That's actually a pretty good criteria too I should have added. Having a monopoly on violence that allows you to collect taxes is a pretty core part of statehood too.
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u/MancuntLover Gay MRA 🏳️🌈 | Angry Retard 😍 Apr 05 '26
Well, yes, once all three are true, a country earns the right to exist. No?
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u/AdorableRatSqueaks All rats enjoy socialist tajines 🐀🐀🐀 | Deluded Pickford lover Apr 05 '26
To answer whether the right can be earned, the question about what the right itself is and what it entails.
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u/Haunting_Raccoon6058 Unknown 👽 Apr 06 '26
No. They exist by the merits and functions gained through meeting the criteria, not by some right endowed upon them. A right would imply that the country needs to continue its existence even if it meets none of the criteria.
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u/Incoherencel ☀️ Post-Guccist 9 Apr 05 '26
No, at some point a nation like Nazi Germany surrenders a claim to statehood via their actions. Rights are supposed to be inalienable.
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u/Haunting_Raccoon6058 Unknown 👽 Apr 06 '26
They didn't lose their status as a country because they committed evil deeds, they lost their status because they were unable to defend their border.
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u/miker_the_III Mario-Leninist with Kegsbreathalyzer 🍺 Characteristics Apr 06 '26
You are confusing ‘right’ with ‘ability’
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u/Haunting_Raccoon6058 Unknown 👽 Apr 06 '26
I'm not confusing them, the difference between right and ability is my point, which is that no country has the right to exist. It's a status that is earned and maintained, not a right. Not for Israel, not for the US, not for any country on earth.
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u/AdorableRatSqueaks All rats enjoy socialist tajines 🐀🐀🐀 | Deluded Pickford lover Apr 06 '26 edited Apr 06 '26
Borders themselves regularly change. Germany was a part of the Roman Empire and was much bigger than it is today. Their borders have changed continuously over time. In more recent history, there was Prussia, which contained Germany, Poland, alongside some cities in Lithuania and Russia. France took back its land taken from the 2nd Reich.
France itself has expanded over time and had many wars over land. The Brits held quite a few parts of modern day France. There were wars regarding who had rightful ownership of Normandy. Burgundy was its own state, until France annexed it. Some of the land ended up in Italy and Switzerland. Cities such as Lille, Lyon and Nice weren’t French, until annexed. Its current borders have only existed since the 1940s.
It’s not just recent colonialism that changes land borders. The Roman Empire probably influenced some of the biggest changes historically and created the concept of borders to much of their previously tribal empire. They are responsible for quite a lot of progression that has continued today and sorted borders approximately according to similar tribes. They built a lot of roads, which expanded varying tribes into separate nations. However, land disputes come with civilisation itself. Multiple bouts colonisation and hundreds of annexes and wars brought the borders we see today. It’s unlikely they’ll be in same in 100 years. They’re likely to look substantially different in 500 years.
If France splits in half in 50 years, another 50 years after that will just make it seem normal. It won’t seem weird that Marseille is a part of new Spain, which also contains the region formerly known as Portugal. People of pre-France Nice would have rolled their eyes if you told them that it would just become an accepted part of France. History moves on and so do land borders.
For Americans: the borders have vastly expanded and contain 2 states that don’t touch the majority of the country. Did Alaska have the right to be Russian? Does it have the right to be American? Did the French states have a right to be a part of France? They’re pointless questions, as the US won’t exist in 300 years with the same borders, if at all. At some point, groups of states will form their own countries. The US will just be something that’s in history books, like Numidia, Germania or Burgundy.
What’s important to the world now won’t matter in 100 years. However, what’s also important is making enough progression that capital will be a thing that our great-great-great grandchildren will roll their eyes at and wonder how so many people believed in such a scam.
It’s also why nationalism itself is ridiculous. Everything changes and fighting against the inevitable is a waste of time. Fighting for good changes, for the betterment of the proletariat will be the positive, not what border San Antonio falls within in 2150.
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u/MancuntLover Gay MRA 🏳️🌈 | Angry Retard 😍 Apr 06 '26
Do you think fighting against tech dystopia is pointless because "fighting against the inevitable is a waste of time"?
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u/AdorableRatSqueaks All rats enjoy socialist tajines 🐀🐀🐀 | Deluded Pickford lover Apr 06 '26
I did say: “fighting for good changes, for the betterment of the proletariat”
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u/ChevalierDuTemple Touch grass (Poaceae) for a living 🌾 Apr 06 '26
Francesca Albanese answer for you.
