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Zack Polanski says application of Zionism is racist and no state has right to exist (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) by Armand1@lemmy.world to c/unitedkingdom@feddit.uk

36 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I broadly agree with Zack Polanski here. I'm glad he's taken a stance.

I'm not sure about "no state has the right to exist", but whatever.

all 38 comments

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[-] bitteroldcoot@piefed.social 102 points 6 days ago

"Asked by the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg whether he thought Zionism was racist, Polanski said: “I don’t think this is actually controversial.

“What’s controversial is that 75,000 Palestinians have been murdered in the last few years, including more child amputees than ever in modern history. So when you take that to account, the fact that they’re being murdered because they’re Palestinian – that’s very obviously a racist ideology.”

He added: “I think Zionism is racism in the practical application of it. Now the conference had a debate about the motion, about the word. I said I think debates about words are unhelpful, and I still think that.”

"Asked whether he believed Israel had a right to exist, Polanski, who is Jewish, said: “I don’t think any state has a right to exist under international law,” adding that the idea of a two-state solution was “for the birds” given Israel’s opposition to it."

[-] Armand1@lemmy.world 21 points 6 days ago

Ah, I should have posted a summary, I forgot, thanks.

[-] maniacalmanicmania@aussie.zone 1 points 6 days ago

You can edit rhe titles, images and text of posts if you need to add more context after posting.

[-] Armand1@lemmy.world 4 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Yes, but now that this person had done it I didn't want to duplicate their work and have people see it all twice.

[-] tomatosametomato@piefed.zip 3 points 5 days ago

We don't do karma here. That person spent some of their time to inform us, which means they want more people to see it. I don't think you'll duplicating their work, rather you'll be relaying it.

[-] maniacalmanicmania@aussie.zone 4 points 6 days ago

It's your call. If someone points out in the comments something that will improve a post I will edit it in, while thanking and crediting the commentor. More people will see the post text that any particular comment. Anyway, I only mentioned it in case you didn't know about post editing.

[-] jimmy90@lemmy.world -4 points 5 days ago

waiting for the Islamism is racist vote... any time now

no state has a right to exist is a risky one lol

[-] answersplease77@lemmy.world 7 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

Yes what ISIS did was as racist as Zionism. They brought Islamists from around the world and went on to ethnically cleanse and occupy the land of everyone who was not Islamist in Iraq and Syria because their book said so. That shit did not have the right to exist just like how Zionist Israel brings Jews from around the world and ethnically cleanse Palestinians for them because their book said so.

[-] yeahiknow3@lemmy.world 51 points 6 days ago

States have no rights. People have rights.

[-] decolo@piefed.social 40 points 6 days ago

holy based

States are made up. Borders are violence

Keep it up Mr Polanski

[-] TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 15 points 6 days ago

Artificial nonhuman entities don't have inherent rights.

[-] Funkt4st1c@lemmy.world 11 points 6 days ago

I had a hard time watching Falcon and Winter soldier because i agreed with the bad guys too much. Borders are dumb and exist to promote violence and nothing else.

[+] Mulligrubs@lemmy.world -26 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

"borders are dumb"

But you keep borders yourself. We all do.

Why you doing something so dumb? Or, can I just climb into your bed and take a shit?

[-] just_an_average_joe@lemmy.dbzer0.com 23 points 6 days ago

For pretty much the entireity of our existence, we didn't have borders. The modren notion of borders is intrinsically linked with the nation state.

And you are conflating borders with boundaries in your later sentence.

[+] some_random_nick@lemmy.world -19 points 6 days ago

Disagreed. Animals have teritories, which are essentially borders. We just evolved the means to make them somewhat permanent.
Doesn't mean we have to keep it that way for the rest of our existance as a species.

[-] echodot@feddit.uk 13 points 6 days ago

I can't decide whether or not you actually believe that or you're just being pseudo intellectual for the bit.

In nature animals have territories but it's extremely common for those two shift and flow with the seasons.

But also animals don't have internal plumbing or electricity yet we have those things, so I don't really see why "what animals do" as being particularly relevant.

[-] some_random_nick@lemmy.world -4 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

OP stated:

For pretty much the entireity of our existence, we didn't have borders. [...]

Please point me towards a part of our existance where we didn't have any types of borders. I deliberatly went all the way back to our beginnings as a species to point out that even then borders existed in some form.

As for the "shift and flow" part, I clearly stated:

[...] We just evolved the means to make them somewhat permanent. [...]

So, what exaclty is there pseudo-intellectual in my statement?

Edit: Here is a source to back up my claims.
Alexander C. Diener, Joshua Hagen. Borders: a very short inteoduction (2012), page 19, bottom half:

The earliest humans lived within small bands of nomadic foragers, know as hunter-gatherers. Migrations of these groups were generally patterned by changing seasons and enviromental conditions that affected the availability of food and other resources. Given their nomadic way of life, one might assume these early peoples lacked notiins of borders, territoriality, or land ownership. Yet research on contemporary hunter-gathere groups strongly suggests that these prehistoric humans possessed surprisingly elaborate tertitorial arrangements.

The passage isn't very long and anybody can sail the high seas to read for themselves.
There are exceptions, as with anything in life, but it seems that borders did in fact exist since the dawn of humans.

