I have not read his essay yet, but stillā¦
I mean, were Jewish (and Christian, and non-dominant Muslims) subjects of empires like the Ottoman āsecond classā in the sense of having a different set of laws, laws about dress, etc, but same for the Jewish experience IN Europeā¦ the Ottomans certainly favored Sunni (and in some cases Sufi) Muslims, but religious communities often had much greater levels of autonomy than in Europe and were often LESS subject to mass violence and forced conversion, in part because the entire Ottoman system was financially underwritten by minority subjects. They paid a higher taxation and were freed from military obligations (with the exception of the Balkans, where young Christian boys were taken to the imperial core to be converted and trained as elite intellectuals and warriors - some of whom ended up running the empire at times)ā¦ When this system of religious rights changed, it was Christians, Jews, and other religious minorities who rioted over the changes, because it ended their autonomy and put them under direct control of the imperial core in all aspects of lifeā¦ Outcomes from Jews were often better in Islamic majority places, than in Christian empires, Iād argue. That doesnāt mean that there werenāt massacres or that they were āfreeā in how we understand the term, but they had protections often NOT in place in Europeā¦
But I think that, at least what Iāve seen from Coates in his interviews at least, is that whatever the history is, doesnāt EXCUSE whatās happening to Palestinians. Heās pushing back against the idea that the history of oppression that Jews experienced over their long history justifies apartheid. In that, he has a flat morality - itās always wrong and the history does not justify it. 
I donāt knowā¦ what do you think of this guyās argument, @chgolizā¦ I just donāt buy the āwell, itās complicated, so you canāt possibly understand and judgeā? Iām not Jewish or Muslim, or from either background, but I am well read on the history of the middle east, the Balkans, Europe, and the USā¦ The complicated way that Europeans moved to the US and ābecameā white (whatever their ethnic background) did not justify them embracing whiteness and participating in the subjugation of Black Americans, but that was often what happened.
Thanks for posting it!
The trouble is that for anyone who has spent a substantial amount of time in Israel or studying the history of the Middle East, the notion that Israel is either colonial or European is farcical.
The central thesis is this, and I donāt think it really attempts to justify it beyond pointing out that there are lots of non-European Israelis. Ok, but if itās that plainly also not colonial, whatās with all its attempts to expand by fencing in, starving, and massacring people in ways so incredibly reminiscent of colonial-settler states? Itās simply not discussed. Instead we are told that the narrative plays into the hands of villains like Iran. So maybe the truth is more complicated than Coates gives it, but this just seems like whitewashing it.
There absolutely are, and there absolutely been waves of displacement since the founding of Israel of Jews in the Middle East and from Ethiopia, as well (which I know that @chgoliz knows a lot about). If Iām remembering correctly, this often followed on from various wars with Israel, even before or right after. However, ever single PM has been Ashkenazim. In fact, I think Bibi has mixed background, but heās the only one. So, sure the population is majority not of European background, but who holds the actual power in the countryā¦ thatās a more important question, Iād think. I think that certainly indicates that Israel has a larger race problem. And if weāre going to draw another parallel, the invitation of Jews of color to participate in the oppression of Palestinians in order to āproveā their fitness for citizenship is very similar to proving whiteness via embracing racism in the USā¦
Agreed.
Also, doesnāt Iran have the largest Jewish population outside of Israel in the ME now?
Now that population is WAY down to what it used to be, but the populations in other parts of the ME are much lower, in some cases, officially zero.
My interest in the article was that it argued against viewing Israel from either a U.S. or Euro lens, which I think is a helpful piece of the puzzle, but of course is not the full explanation. Most people who are not from the Middle East or scholars of its history are not going to know how diverse were the various civilizations there, over different periods of time: racially, politically, religiously, economically, etc. Which then is a crucial blindspot when trying to understand how the countries are currently interacting. Iāll bet you that many/most people from the U.S. have no idea there are African Jews in Israel, for example. And they donāt realize the thousands of years of shifting war and domination scenarios that feed into current interactions.
If anything, I would say the ācolonialismā of Israel ā encroaching further and further into land that was not part of the original agreement in 1947, nor even the 1967 war ā is more like Russia trying to take over Ukraine, where the national borders in a region used to be different until a change was politically agreed up, but then were taken back forcefully instead of through diplomacy. Because all these populations have been in the region and have been living under various official borders for thousands of years, so whose land is it really? Not the same thing as leaving a continent and going elsewhere, claiming a country/people to now be under your jurisdiction.
Sorry, Iām actually juggling a lot today and keep getting interrupted, so Iām not sure Iām being clear here.
You are! 
Sure, I think itās absolutely true that most people (who are not Jewish or from the region) are not aware of much of thatā¦ but at the same time, much of the structures weāre talking about (especially the entire concept of a ethno-nation-state) are western impositions on the rest of the world. Israel draws its legitimacy from that deeper history of Jewish oppression, but Israel is a fully modern invention that works along the logic of European ideas of modern states - and thatās true all over the world now. The expectation is that you have a people who belong on a particular piece of land, and that those claims to land have some ancient and immutable basis. So, we do need better education on these realities, but as Maj. Kira saidā¦
Knowing Coates, I think this is largely his argumentā¦ I know YOU are not making that argument, but I think that this guy drifts into that argument a bitā¦ or at least, heās trying to muddy the clear moral line Coates is laying down. I doubt Coates is saying that he feels like he understands all that complex history, but is responding to the facts on the ground, which is certainly an apartheid stateā¦
Maybe soā¦ but of course, Putinās claims to Ukraine is a ethnographic fiction. But they certainly share a view that expansion is based on the rights of some to dominate others.