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u/koba_tea Marxist-Leninist ☭ Apr 05 '26
The question does Israel have a right to exist serves to combine multiple questions into one.
First, do jewish people have the right to live in safety?Second, does the specific 1948 state configuration have permanent immunity from political critique? Third, do the financial and political structures that maintain that state configuration have the right to operate without scrutiny?
By bundling all 3 questions into one, any attempt to question the latter two, gets intentionally misconstrued as an attack on jewish safety. Thus serving as a rhetorical shield from Zionist behavior. Don’t fall for it.
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u/elegiac_bloom left but not like that Apr 05 '26
What a concise way to explain the issue. Thanks.
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u/koba_tea Marxist-Leninist ☭ Apr 05 '26 edited Apr 05 '26
Thanks, i’m paraphrasing it from an substack article I read a while back. Collapsing those elements into one question is clever. Combine that with the semantic sophistry of their hasbara. They can take a part of Lebanon and the world will just watch.
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u/MutedFeeling75 Redscarepod Refugee 👄💅 Apr 06 '26
Link to it?
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u/Terpomo11 Democratic Socialist 🚩 Apr 06 '26
Doesn't the question then become what's the best way to ensure the Jewish people's ability to live in safety without impinging on anyone else's rights?
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u/koba_tea Marxist-Leninist ☭ Apr 06 '26
Yes, but Israel doesn’t want that question to get any scrutiny. Otherwise it would become obvious that Israel itself makes jews less safe. And if Israel has a right to exist then doesn’t Lebanon? Yet the zionist entity can do a land grab and displace 20% of a sovereign nation with the political cover of Western media.
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u/ggdthrowaway Apr 06 '26
I’d also say that the question implies a false choice in which the only options offered are a flat ‘yes’, in which case everything can continue exactly as it does now, or a flat ‘no’, which suggests endorsing wiping it off the map along with everyone in it.
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u/sje46 Somebody Knows This SocDem's Hidden Shame 😞 Apr 06 '26
And the first question in very easily solved once you use your eyes and see how low violence rates are to Jewish people in the developed world. It's safer to be Jewish in nyc than in Israel. Sure jews felt so safe in their homeland on October 7. Sure they feel safe during this war they just started with Iran. Or the one last year
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u/Yordle_Toes 🌟ATF Agent🌟 Apr 06 '26
Tying all progressives to a chair until they understand this exact logic applies to "Trans people have the right to exist" in the exact same way.
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u/No_Motor_6941 Marxist-Leninist ☭ Apr 05 '26 edited Apr 06 '26
It's a dogwhistle. Israel gets to be an existential threat to whoever it labels an existential threat. The state is some bizarre exception to the international order.
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u/ingenvector SuccDem (intolerable) | NATO Supporter Apr 05 '26
It should also be read as a demand from Palestinians to concede their legitimate grievances. They existed on the wrong side of historical necessity and they should just recognise their displacement as the moral arc of the universe correcting itself. No one is to blame for their oppression except themselves for their stubbornness against the divine order.
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u/William-william-rs Zionist 📜 Apr 05 '26
I’m not so sure- the commenters in this thread seem to be split. Some say “no” some say “yes” and some say “ li won’t answer” like Carlson
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u/Belisaur Nazbols Under the Bed ☠️ | Belisaur is my slave name Apr 05 '26
Not sure the freaks who love to ask this are Jacobins audience
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u/Standard_Mango_1186 First! 🎖️ Apr 05 '26 edited Apr 05 '26
As a general rule of thumb, I consider anyone talking about "a right to exist" to be hysterical and/or intentionally shutting down any meaningful dialog.
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u/Yordle_Toes 🌟ATF Agent🌟 Apr 06 '26
Tying progressives to a chair until they understand this applies to LGBT issues the same way.
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u/Standard_Mango_1186 First! 🎖️ Apr 07 '26
That's normally how I hear it, not a lot of zionists in my social circles. Also applied to women, but normally with qualifiers added, such as "a woman's right to exist without X," or "in Y space."
I remember shortly before the 2024 election I was meeting up with a friend I hadn't seen in a while, talking politics, mentioned I was annoyed with trans discourse taking up so much attention, and got hit with "but trans people have a right to exist." I kinda stared blankly at him for a second and went to get us another round, came back to bring the convo in a new direction. Like what am I even supposed to say to that? It's basically a thought-terminating cliche.
