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This whole ‘Jewish indigeneity’ rhetoric is going to fall like a house of cards, and it will probably happen sooner than later. To think that some of the more well known J*itt*r Zi*nists did not try and use indigenous people’s day to push their propaganda is telling.*
*This is not to say that there aren’t indigenous people who aren’t Jewish, there are. Many of them exist. There are Palestinian Jews for example which Zionism only invokes to justify its settler state policies.
This Brownwashing rhetoric has weak points, many in fact. Deconstruct it the right way and you will easily see how it falls apart. It puts ‘Jews’ as a monolithic category just as traditional Zionism does, but instead of hegemonic YTness a false ‘Brownness’ is put in its place.
Same dynamics otherwise, but this rhetoric is essentially a [very poor] counter to the truth of Israel being a white Ashkenazi supremacist state. Not Ashkenazim as people but in how ‘Ashkenazi’ culture, customs, et cetera erase other Jewish cultures.
Despite integration into the settler class [nonBlack] non-European Jews still face intra-Jewish racism, economic and social marginalization, et cetera. They can mitigate the damage this causes them by active participation in the settler state apparatuses.
Dispossession of Palestinians on the ground is left up to ‘Brown’ Sephardim and Mizrahim who serve in the IOF, while the Ashkenazim essentially reap the benefits. Make no mistake though, all nonBlack Jewish Israelis are settlers all the same and complicit in settler violence.
Those who carry out settler violence are no less guilty just because their family may come from Yemen, Iraq, Morocco, Libya, Algeria, Iran, or elsewhere in West Asia and North Africa. They still receive benefits as settlers similar to the Ahusalim even if the Ahusalim rule.
To then hide this uncomfortable truth from the public liberal Zionism has adopted a ‘Brownwashing’ feature to compensate. They use nonBlack ‘PoC’ Jewish people to push this rhetoric, offering them a pedestal, social capital, et cetera in exchange for being a devout Hasbarist.
Usually they will have social media accounts talking about BLM, Standing Rock, LGBT+, defunding the police, et cetera, but when Palestine comes up they will talk about ‘left antisemitism’ almost automatically, or try to get people to feel sympathy for Israel’s settler class.
Rather than the old style of Hasbara which portrayed Israel as a hegemonic white western society this Hasbara portrays Israel as ‘just another country’ in the region, while still employing the racist rhetoric of ‘backwards Arab dictatorships’ as needed to differentiate Israel.
It will ultimately fall back on the same tropes as the previous Hasbara styles at the end of the day. Simply deal with it as such. Respect the fact that this rhetoric is dangerous and must be debunked quickly since it’s potential to cause damage is higher than regular Hasbara.
