263 Comments
User's avatar
Quinn Chasan's avatar

It’s funny that even zizek just parrots the culture war talking points on this topic, just dressed up and preceded by some wandering notions about Truth. There’s almost nothing in here I haven’t seen condensed into a twitter screed

chantelle Karttunen's avatar

If the psychoanalyst tells this to his patient too early, the patient will dismiss it as irrelevant.

Quinn Chasan's avatar

I'm not even dismissing the claims. Many of them are valid points. It's just an interesting development. Zizek did not do that 5-10y ago. I would think that he could add a bit more value to the discussion

Lidija P Nagulov's avatar

I also am curious what new brave territory this discussion should delve into. Considering this very basic point is still being actively denied by all western governments.

Bram Reichbaum 🌠's avatar

The unstated point which would interest me is, how are the methods by which Israel forged its state (its watershed occurring in 1948, though begun well prior and made to reaffirm itself long after) significantly different from the processes which forged most if not all states? If we indict Israel for the mode of its genesis, how many other states would we need to indict for the same without reference to any inane suggestions such as how boats are morally inferior to horses? And, do we perpetually single out Israel for that unremarkable origin and mode of maintenance mainly because a) fewer people can relate to its inhabitants and because b) its watershed occurred at a moment half the world benefited politically from a cause célèbre that was a seeming microcosm of all their situations, and thereupon used it as scaffolding to erect a variety of institutions which still comprise what passes for international order?

Asms's avatar

we should also treat the US as an especially genocidal case. We should absolutely condemn all european powers who engaged in colionalism, and demand reparations. The problem is, most legacies of colonialism are now transformed into a global system of finance, so it becomes difficult to accuse those same nations of currently committing genocide in the same way. the same isn't true for Israel: they're doing it currently, brazenly, for all to see.

Bram Reichbaum 🌠's avatar

How about China, and Russia? They certainly did not grow to be those considerable sizes without subjugating a lot of neighbors along the way.

Sean Grimes Mcdonough's avatar

Is that not the exact type of Notion that is causing the issue here? The idea of being able to 'discuss' what comprises 'true' and 'false' is the foundation of the system of lies that zizek is denouncing here. The reality is that despite what post-modernists would have you believe, unlike most things in life, true and false are diametrically oppositional.

What more would you like him to explain? There is not much discussion to be made about the denial of reality.

It's hard to expand a discussion when the discussion should never have been a necessary one in the first place.

Hannah's avatar

Hi, if you liked/disliked this essay, please spare something for this family. Their campaign is recourse against death by starvation. It represents 16 at the moment, due to the killing of a family member, and combined families. They need a bare minimum of roughly $240 daily, or $132 after a 45% ‘commission’. A kilo of attainable lentils is about $45. They live in a northern Gaza City. Take a look at their timeline. Reshare their posts to your followers/trusted friends/family for visibility. Send them a word of your support. Thank you.

Campaign: https://chuffed.org/project/130948-help-wael-feed-his-displaced-family-of-9

Social media: https://x.com/Wael_shabat

Ry's avatar

most people don’t have the attention span for much else so why not play to the crowd. he’s merely responding to a culture which is oversaturated by it as well, so either way it’s the elephant in the room.

Luís Magalhães's avatar

Sure... We are all waiting for your brilliant insights...

Martin Boober's avatar

It literally reads like someone fed the standard talking points into ChatGPT and said “rewrite this in the style of Zizek”

Alastair Leith's avatar

literally? what’s your point even? nothing.

Kaïna Tamazight's avatar

SZ is the court jester of the European left. Like the court jester he is allowed to tell the truth, but he's always telling a joke with the truth and the truth with a joke. I frankly find him annoying, but he is probably 30 IQ points above most journalists and professors.

JG Wentworth's avatar

Compared to the nuance you yourself bring to the topic, which is...?

Kevin Citron's avatar

you still responded, kikey

luis2090's avatar

For real? You mean is not him writing? Or you mean someone else collected his writing and post it here?

Middle Aged Moderate's avatar

This post is a good reminder of why Zizek is highly overrated as a public intellectual. It was neither a brave nor a true post. Rather, it ignored the numerous wars the Palestinians started against Israel and the genocidal aspirations of Hamas. And as with an Islamic extremists, Hamas fully intends to export its terror and fanatical to the West. Only someone as vapid as Zizek could write about October 7 while ignoring the brutal and obvious reality of Hamas.