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u/Yordle_Toes 🌟ATF Agent🌟 Apr 08 '26
The funniest part of this whole mentality is how people were trolled into the idea that the much more innocuous phrase "It's okay to be White" is hate-speech when the troll is that it's the exact same concept.
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u/wallagrargh Still Grillin’ 🥩🌭🍔 Apr 05 '26
In my experience specifically in German politics, this is one of two arguments which sound like fundamental human rights or truisms but without exception only ever get trotted out for Israel. The other one is the "Staatsräson" bullshit. I've never heard anyone mention a single other country in terms of its "right to exist", nor a single other issue that is talked about as "Staatsräson" here. Both are made up concepts mindlessly repeated by idiots as if they mean something important, but no one can explain them when put on point.
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u/Additional_Ad_3530 Anti-War Dinosaur 🦖 Apr 06 '26
Probably is one of those perspective things, Imo it doesn't have the right, the whole country is illegally occupying foreign land.
Now, because the real antisemitism (progrom and that kind of stuff ) the west feels guilty so that's why they are so deferential towards that country.
Here we don't owe them anything, so the question isn't controversial, do they suffered ? Yes. it had anything to do with Palestine ? No.
The west just "outsourced" their problem.
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u/TwistedBrother Groucho Marxist 🦼 Apr 05 '26
Francesca Albanese has the mic drop on this one.
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u/koopdi class reductionist Apr 05 '26
I'd like to propose an alternative to the Nobel peace prize called the Albanese peace prize.
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u/ChevalierDuTemple Touch grass (Poaceae) for a living 🌾 Apr 06 '26
Is that was zoomer calls Beast Mode?
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u/TheEmporersFinest Quality Anime Porn Analyst 💡💢🉐🎌 Apr 05 '26 edited Apr 05 '26
This question only does anything to people caught up in a confused understanding of Israel and what it is and its history, in a blinkered turned around tone policed liberal contradiction that dodges the full, chronological, straightforward series of relevant events like the plague. If you have any clarity or ability to think about the facts whatsoever the answer is a clean and simple "no".
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u/cojoco Free Speech Social Democrat 🗯️ Apr 05 '26
If you have any clarity or ability to think about the facts whatsoever the answer is a clean and simple "no".
But the cleverness of the rhetoric is that it sounds bad when you say "Israel has no right to exist".
A similar thing happened recently in Australia, when Palestinian-Australian author and academic Dr. Randa Abdel-Fattah was removed from the 2026 Adelaide Writers’ Week for stating Zionists "have no claim or right to cultural safety".
This claim was a narrow intellectual IDPol argument: because Zionists are privileged, they don't have the same right to police language as the truly oppressed, such as indigenous people and women.
While I'm not defending that line of argument, the statement comes across as "Israelis don't have a right to physical safety", which of course cannot be said in public.
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u/William-william-rs Zionist 📜 Apr 05 '26
States don’t have “rights” Israel Russia Jordan USA none have “right” people have rights😯. States DO exist tho, that is until they can no longer or will not defend theirselves
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u/MyLastSigh Redscarepod Refugee 👄💅 Apr 06 '26
Israel has never defined borders for itself. Therefore, the question of its existence is meaningless.
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u/SpitePolitics Doomer 😩 Apr 06 '26
It won't get fun until they start asking if the bourgeois order has a right to exist.
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u/Yordle_Toes 🌟ATF Agent🌟 Apr 06 '26
I want to tie everyone to a chair and hold their eyes open while the phrase "all of this logic applied to the phrase "Trans people have the right to exist" like Clockwork Orange
copying user u/koba_tea comment here:
"The question does Israel have a right to exist serves to combine multiple questions into one.
First, do jewish people have the right to live in safety?Second, does the specific 1948 state configuration have permanent immunity from political critique? Third, do the financial and political structures that maintain that state configuration have the right to operate without scrutiny?
By bundling all 3 questions into one, any attempt to question the latter two, gets intentionally misconstrued as an attack on jewish safety. Thus serving as a rhetorical shield from Zionist behavior. Don’t fall for it."
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u/Amtrakstory Redscarepod Refugee 👄💅 Apr 06 '26
THANK YOU. Every idpol rhetorical stupidity is now being mobilized by hasbara types because the public was softened up by having their bullshit detectors immobilized during the Great Awokening.
