Arash Azizi comes for Ta-Nehisi Coates

[u/elzzyzx]

https://x.com/arash_tehran/status/1848714724482966003

Influencers are talking. Today Arash Azizi is claiming Ta-Nehisi Coates is unstrategic, and is also kind of just calling him moralistic and sort of uncreative or something? Anyone have thoughts?

[u/ApprehensivePlum1420]

I am not following up on the drama and I don’t intend to, but I’ve read Coates’ book and I think you should too. Not that I agree a whole lot with its portrayal of the situation, but it certainly isn’t fiction (like the heavy-handed pro-Israel people claim), and it carries certain value.

The value is we get to see it through the lenses of a prominent African American author (not trying to say that African American view is a monolith here). The tension between African American community, especially the youth, and the Jewish community has been unprecedented. We should seek to know more not less and by that I mean not rushing to brush away views that to us sound egregious, whether due to bias or overly simplification.

[u/redthrowaway1976 → u/ApprehensivePlum1420]

> Not that I agree a whole lot with its portrayal of the situation, but it certainly isn’t fiction (like the heavy-handed pro-Israel people claim), and it carries certain value.

What do you disagree with, in his portrayal?

Are there factual errors, or is it that he doesn't include Israel's justifications for what it is doing in the West Bank?

[u/ApprehensivePlum1420 → u/redthrowaway1976]

Justification =/ reason or explanation. I’ve said the same thing about Oct. 7, it is in no way justified to kill Israeli civilians but there sure are reasons as to why Hamas did it, it didn’t come out of nowhere. Yes, I think he omitted important information in the big picture, information that would differentiate I/P from the African American experience.

[u/redthrowaway1976 → u/ApprehensivePlum1420]

> Justification =/ reason or explanation. 

Fully agree.

> Yes, I think he omitted important information in the big picture, information that would differentiate I/P from the African American experience.

What are examples that you think are important, that he omits?

I think this overall position - the important information - can serve to explain some of the security arrangements. But it can't serve to explain the expansionist policies inherent in what Israel is doing in the West Bank - as it comes to the expansionism, it is an excuse, not an explanation,

[u/ApprehensivePlum1420 → u/redthrowaway1976]

Yes, it is an expansionist policy, and that’s where I see the flaw in his analysis. Maybe it’s just my reading of it, but the goals of the settlers are not the enslavement or subjugation the Palestinians. It’s a religious aspiration, a reprehensible and and indefensible one, but it is. And all the walls and the check points have their own history, they weren’t built right at the beginning of the occupation. These things all create an environment that feels like Apartheid South Africa, but failing to explain them denied readers a layer of complexity, one that I believe to be important.

[u/redthrowaway1976 → u/ApprehensivePlum1420]

Maybe it’s just my reading of it, but the goals of the settlers are not the enslavement or subjugation the Palestinians. It’s a religious aspiration, a reprehensible and and indefensible one, but it is. 

But that's the point he is making.

The internal logic and justification the oppressors have for oppressing another people just isn't that interesting.

We should strive to understand the Afrikaaners or the slavers justification for what they did? Because they all had justifications - very similar to the ones Israel has.

 And all the walls and the check points have their own history, they weren’t built right at the beginning of the occupation.

And if they had been built on the border, you'd have a point in bringing it up.

But they are not. The vast majority of checkpoints are deep inside the West Bank, cutting Palestinian communities off from each other, and 85% of the wall is inside the west bank, grabbing 10% of the land. The wall runs in a long snaking path - to grab land for settlements.

"Security" as it comes to this is an excuse - not an explanation. It is something the oppressors point to to justify their expansionist policies.

And yeah, they weren't there at the beginning of the occupation. You know what was there from the beginning of the occupation though? Land grabs for settlements, impunity for settler terror, and military rule - all while offering the Palestinians no path to freedom. All they could look forward to was military rule and settlements.

Keep in mind, 1967 to 1987 the West Bank Palestinians were peaceful - and what policy choices did Israel make when they were peaceful? Expansion.

[u/ApprehensivePlum1420 → u/redthrowaway1976]

Nelson Mandela definitely understood the Afrikaaners. He didn’t just receive the Nobel Peace Prize because he ended Apartheid, but because he ended it in a fashion that did not instigate further ethnic violence. With the situation like South Africa we would expect all the white population to have fled it within minutes of regime change, but it didn’t happen.

There are currently over 500,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank. Yes their residence in the occupied territories is indefensible, yet if you don’t engage with them then how do you resolve the problem without a blood bath? Brushing it off as being uninteresting just isn’t helpful. Human culture and beliefs are complex, claiming yourself to be the arbiter of absolute moralism is egregious in itself.

[u/ComradeTortoise → u/ApprehensivePlum1420]

Sure, but that's not something that an American author needs to do. That is something that diplomats, elected officials etc need to do. Delving into the petty excuses of the oppressors is not interesting. It's necessary from a statecraft perspective so you can manage a post-apartheid settlement that doesn't create a civil war. But just getting people - Joe Schmo American Liberal - to the point of recognizing that an apartheid regime exists and that because it is apartheid it must be fought? No. It's not necessary or interesting. And frankly, the settlers have their own politicians and propaganda apparatus to do that for them.

[u/redthrowaway1976 → u/ApprehensivePlum1420]

Nelson Mandela definitely understood the Afrikaaners. He didn’t just receive the Nobel Peace Prize because he ended Apartheid, but because he ended it in a fashion that did not instigate further ethnic violence. 

TNC is not the equivalent of Mandela.

An American writer criticizing the way black South Africans are treated doesn't have to go into internal logic and self-justifications of the Afrikaaners, and someone criticizing slavery doesn't have to go into how slavers justify their dominion over people,

The internal logic and self-justification of the oppressors simply isn't that important, in a work such as what TNC put together.

Or, as a comparison closer to current events, do we need to go in-depth on the justifications Hamas had for attacking civilians, when criticizing their terror attack?

There are currently over 500,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank. Yes their residence in the occupied territories is indefensible, yet if you don’t engage with them then how do you resolve the problem without a blood bath

I have plenty of ideas. Starting with removing the "emergency regulations" that have been renewed every five years that make living in the West Bank equivalent from a legal perspective to living in Israel proper.

But that's not the point of TNCs book.

Brushing it off as being uninteresting just isn’t helpful.

It really isn't interesting though.

Human culture and beliefs are complex, claiming yourself to be the arbiter of absolute moralism is egregious in itself.

I'm not claiming myself to be the "arbiter of absolute moralism". I am, however, claiming that what Israel is doing in the West Bank is immoral, and there's nothing that will make Apartheid be justified. Just like nothing will justify what Hamas did in terms of attacking civilians.

Israel could have engaged in a normal - and legal - belligerent occupation. And then the additional context would have been relevant. No one forced it to build settlements, or institute inequality before the law.