Absolutely, I think youāre (and the writer) do make a strong argument for not just viewing it through the lens of Euro-centrism, but through the regional historyā¦ but that regional history is also hopelessly bound up with European history, at least since the Crusades if not before. As Edward Said argued, Europe made its identity in conversation and conflict with the Near East since that time. Europeans (and as a result, often Americans) often have understood themselves in contrast and contradiction to the ME. Orientalism informs whiteness as much as anti-Blackness does, I think.
How we have that conversation in a soundbite world, I donāt know, but far too many white Americans are loath to meaningfully interrogate how we come to our identities, and itās something that could be our downfall. We keep trying to get there in our society, and reactionary forces (right now MAGA and Trump) keep trying to drag us back to some time where we do not question our whiteness at allā¦ Much like refusing to question capitalism will kill us, so will our inability to face our racial identity head on and change it.
I feel like this is an incredibly salient point. The USA is a multi-ethnic state too. There are white people, black people, Hispanic people, Asian people, and of course indigenous people. But that every president except one has been a white man still tells you a lot about its politics.
Mixing up Jews, Israelis, and the Israeli government has always been a way to muddy the situation. So of course Judaism has an incredibly long history in the region, but how much do the actions of the government reflect that, versus new ideals imported along with immigrants from Europe? Iām not convinced there hasnāt been a sharp turn in its politics influenced by colonialism just because the other people are still living there.
Indeed! And if the guy were arguing that non-European Jews often get ignored, I totally agree with that. But Iām not sure thatās what heās really arguing. He seems to be arguing that no one who isnāt Jewish can possibly understand the history, but his history seems to be from the POV that the Jewish people are only to be understood via the lens of oppression and suffering and arguing for the uniqueness of that position, which isā¦ problematic? Itās the strongly ethnocratic view of history thatās often employed by nationalists of various stripes. Thatās often been employed as a means to argue for the rightness of using violence as a form of āself-defenseā that often drifts right into justifying violence against others preemptively.
Ukraine was part of the USSR until 1991. Thatās what I mean about shifting political borders. Putin trying to ātake it backā is not the same thing as the British Empire lording it over India. (Not that itās any less wrong.)
Think of Poland, which has been carved up to be part of everything from Lithuania, Austria, Prussia, Russia, to Germany, depending on the politics of the time. A part of what is currently Poland (Pomerania) is filled with ethnic Germans, still.
I think, if weāre going to use European comparisons, these examples would be more accurate to describe what Israel has been doing to extend its borders (onto land which has had Palestinians, Jews, and many others living there for thousands of years, except for the period of time when Jews were expelled to other parts of the world) than European colonialism impacting other parts of the world.
So thatās the part I agree with in the article: that European colonialism ā situations like India ā arenāt useful for understanding whatās going on in the Middle East.
Sure, but some do make the argument that the Soviet Union itself was imperialistā¦ Plus, Putinās justification is less about that and more about making claims about ancient roots of Russian people in Kyiv rather than the actual history. Heās claiming that Ukraine was created by the Soviets, and hence is a distortion of ārealā history. Israeli hardliners make the same claims about Palestinians. At this point, most of the supporters of Greater Israel refuse to acknowledge that Palestinians even exist, using the term āArab populationā to describe them instead. of course ALL modern national identities are modern constructions. That does not make them automatically suspect or good, but we should understand a national identity through that lens, I think. But most people just accept the ānaturalnessā of their national identity and donāt think much about how this state of affairs came aboutā¦
Agreedā¦ but central Europe has long been linguistically, ethnically, and religiously complicated, in part because the modern countries came out of previous multi-ethnic/linguistic/ sometimes religious empires. In the modern era, people moved around, often in response to state violence (ie such as Timothy Snyder argument about central Europe in Bloodlands). But in general, does the existence of a particular language group in one place necessarily translate to an ethnic appeal to a stateā¦ Up to the second world war, one major language group in central Europe was Yiddish, for example. Would it have made more sense to create a Jewish state in central Europe, given that history and who was being targeted by the Nazis?
Sure, I think thatās more than fair enoughā¦ but Coates is specifically comparing the situation in Israel with Jim Crow (it seems). I donāt know if heās comparing it directly to British colonization of Indiaā¦ US and South African colonization seems to be the direct comparison, and those were settler colonies (and still is, in the case of our own country). I suspect that the general public just conflates all the different kinds of imperialism into all the same thing.
Again, I have not read Coatesā essay yet, so I donāt know how heās making the comparison, but for him, seeing what Palestinians face is very similar to what his parents and grandparents lived through. If thatās just a byproduct of European imperialismā¦ I donāt know, but itās part of the whole constellation of race that shaped the modern era, for sure.
[ETA] Also, it strikes me that Zionism is itself a modern, European movement anywayā¦ I donāt know if there was a ME statehood movement among Jews in the middle east (maybe you know some of that history?)? But most people in the world were used to living in imperial, bureaucratic states, and the nationalism developed in Europe was very much a challenge to those states, both within and without Europe. Europeans themselves very much pushed nationalist movements across the 19th century for their own ends (mostly destabilizing the Ottomans). In some cases, that push against empires was recognized by locals for what it was - an imperialist attack on the stability of their governments.
Two Israeli tanks ādestroyedā the main gate of a United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) position in the south of the country this morning, UNIFIL says.