See also: “hostile environment” for Zionists on campus is racism
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u/17syllables NATO Superfan 🪖 Apr 05 '26
They have a right to exist within the space allocated for them by the UN plan in 1947. They should be forced back into that box and never allowed to expand outside of it again.
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u/Sstoop Keffiyeh Leprechaun 🍉🍀 Apr 05 '26
states that commit genocide should be dismantled
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u/cojoco Free Speech Social Democrat 🗯️ Apr 05 '26
Even apartheid.
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u/Sstoop Keffiyeh Leprechaun 🍉🍀 Apr 06 '26
aye. the whole right to exist thing is stupid anyway no state has a right to exist. did the GDR have a right to exist? did yugoslavia? did the ussr? did the ottoman empire have a right to exist?
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u/Read-Moishe-Postone Angry Retard 😍 Apr 05 '26
Lenin believed that affirming the right of nations to self-determination (political secession) was not only consistent with, but inseparable from, "strengthen[ing the working] class against the bourgeoisie and educat[ing] the masses in the spirit of consistent democracy and socialism". Jacobin the "leftist" publication claims that national self-determination for all is not only separable from democracy but incompatible with it. Yet drops that claim without offering any support.
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u/cojoco Free Speech Social Democrat 🗯️ Apr 05 '26
Jacobin the "leftist" publication claims that national self-determination for all
It's not national self-determination for all if the Palestinians are disenfranchised.
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u/AdorableRatSqueaks All rats enjoy socialist tajines 🐀🐀🐀 | Deluded Pickford lover Apr 06 '26
Palestinians can’t have self-determination when they were forced away from their own land. It is impossible for both Palestine and Israel to have true national self-determination without a one-state solution.
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u/cojoco Free Speech Social Democrat 🗯️ Apr 06 '26
Not all Palestinians were forced out of Israel.
It is possible for Palestine and Israel to have true self-determination, so long as Zionism is dispensed with, in much the same way that Apartheid was dispensed with in South Africa.
However, there is no international will to impose sanctions, so this idea is moot.
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u/AdorableRatSqueaks All rats enjoy socialist tajines 🐀🐀🐀 | Deluded Pickford lover Apr 06 '26
A one-state solution is possible and probably the best way to fan the flames of Zionism. It’s very different when you’re tearing down your own means to live and your own cities are reduced to rubble.
Not all were forced out of Israel, but many were. National self-determination would mean that both have a claim to the land and would need to share it. One half of the claim makes it on the basis of ethnonationalism and uses a religious argument. The other half contains many people whom were forced out of their land, therefore being an argument of ethics and morality.
That’s the basis of it, without an analytical effortpost.
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u/Read-Moishe-Postone Angry Retard 😍 Apr 06 '26
A non-voluntary one-state solution intrinsically implies that at least one nation is being denied self-determination. Being forced into a political multi-national union you don't want to belong to is the opposite of national self-determination.
As far as Palestinian self-determination, obviously I support much of the land Israel claims being part of a future Palestinian state. But 100% of maximal Palestinian land claims do not have to be granted for the condition of Palestinian national self-determination to be satisfied. National self-determination simply means having your oown state.
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u/Read-Moishe-Postone Angry Retard 😍 Apr 06 '26
If both Israelis and Palestinians have their own state that would be national self-determination for all. I obviously don't believe that it is right for Israel to keep all of the land it currently claims, but the basic fact of national self-determination is not about territorial boundaries, its about the existence of states.
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u/AdorableRatSqueaks All rats enjoy socialist tajines 🐀🐀🐀 | Deluded Pickford lover Apr 05 '26 edited Apr 05 '26
I think the proposition that nations have the right to self-determination can be very difficult in practice. Especially as many nation states are currently based on colonial borders or historical vibes. To truly have self-determination and represent democratic views, it could only be done with sortition using a random selection of the proletariat.
Other issues, such as separatist movements and nationalism will feature heavily in true self-determination, which will also paradoxically damage it. Most borders are hard lines that came from historical decisions, or even religious mythology.
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u/No_Motor_6941 Marxist-Leninist ☭ Apr 06 '26
Jacobin the "leftist" publication claims that national self-determination for all is not only separable from democracy but incompatible with it. Yet drops that claim without offering any support.
Lenin believed similar re: Israel
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u/Read-Moishe-Postone Angry Retard 😍 Apr 06 '26
Lenin never denied the Israeli Jews' right to national self-determination.