BF's avatar

This reply is a good reminder of why all Zionists are lying thieving shit-heels who exist on an alternate plane of reality where every inconceivable sin they've ever committed is memory-holed for eternity.

Maybe you can start any debate you might have with why Israel did not exist on any map until 1948. And that only came about after settlers raped and murdered their way through the very Palestinian people who had taken them in as refugees of their own persecution.

Fuck all of you, and fuck Israel.

It's over for you now. We've seen too much of what lies behind the mask…

Czarny Kot's avatar

how do you suppose hamas will export its terror to the west?

Jacqueline's avatar

Mamdani and company.

Guinevere's avatar

please, update me when Mamdani orders a terror attack on US soil, i'll wait.

Asms's avatar

text book case of how capitalist thieves join hands with racists to scare workers away from advocating for their self interest

Asms's avatar

found the paranoid xenophic bigot. get a grip. you'll be happier

Andre's avatar

One can write about this without any consideration of Hamas.

Maycon Amoroso's avatar

Mais do mesmo: seu comentário só mostra sua vontade e crença na “vitimização histórica” do povo judaico. Há anos que Israel segue uma cartilha que é similar ao genocídio sofrido pelo seu próprio povo. Sim, Israel é e sempre será um estado genocida, prepotente e indiferente a própria história. Alguns aprendem e melhoram com os fatos históricos e outros, como Israel, apenas recriam por raiva, preconceito e necessidade de eterna auto afirmação e vitimização o que ja passaram, mas de forma mais cruel e sangrenta.

Luis Adolfo Báez's avatar

Fortunately, at this point in history, most people can see through those talking points of stale propaganda that people like you keep repeating—now without even much conviction. Israel still has the capacity to massacre and terrorize its region, but Zionist fascism has lost everywhere else in the world.

Wer Der's avatar

Come on ! Are you setious? Read the history.

Daas Yochid's avatar

Have you been drinking the Jackson Hinkle kool-aid? Jewish bodies were burnt on October seventh.

Looking forward to the Zizek holohoax post next, I guess.

Denis P. Gill's avatar

Most of them were burned by US supplied Apache helicopters on the Hannibal Directive, which mandates the IDF to kill Jews rather than allow them to become prisoners of Palestinian forces. Even the Israeli media admits this.

Daas Yochid's avatar

Please tell me how the Israeli Apache helicopters killed the Bibas children and paraded with their coffins in a sick spectacle.

Sera's avatar

They didn’t. That’s obvious. That family were apparently victims of US bombs dropped from US Jets.

Sera's avatar

Apart from their deep religious and cultural laws against harming children and women*, it makes no sense to take hostages, at great cost, and then kill them. Hostages are currency in a war against occupation. They were taken to exchange, not to exterminate.

*remember that all of the accusations of mass rape and baby beheadings have proven to be lies. This prompts the question: What kind of people would make up lies like this? What kind indeed.

Daas Yochid's avatar

I'm going to assume you are joking.

Dean McInerney's avatar

No you ignoramus they arent

Daas Yochid's avatar

Yeah. Fact check false.

Michael's avatar

Obvious facts like this don’t register with these people. Filled as they are with hatred, fury and an erotic pleasure in mass slaughter, their “feelings” are all they care about.

Czarny Kot's avatar

Israel literally funded Hamas because they thought it would be a “controlled flame” that would allow them an enemy that could not be a negotiating partner so they would never have to grant Palestinian statehood. that tactic literally blew up in their faces on October 7 and the response has been, to say the least, incredibly disproportionate

BF's avatar

Have you been sleeping under a rock?

IDF Commanders admitted to the Hannibal Directive being executed on October 7th, killing the majority of Israelis fleeing the festival, and extending into the kibbutz shortly after.

No beheaded babies in ovens. No raping of women or opening of their wombs. Just more of the same from the lying, thieving Zionists who hold utter contempt for all life in their maniacal and obsessive dogma.

What an utterly grim existence awaits you all…

SwedishPartisan's avatar

Jackson Hinkle was one of the only western voices brave enough to speak the truth in the immediate aftermath of oct 7. Without him many - like you - would still be fooled today

Daas Yochid's avatar

Lol. He celebrated the death of the Bibas kids.

Perlina's avatar

What’s your opinion about Ben Gvir?

David Bennett's avatar

You made a grievous error in your partial quote from Mark Regev, when you implied that none of the burned bodies were Israelis. Regev did not say that it turned out that the burned bodies were Hamas. He said that it turned out the 200 of the 1,400 were Hamas. 1,200 were Israelis.