[-] LavaPlanet@sh.itjust.works 11 points 6 days ago

That's a bit extremist. Jump straight to the hoards of invaders waiting to shit in your bed (let's not talk about how suspiciously specific that is). That's the type of fear mongering being evoked by certain cults purporting propaganda, currently.

Why not instead imagine your boarders are just bigger, and there's just more people in your community, to work as a community together, pooling resources and looking after each other.

People are all just people, one pool of people on the other side of boarders, aren't magically malicious, just because they're on the other side. People aren't born evil and out to get you (as long as you don't count the 1%).

If people are desperate for a bed to shit in (seriously, wtf are you up to in your spare time...wait, actually, don't tell me) why not give them one. Maybe hoarding resources was never a good idea, and if we all have enough beds to shit in, we can get on to doing the good work, parties.

[-] killingspark@feddit.org 1 points 6 days ago

we can get on to doing the good work, parties.

Will there be a bed at the party? I won't come if there isn't a bed. I might need to take a shit later.

[-] rmuk@feddit.uk 2 points 5 days ago

That's fucking gross. What do you think the shower is for?

[-] killingspark@feddit.org 1 points 5 days ago

That's for wafflestomping the shit you bring from the bedroom. What do you think the shower is for?!

[-] rmuk@feddit.uk 1 points 5 days ago

FOR WASHING YOUR FILTHY FEET AFTER WAFFLESTOMPING OBVIOUSLY!

[-] Funkt4st1c@lemmy.world 3 points 6 days ago

If you need to sleep in my house, be a polite guest and you are welcome. Otherwise i will remove you. That is all.

[-] Didntdoit71@feddit.online 7 points 6 days ago

Jesus...if only our American politicians had balls enough to say this.

[-] AI_toothbrush@lemmy.zip -4 points 5 days ago

I think states have a right to exist but not ethnostates. Even if its not states as we know them today, people need some sort of system to organize under tho i think its mainly a geographical thing.

[+] echodot@feddit.uk -11 points 6 days ago

Why does he always do this.

I agree with what he says up to a point, but then he always says something else and I'm like, no I don't agree with that bit, that bit is stupid.

It's like every time.

It just seems to be the green parties MO, it's like the stupid argument around nuclear power stations, with the green saying you can power everything with renewables, no you can't, of course you can't, stop saying that, it gives ammunition to the opposition when you say stupid things like that.

[-] yakko@feddit.uk 12 points 6 days ago

You threw me there, what can't be powered by renewables?

[-] echodot@feddit.uk 1 points 6 days ago

It's not about what can't be powered by renewables it's that everything can't be powered by renewables all of the time.

The big advantage of nuclear power is that it works 24/7, it doesn't produce pollution, it's wasted by product is something that can be dealt with and doesn't have any environmental impacts, and it's well understood technology that has worked for nearly 100 years now and we'll still be reliable into the future. It gives us a nice stable based work from.

People are so scared of nuclear power because they don't understand it, and so the Greens have taken the stands that there against it too. Not only does that risk our energy security but it's pandering to ignorance something no party should be doing let of all the greens that are supposed to be progressive.

[-] killingspark@feddit.org 5 points 6 days ago

it doesn't produce pollution, it's wasted by product is something that can be dealt with and doesn't have any environmental impacts,

Germany would like a word about that. We do not know how to deal with the waste, we don't even know how to properly store it until we figure out what to do with it.

Also: obviously mining uranium comes with a lot of pollution with massive environmental impact.

[-] Magnum@infosec.pub 4 points 5 days ago

Hey he said no the glowing stuff is safe

[-] keylemmypie@reddthat.com 3 points 5 days ago

Batteries have sorted that. We just haven't installed enough yet. The combination of renewables and batteries is better than nuclear by every metric.

[-] crapwittyname@feddit.uk 1 points 5 days ago

Uranium has better energy density than any battery.

[-] keylemmypie@reddthat.com 1 points 2 days ago

And the density of the space needed to produce energy with it vs a battery?

[-] crapwittyname@feddit.uk 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

The density of space? I don't follow. 1kg of uranium produces about 10^7 times more energy than 1kg of lithium batteries.
Uranium is denser than batteries too, so 1kg of uranium takes up less volume than 1kg of batteries. Is that what you meant?
Edit: sorry I was being slow. Yes, since uranium is 10 million times more energy dense than batteries, the infrastructure will be smaller than that of batteries for the same amount of energy.

[-] yakko@feddit.uk 2 points 6 days ago

That's fair enough, my only reservation with nuclear is how much runway it needs for rollout, I know some firms have wanted to standardise with a basic unit of nuclear power sort of thing, but that's also taking a long time. I've also seen promising work done in cheap grid storage, so for my money that's going to be a better "decarbonise immediately, if not sooner" solution.

But nuclear is fine too imo, long-term. Didn't the greens evolve slightly on that too? I think I heard they're just going to treat it as another option to weigh on the merits, which is probably their way of saying "we're not NIMBYs, but it doesn't beat wind and solar".

[-] rmuk@feddit.uk 5 points 5 days ago

I agree with what he says up to a point, but then he always says something else and I'm like, no I don't agree with that bit, that bit is stupid.

Well, if your comment isn't a self-illustrative example of this I'm not sure what is.

this post was submitted on 18 Oct 2026

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