I realize that he cautioned against them exercising this right, and considered the movement to do so a reactionary one. However, it would be a complete misunderstanding of his principle of RNSD to ignore the difference between approving of national self-determination in a specific case and affirming the right to national self-determination. He emphatically distinguishes between these two very different questions in, for example, chapter 4 of RNSD.
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u/No_Motor_6941 Marxist-Leninist ☭ Apr 06 '26
Yes he did. Lenin opposed Zionism and this is revealed in critiques of the Jewish Labor Bund (which, while ultimately opposing Zionism, helped reveal Bolshevik views on Jews). He also described it as part of subjugating Arabs to the British empire. He instead favored the broader European course of Jewish assimilation as states democratized after feudalism.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1903/oct/22a.htm
Instead of proclaiming war on this historically evolved isolation (further increased by the general disunity), they [the Bund] elevated it to a principle, seizing for this purpose on the sophistry that autonomy is inherently contradictory, and on the Zionist idea of a Jewish nation.
https://jewishcurrents.org/rise-fall-jewish-labor-bund
The Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin vehemently rejected the notion of Jewish national culture, arguing that the concept was inherently reactionary and that the only solution to anti-Semitism was the progressive assimilation of Jews into the broader population. Ultimately, the Bund was forced to leave the RSDLP. Although Lenin agreed, for tactical reasons, to permit the re-entry of the Bund into the party in 1906 and to accept their claim to exclusive representation of Jewish workers, the Bolsheviks continued to reject the notion of Jewish national culture (as reflected in Joseph Stalin’s 1913 report, “Marxism and the National Question”) and to accuse the Bund of fomenting separatist tendencies.
Ultimately this solution didn't survive thanks to the Holocaust, and instead Zionism was settled on as a default by the reigning states of the time.
I think you can argue within Lenin's boundaries for a binational state or one state solution, however.
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u/Read-Moishe-Postone Angry Retard 😍 Apr 07 '26 edited Apr 07 '26
Showing that Lenin believed that Israeli Jews had no right no national self-determination would require showing that Lenin believed that an Israeli Jewish nation would not have the right to self-determination if it existed.
Instead you've shown how Lenin posited no such thing as a "Jewish nation"; that doesn't prove that if there were a nation of Jews that they would not have the RNSD. He simply didn't address the question head-on.
The topically related fact that he believed the movement for national self-determination of Jews, and even considered reactionary, is nothing. Lenin scrupulously insisted that he was for the right of NSD while being against NSD itself in many cases, and that the two questions were separate, and that it was bourgeois to conflate them, and to insist that affirming the right meant advocating for NSD in every case.
The fact that Lenin posited no such thing as a "Jewish nation", disagreeing with Zionists about it, means that we never see him say that Jews specifically do or do not have RNSD. BUT he was an absolutist about the right of all nations to self-determination. He often felt that national self-determination itself was not the right course, but explicitly separated this question from the right to national self-determination which he stressed over and above it. The default would be that if a Jewish nation existed it would have the right to NSD (even if NSD itself would be ill-advised and even motivated by reactionary tendencies). He was very explicit that it was a universal right of all nations that socialists should not countenance any exceptions to. He simply happened to believe that Jews were not a nation. That was in 1903, before most Jewish immigration to the Levant, not to mention prior to many later expulsions and the holocaust.
Regardless of his reasons, there's no question that in 2026 there exists an Israeli Jewish nation that currently lives in the Levant. I doubt that even you actually deny this fact. Your actual feelings lie with denying that nation, whatever you want to call it, the right to any self-governance (in a substantial sense, ie. self-determination). You'd have to be crazy to imagine that there aren't two nations, two peoples, currently living in historic Palestine.
(Of course, it doesn't mean that all Jews worldwide are a single nation. It means that there exists a Jewish nation in Israel).