Yuri Kruman's avatar

Why all the bullshit about truth-seeking, when all you’re seeking is every Hamas and Israeli leftist lie you can use to demonize Israel and Jews? This somehow makes you original? You live in an academic’s universe far removed from our reality here in Israel. If you actually gave a damn about truth, you would come see Kibbutz Beeri and Aza with your own eyes, instead of spouting bold lies fed by your fellow terror apologists. Sad, but all too predictable. And cowardly as hell.

Alastair Leith's avatar

the world sees you now. it’s never going to be the same with your lies and propaganda, it’s lost its effect.

Yuri Kruman's avatar

<yawn>, Alastair Lie-eth.

Asms's avatar

conflating critque of the israli govt with anyone who identifies as Jewish, is THE obvious strawman that you're getting called out for, btw

Timothy Wong 息機散人's avatar

Note that as recently as 2013 when Donald Sasson wrote the following review of Shlomo Sand's "The Invention of the Land of Israel" he is speaking of Israeli officials being tried at the ICC in figurative terms. In that time, Israeli officials have appeared at the ICJ, Swiss police are still seriously a request for an arrest warrant request made against President Herzog when he appeared at Davos, and the clearly biased and compromised ICC prosecutor Karim Khan is under pressure to get his finger out and actually prosecute the war crimes that occurring the glaring light of day. This pressure will only increase if the ICJ issues an injunction against Tel Aviv and if the case brought against the Biden gains traction.

"The "Land of Israel" is barely mentioned in the Old Testament: the more common expression is the Land of Canaan. When it is mentioned, it does not include Jerusalem, Hebron, or Bethlehem. Biblical "Israel" is only northern Israel (Samaria) and there never was a united kingdom including both ancient Judea and Samaria.

Even had such a kingdom ever existed and been promised by God to the Jews, it is hardly a clinching argument for claiming statehood after more than 2,000 years. It is an irony of history that so many past Zionists, most of whom were secular Jews, often socialist, used religious arguments to buttress their case. Besides, the biblical account makes it quite clear (insofar as such accounts are ever clear) that the Jews, led by Moses and then by Joshua, were colonisers themselves and were commanded by God to exterminate "anything that breathes". "Completely destroy them – the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites – as the Lord your God has commanded you." Imagine if the Amorites came back and claimed their ancient land. If they did, this is what Deuteronomy 20 has to say: "Put to the sword all the men ... As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else ... you may take these as plunder for yourselves." Today, such an injunction would take you straight to the international criminal court."

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/apr/18/invention-land-israel-shlomo-sand

THE LEGAL CASE AGAINST JOE BIDEN FOR ENABLING ISRAEL’S GENOCIDE AGAINST GAZA

"We had an amicus brief go into our case in the U.S. proceedings, our case against Biden, by 77 human rights organizations, bar associations, international legal organizations that are committed to ensuring that the best of international law, the best of those principles, apply equally for the protection of all. And that brief warned about the real risk to the international legal order, and to humanity, if the United States continues down the course of action that it’s on, of fueling, rather than ending, a genocide.

It spoke about the fact that there would be a complete erosion of rights. And, as a Palestinian human rights defender that some of us know, Raji Sourani often says, “We either have the rule of law or the rule of the jungle.” And I think we are at that moment.

What was also important, though, about that amicus brief is it put in context how we got to this place that is a breaking point, and that it went back to the post-9/11 so-called “war on terror.” The United States’s embrace of torture regimes. embrace of so-called “targeted killings,” embrace of a global battlefield where it could bomb and shoot anyone who they considered a, quote, “terrorist,” with impunity and without explanation. Or where they can have a preventive, so-called “preventive” war against Iraq. A war by choice that led to a horrifying occupation with tremendously cruel and long lasting impacts for the Iraqi population and their country.

This is the context that we need to see to understand why a case at the International Court of Justice between South Africa and Israel is about much more than just the outcome in a judgment. It’s really about what kind of world we want to have, and is it going to be one where some powers have to comply with the law while punishing others who don’t. Or will it be a moment where the law will equally protect and hold the powerful to account?

Impunity breeds repetition and recurrence, and what we’ve seen from Israel with its military assaults on Gaza — in 2009, in 2012, in 2014, in 2018, in 2021 — is that each military assault they’ve gotten farther, been even more brutal, with more destruction, more death, and they’ve never had to pay a cost. And that is why, at this moment, we have at least 23,000 Palestinians who’ve been killed, 1.9 million who’ve been displaced, and so much of the infrastructure, including homes, destroyed in Gaza.

