New Generation Of U.S. Millennials Outraged Over Israel
Forget everything you think about U.S. support for Israel when it comes to an up-and-coming generation of Americans with a different historical perspective.
International support for Israel is ebbing because the Holocaust narrative can no longer offer an omnipotent shield against a critique of the second narrative regarding the founding of the state of Israel. Israel is in fact risking losing the narrative war altogether, as more and more of the global public is asking questions that probe into that history, prompted by the evidence of Israeli’s current efforts to continue and expand Israeli power and land, efforts that are now increasingly regarded not as survival tactics but as violent colonial ones. In sum, there is now a widening band of light in between the heretofore seamless merger of the Holocaust and founding narratives, resulting in a weakening of the former in its capacity to act as an alibi for the latter. Again, this is especially important with regard to the U.S., which has been the world’s most generous supporter of Israel. More and more younger Americans, growing up well past the postwar era, find the Holocaust narrative to be less than absolutely and unquestionably a good reason to support the horrible killings in Gaza. And as they learn more, their support will wane further.
Second, the massive attack on Gaza and its obscene civilian death toll is now delivered to a global audience via a variety of media forms that far exceed the mainstream media. Contemporary forms of social media deliver images from Gaza and opinions on the invasion as it takes place.
Pistol-Packing August 1st, 2014 at 2:16 pm
Maybe these “Millennials” should pick up a book or actual learn a little something about history of this conflict, and not just a 140 character #Hastag blurb…
cvryder2000 August 1st, 2014 at 2:52 pm
Some of their parents and grandparents are pretty unhappy with what Israel is doing these days too. As my late ex said back in the days of Sabra and Shetilah, “Israel has lost its soul.” Israel is doing to others what was done to Jews by others for hundreds of years. That does not make it right. An eye for an eye only leads to a world full of half-blind people.
Pistol-Packing August 1st, 2014 at 3:53 pm
yes, but when many of the “Half Blind People” are trying to kill you on a daily basis, you tend to turn that Blind Eye
bahlers August 1st, 2014 at 4:56 pm
They are unhappy that Israel is defending themselves from the terrorist controlled Palestine? If not for the Iron Dome protecting the civilians that Hamas is targeting, the death toll of Israeli civilians would be in the tens of thousands. Hamas only targets civilians, whereas Israel only targets strategic military targets.
cvryder2000 August 1st, 2014 at 5:00 pm
Like a school full of kids and women, or a hospital? Take your propaganda somewhere else.
bahlers August 1st, 2014 at 5:04 pm
If Hamas truly cared for it’s people, they would stop building tunnels underneath hospitals or stashing rockets and other weapons in schools.
OldLefty August 1st, 2014 at 5:15 pm
And the other side says that ‘If Likud truly cared for it’s people, they would firing on hospitals or schools.’
I often find that those who are not conflicted in these issues would be behaving EXACTLY like those they love to hate if they were in their positions.
OldLefty August 1st, 2014 at 5:12 pm
Neither side can claim the moral high ground here.
AmusedAmused August 1st, 2014 at 2:47 pm
The piece to which you linked had numerous problems with it. Not the least of which was the assertion that modern anti-semitism has nothing to do with the old, “bad” anti-semitism, and is in fact inspired by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — which, of course, calls into question the oft-repeated claim that anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism. Plus, the suggestion that the Holocaust “narrative” does not explain the founding of the State of Israel skirts perilously close to the blatantly anti-Semitic claim that Jews engineered the Holocaust in order to get Israel. (Personally, if I were to engineer the wholesale slaughter of 6 million of my own people, I would settle for nothing less than Spain. Why in God’s name would I want a tiny sliver of the Middle East that is mostly desert and has no natural resources?)
R.J. Carter August 1st, 2014 at 2:50 pm
A little “rebranding” fixes everything, doesn’t it?
KABoink_after_wingnut_hacker August 1st, 2014 at 5:05 pm
I’ve been around for over 6 decades and see Bibi as man incapable of seeking peace. Israel has stepped over a line this time and I find myself agreeing with these young millennials and much of the civilized world.
mea_mark August 1st, 2014 at 5:28 pm
This is a classic two wrongs don’t make a right scenario. What Israel is doing at this point can not be entirely justified by the actions of Hamas. I hope the leadership in Israel is replaced by those that aren’t so easy to use such military power to solve their problems. Israel needs leaders with compassion that want to help their neighbors and to live in peace.
Budda August 1st, 2014 at 9:11 pm
Millennials are not “infected” by the stain of the Holocaust. They see todays horrors objectively for what they are.
Kasoy August 4th, 2014 at 4:23 pm
Millenials support the extremists instead of Israel? Maybe they like to try living in an Islamic nation for a couple of months. Bring with them some gay friends & women’s right activists. Assuming they are still free or alive, they can try going to Israel & see which place is better to live out their liberals ideas.
LT Fang August 10th, 2014 at 2:32 am
I will only support Israel when they dismantle illegal settlements in land that does not belong to them.
On the other hand, I hope to see Hamas vanquish.