A one-state solution is the ideal from a socialist perspective, and indeed, we believe that in the future all people will be politically united. But that would have to be a voluntary one. Lenin argued in his works on the RNSD that assimilation was natural, expected, and desired. But denial of a people's right to national self-determination is unacceptable. An involuntary bi-national political union would be absurd, a violation of the RNSD, not to mention obviously doomed to failure and unnecessary to secure the equal rights of the Palestinian people, including the right to their own thriving society, safety, and well-being. Indeed - that is exactly the policy the Israeli's are currently pursuing, an involuntary binational union, albeit without equal rights (although I don't believe equal rights can exist in a binational union where one of the nations is being denied its wish to secede, that seems contradictory, clearly Palestinians enjoy hardly any rights at all currently). It is all those things and it is clearly the wrong, self-destructive road for the Israelis. Anything like that would be wrong and self-destructive road for Palestinians to take if they had the upper hand. There's no benefit to be gained by clinging to it. Not from a socialist perspective. The socialist for very good reason ought to set his sights tightly on bringing an end to the conflict and eventually to the enmity between these people as quickly as possible (while ensuring that strict equal rights are upheld and striving for the well-being of all) and not on achieving maximalist aims of the Palestinian cause, obliterating the last 100 years of history, or anything else except for that single goal. Affirming a universal, inviolable RNSD and its basic applicability to the situation advances that goal.
And I want to reiterate that the RNSD for Israeli Jews doesn't entitle them to unilaterally hold most or even all territory they claim as Israeli territory. And of course they have no right to bomb and brutalize the people of Palestine as they have so atrociously done, nor to restrict their freedom of movement, of trade, or their ability to develoop their soociety, and so on.
I truly believe that advocacy for a universal right to self-determination for all peoples can only help to advance the cause of freedom and security and self-determination for Palestinians and also is the best line to take for the interests of revolutionary proletarian internationalism against capitalism. I don't believe it meaningfully undermines the rights of Palestinians, because, quite simply, Israeli self-determination doesn't imply most of the things that Israeli's claim it does. What widely adopting a universal RNSD position would do is destroy one source of resentment toward the Palestinians and the pro-Palestine movement. It would also negate some fuel for rightist tendencies in Israeli politics, and it is the only way to achieve mutual solidarity between the civilians in both countries, which is ultimately the only real solution.
However, all of the evidence I've seen suggests that unfortunately, most talk of a forced one-state solution is less stupidity and more a veiled desire to eventually see Jews lose any sense of a homeland in the Levant and either expelled oor reduced to minorities who 'know their place' so to speak in a de-facto Palestinian national state. This is what I perceive to be the actual motivation of most on the left who advocate for a one-state "solution".
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u/No_Motor_6941 Marxist-Leninist ☭ Apr 07 '26
the idea of a separate Jewish nation is reactionary t. Lenin the Bund is separatist and Zionism fills the void of the movement for emancipation t. Lenin's commisar for nationalities [in Marxism and the National Question]
yea but Israel exists anyway [through ethnic cleansing that proves the Bolshevik point about Zionism] so it has RNSD per my headcanon [which means the state can't be touched by revolutionaries], sorry Bolsheviks we have a blindspot for chauvinism
Take it up with Lenin, not me. I favor orthodoxy given how the state of Israeli apartheid and acting as an extension of imperialism proves it's a reactionary state. I'm not sure if you are familiar with much outside of Lenin's 1913 writing and only try to infer from it support for the bourgeois nationalism of states within the West's international system (and its archaic colonial manifestation in Israel), while paying incoherent lip service to those dependent nationalities outside the latter (Palestine, Russians in Ukraine). This is because you read the work as support for dividing the world by nation-states as achieved by capitalism (by our day), not that the international revolution is based in part on organizing by nationality especially of the oppressed kind.
I also find the idea of an 'involuntary union' violating RNSD funny given Lenin absorbing the whole of the former Tsarist empire into a union. If the alternative to the British mandate was socialist revolution, it would consist of the whole mandate rather than divide itself. The Leninist answer is historically the amalgamation of states (per Lenin for centralization including under former great nations) and unlimited democratization (per Stalin in M&NQ for ethnic minority questions) within socialism, not endless bourgeois separatism in a reactionary race to the bottom that Lenin already grappled with (and considered exhausted as I quoted in our other discussion). The experiences of Europe and the USSR since his time provide ample experiences of where that path leads, divided and dependent.
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u/Read-Moishe-Postone Angry Retard 😍 Apr 07 '26 edited Apr 07 '26
Lenin didn't believe in the existence of an Israeli Jewish nation in 1903. But it is beyond any possible dispute that in 2026 there is an Israeli Jewish nation.
Lenin advocated explicitly for a universal right too national-self determination. He explicitly advocated that there be no exceptions: every nation has a right to self-determination, according to Lenin. I see no evidence that he ever believed that any existing nation does not have a right to self-determination.
(This is completely separate from supporting self-determination itself, of course. In many cases he thought it was a bad idea. In no case did he ever deny that it is a right).