So, international law really needs, at this moment, to be given effect, or else we are in a point of a true lawlessness, and it will extend far beyond the occupied Palestinian territory in Israel, or even far beyond what the United States has done in black sites it over the years of the War on Terror. It really will be a lawlessness that will be global.

And I think when we see so much risk of the end of democracy, as we’ve been experiencing these last five, ten years, it’s really quite a concerning moment. A scary moment."

https://theintercept.com/2024/01/17/intercepted-gaza-israel-genocide-icj/

The Genocide of the Palestinian People: An International Law and Human Rights Perspective

https://ccrjustice.org/genocide-palestinian-people-international-law-and-human-rights-perspective

Israel’s Unfolding Crime of Genocide of the Palestinian People & U.S. Failure to Prevent and Complicity in Genocide

Emergency Legal Briefing Paper

https://ccrjustice.org/israel-s-unfolding-crime-genocide-palestinian-people-us-failure-prevent-and-complicity-genocide

The International Criminal Court must intervene to deter potential genocide in Gaza

In an open letter published on 19 October 2023, over a 100 genocide scholars, Palestinian and international civil society organisations call on Prosecutor Khan to issue arrest warrants, investigate Israeli crimes and intervene to deter incitement to commit genocide in Gaza.

https://www.fidh.org/en/region/north-africa-middle-east/israel-palestine/the-international-criminal-court-must-intervene-to-deter-potential

Open letter to the Assembly of State Parties regarding the ICC Office of the Prosecutor’s engagement with the Situation in Palestine

we demand the Assembly of State Parties to:

• Provide adequate political and financial support to the Court, ensure that the Prosecutor disburses resources on the basis of investigative needs as opposed to politically-motivated prioritization, and urge it to expedite its investigation into the Situation in Palestine.

• Investigate the adherence of the Prosecutor’s Office to ICSC Standards of Conduct, particularly in relation to impartiality, and non-discrimination.

• Investigate the conduct of the current prosecutor of the international criminal court, Karim Khan, and take appropriate measures in accordance with the mandate of the Assembly derived from Article 112 of the Rome Statute.

https://twailr.com/open-letter-to-the-assembly-of-state-parties-regarding-the-otps-engagement-with-situation-in-palestine/

Martin Greenwald, M.D.'s avatar

The truth about Gaza is that until the current residents are relocated, there won’t ever be peace. More people know this to be true than are willing to say it. A Palestinian state (Gaza and/or West Bank) is both practically unworkable and morally outrageous.

Geobep's avatar

Uh, because they're actually from there and not recent immigrants (unlike the Israelis). Makes more sense to move out the recent arrivals than the ones who've always been there.

Martin Greenwald, M.D.'s avatar

I’m not talking about what “makes more sense” as if all the parties were going to sit down at a table and work this out reasonably. I’m talking about forcibly moving people against their will because they can’t stop engaging in religiously-motivated violence.

Geobep's avatar

1) It's not "religiously motivated", Palestinian resistance is made up of both Muslims and Christians.

2) If they were so "prone to violence", why even establish a settlement movement to live among/next to them? And then have the chutzpah to request that the people living there already go somewhere else?

3) If you're entertaining the idea of forcibly moving people against their will, it's better to do that with those that largely have second passports owing to their recent arrival, rather than those who have known no other country.

Martin Greenwald, M.D.'s avatar

If I had a magic wand and could go back in time, I would have founded the new state of Israel almost anywhere in the world other than the Middle East. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to have your homeland be a place surrounded by people who hate you. But that’s not the world we live in and we have to deal with the reality we have. (As far as chutzpah goes, however, Hamas wins this one, since you can’t both use human shields and then cry over civilian casualties)

Kamas716's avatar

2) The Jordanians, Lebanese, and Egyptians would like to have a word with you.

Geobep's avatar

I wonder why they had to deal with Palestinian refugees in the first place.

Kamas716's avatar

Because the Egyptians foolishly decided to again deny a shipping lane to Israel and ordered all UNEF forces out of the area in preparation for another attack on Israel. When Israel preemptively attacked Egypt, the rest of the surrounding Arab countries joined in, and then got spanked for a third time, giving up even more territory. Or should I go back further?

Dean McInerney's avatar

Another ignoramus liar...