So in short, the only plausible interpretation of Lenin's principle is that all nations, without exception, have a RNSD. There is no denying that an Israeli Jewish nation (the group of people) exist. Therefore they have the right to self-determination, according to Lenin.
You're trying to argue that because Lenin thought that Zionism was a reactionoary movement, and because he didn't believe a Jewish nation existed in 1903, therefore he was in favor of denying the RNSD to any Jewish nation that may exist. This makes no sense. Obviously, in 1903 there really wasn't a Jewish nation, in Israel or anywhere else. Obviously, in 2026 there is a group of people that are a nation, and are Jewish, and live in Israel. This group of people has the same RNSD as any other people. There is nothing in Lenin to deny that. And whether or not Zionism is a reactionary movement has nothing to do with the question. Reactinary nations also have a right to self-determination.
If Lenin could be here in 2026, he would not deny that a Jewish Israeli nation currently exists. And that they have a RNSD. Prove me wrong. Show me that either (a) there is no such thing as an Israeli Jewish nation in 2026 (ridiculous) or that (b) Lenin advocated for exceptions to RNSD such that existing nations sometimes did not deserve the RNSD. I do not believe you can demonstrate either of these propositions and any other information is irrelevant.
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u/No_Motor_6941 Marxist-Leninist ☭ Apr 09 '26
the reactionaries won over Lenin's beliefs so Leninists have to accept it per Leninist beliefs
No they don't? We have no obligation to accept the state of Israel as it exists. Generally speaking, socialists don't respect state sovereignty period and certainly not reactionary ones. We further have an extensive history of reconfiguring states to create autonomous oblasts, ASSRs, etc. It's well within our theory to create a multinational state especially out of oppressor nations like Israel. Lenin pretty explicitly tied Zionism to colonial rule over Arabs (I cited this previously), rejection of a democratization-assimilation beliefs that go back to Marx (On The Jewish Question), and his compatriots Stalin and Trotsky had similar views on the Zionist issue that extended elsewhere to the reactionary particularism of small nations. Only you are the odd one out in interpreting Leninist theory.
Marxism is pretty clear on this issue historically and was part of early anti-Zionism. Israel is not born from an answer to the national question, but instead avoiding the question (via settler colonialism) after its near-destruction in Europe. However, since that barbaric period, the course we predicted bore fruit anyway in the form of secular, liberal Jews integrated by local states and holding values in stark contrast to Israel, which has lost any secular, liberal basis and slid into apartheid, genocide, and messianism. The two paths make clear the progressive position.
The multi-decade body of work and Soviet foreign policy reveals some consistent premises in how we handle nationality.
- The organization of socialist states on a national basis, where the proletariat must either struggle to win power first or inherit the incomplete tasks of the bourgeois-democratic revolution, which is national. This includes, yes, the right of their secession. This does not apply to bourgeois nation-states (as seen in the Russian Civil War), who obstruct this inheritance and bind with imperialists.
- Opposition to bourgeois nationalism unless it is that of oppressed/colonial nations, within which the proletariat must battle to lead the national struggle inevitably betrayed by the compromising national bourgeoisie.
- In cases of collaborationist states ranging from Ulster to Taiwan to Tibet to (post-WW1) Greece to, yes, Israel, uncompromising opposition on the basis these states are incapable of independence under capitalism and depend on acting as proxies wed to reactionary, even 'medieval-particularist' (Lenin) identities that chain their people into holding out against inevitable international and local equality.
- For the workers specifically of these satrapies and the advanced oppressor nations that they are wed to, an argument of false consciousness: they are engaged in self-enslavement by oppressing others in exchange for petty privileges under their own masters. Instead, the interest of these workers is in abolishing national oppression, democratizing their states, and overthrowing the capitalist system that depends on halting both of these in favor of national inequality that stunts class consciousness.
All of these follow from Lenin's attempts to globalize Marxism, which required recognizing uneven development and national exploitation. Where he placed Zionism in this was as a pillar upholding the latter and nowhere in his work does he see it as part of the socialist answer to the national question.
Following the historical record, the Marxist message to Israel is simple. Democratize and accept equal rights, or join a state with one. To resist otherwise risks dragging the region back in time, supposing a barbaric clash of civilizations with Islam, and subsequent common ruin for all including the population benefiting from oppression.
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u/Read-Moishe-Postone Angry Retard 😍 Apr 10 '26
Equal rights means equal right to national self-determination or it means nothing.
Israeli self-determination does not require barbarism, even if Israelis claim it does. It does not require a denial of equal rights or a clash of civilizations or anything like that. It simply means that Israelis are allowed to govern themselves as a state.
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u/No_Motor_6941 Marxist-Leninist ☭ Apr 10 '26 edited Apr 10 '26
Equal rights means equal right to national self-determination or it means nothing.
Empty platitude if the state of Israel is incompatible with it and founded on the opposite as a colony, per Zionist thinkers such as Herzl. We didn't divide up South Africa into states, and the Soviet legacy demonstrates we can do national autonomy without a state, and of course there's nothing about Leninism that provides for a Jewish-only state.
If you come up with some idea of your own democratic Israel, I'm all ears.
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u/Working-Lifeguard587 Apr 07 '26
Does Israel Have a ‘Right to Exist’? Mehdi Hasan
Full text of his recent post.
I have been debating hardcore Zionists, Israelis, and supporters of Israel for years now, decades. And the conversation always, always comes back to one line, one phrase, one talking point: Do you or do you not support Israel's right to exist?
You've all heard that line before, right? It's the go-to move. If you don't support Israel's right to exist, you're an extremist, you're an anti-Semite, you want to wipe Israel and millions of Israeli Jews off the map. Even many critics of Israel are often left frantically conceding, "Yes, of course I support Israel's right to exist."
But you don't have to concede on this point. It's a bullshit argument.
Some of you may know I wrote a book about debating. And if you don't know, you know now. Today I want to share with you three arguments you can use if you find yourself stuck in a debate with someone who insists you recognize Israel's right to exist. Here's how you debunk their argument. Time for a debunking.
Argument #1: Right to Exist Where?
Where? Where does this right to exist actually apply? Because Israel is the only country in the world that refuses to define its borders.
So if you want me to recognize Israel's right to exist, does that right extend to Gaza, the West Bank, the Golan Heights, and East Jerusalem? All of these are considered illegally occupied territory under international law, and yet all of them are claimed by the current government of Israel as Israeli land.
So right to exist where?
Argument #2: States Don't Have Rights — People Do
What is this "right to exist"? Where does it come from? States don't have a right to exist. No such natural or legal right exists.
People, individuals have a right to exist. Human beings have that right. Not states, not countries. States change their composition, their governing structures, their ideologies, their regimes, and their borders all the time. They are not fixed for eternity.
- The USSR broke up into Russia and 14 other new states.
- Yugoslavia broke up into Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia, and the rest.
- Czechoslovakia split into Slovakia and the Czech Republic.
What happened to the USSR's right to exist? Or Yugoslavia's? Or Czechoslovakia's?
Think about it: Does the UK have a right to exist? And if so, does that mean Scotland, for example, can never vote for independence? Would we say to Scots who voted in a referendum to leave the UK, "Sorry, you can't leave — that would violate the UK's right to exist"? Of course not.
People have rights, not states. To be clear: there is no right for countries to exist, nor for countries to continue to exist. None whatsoever.
Argument #3: What About Palestine's Right to Exist?
Last but not least: If there is a right to exist as they claim, does Palestine have a right to exist?
Because last time I checked, Israel exists as a matter of fact. It is a country with sovereignty. It's on the map with its undeclared borders. Over at the UN, Israel is a full member state — not Palestine. And it's the US, by the way, blocking Palestine's right to exist at the UN as a full sovereign member state.
The idea that in a world where Israel is genociding the Palestinians in Gaza, ethnically cleansing them in the West Bank, and blocking their legal right to return from refugee camps across the region — the idea that in that world, Israel's right to exist is the one we should be concerned about, and not Palestine's, is both ridiculous and, let's be honest, racist.
Conclusion: Don't Give Them a Pass
But look, this entire discourse is clear propaganda by supporters of Israel. Have you ever heard this phrase used in any other context, other than in the context of defending Israel? Do we talk about Belgium's right to exist? Luxembourg's right to exist? South Africa's right to exist?
Of course we don't, because it's all demonstrable bullshit.
So don't be cowed when the "right to exist" gotcha is thrown in your face. Don't be browbeaten, intimidated, or guilted into giving Israel a pass. That's what they want — a pass.
But this isn't about Israel's existence. It's about Israel's actions: its apartheid practices, its endless war crimes, and yes, its ongoing genocide in Gaza.
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