Asms's avatar

average "ethnic cleansing enjoyer" type comment

Mike Kay's avatar

The truth is that we once enjoyed a spirituality that was not a religion. We are told, nay, it is actually beaten into our heads that such was barbaric, primitive and wrong. However, it was the onset of religion, of this abrahamic ascendency that invented the religious war.

Truly, this has now become pathological, for religion to justify war even to atheists.

Socrates famously said that the purpose of philosophy is to convince one that the mass of humanity has utterly lost its mind.

Still true today.

ediblspaceships's avatar

“Socrates famously said that the purpose of philosophy is to convince one that the mass of humanity has utterly lost its mind.

Still true today.” 🎯

Jake RB's avatar

I live in Israel. Nobody here cares about a verse Netanyahu cited after October 7, and nobody here thinks the story of Amalek has implications for our time. Netanyahu is not a Rabi, and the bible is not even the beginning of the Jewish code of conduct. Do I even need to address the libelous nonsense at the end pushing the idea of some kind of religou-eugenics new movement in Israel? go educate yourself sir, and take a break from The Elders Of Zion.

Maiwand Nazary's avatar

"Barghouti is effectively perceived by millions as the Palestinian Mandela"

A simple google search will reveal the true nature of the terrorist Barghouti. Mr. Zizek is disingenuous and provides no solutions other than "Palestinians should have a state". Israelis also agree, but the question is not the state, but the nature of the state and mentality of Palestinians towards their own and towards the Israelis as their permanent neighbours.

The Chronicle of the Judean's avatar

Cute essay žiž. Floating in fantasy and preconceived notions which barely paper over the simultaneous awareness/ignorance of the fanatical hatred that is the core of the so-called Palestinian movement.

One asks: why is the Žiž supportive of the most fanatically right-wing political movement that exists on this planet? I thought he was a devout leftist? Did the Žiž buy into the horse and monkey show the murderous Islamists put on? Or is he content to be mark of the con game like so many others ?

Asms's avatar

being against a genocidal state's actions, backed by a world superpower, is considered "right wing" to you? lol

Bill Canzoneri's avatar

A whole bunch of nothing, with some citations. What happened to Zizek

John's avatar

When Hamas and hundreds of Gazans attacked their neighbors (Israeli female soldiers and socialists and pacifists) they were not saying to themselves hey this is because of all the bad things Israel did to us and we can maybe use this to get a Palestinian state (which they already have in Gaza, Israel having left in 2005). They thought this is the Al Aqsa Offensive where we will retake the Al Aqsa mosque (in Jerusalem) and free it from the infidels (Israelis) who have occupied it. And the Gazans are taught since birth that the Nazis and Hitler got it right and that Jews and Israelis cause every war (including both world wars) and that Jews are "spawn of monkeys". In other words the Gazans want a genocide.

Denis P. Gill's avatar

In reality, the so called "two state solution" was never anything more than buying time for the Zionists to eat up what was left of Palestine. The job is nearly done now. There is no basis for a Palestinian state. The only Progressive position is to call for a single state, from the river to the sea, where everyone has equal rights and an equal vote. There are 7.5 million Jews - and 7.5 million Muslims. So a "Jewish State" is a complete fantasy - just as much as a Palestinian state is. What we need is an end to Apartheid. Calling for anything less is really just supporting reactionary backwardness.

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Feb 2, 2025
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Geobep's avatar

All Arab countries outside of the peninsula are multi-ethnic, and none feel the need to operate an apartheid system like Israel does.

Ivy's avatar

The gulf states??? Migrant workers? Foreign spouses taking 18yrs to get citizenship but 10 is Arab? Etc

Timothy Wong 息機散人's avatar

The disgusting spectacle of a recently remilitarized German state engaged in the most despicable and bloodthirsty forms of Genocide Denialism is especially damnable when considered within the German domestic political context in which a revived ultranationalism has been an ever-present danger for all of this century.

“It also exposes the deep-rooted white supremacy in German society. Indeed, the reaction of the German authorities to what is going on in Gaza demonstrates that they want to strengthen and solidify racist hierarchies in German society: white Germans at the top and people from “the Third World”, including victims of Israeli violence, at the bottom, doing in silence dirty menial jobs and being expected to show their gratitude and “integrate” into German society.

Covering up German anti-Semitism

But there is something even more pernicious about misrepresenting anti-Semitism in Germany as a foreign “import”, brought to the country by non-white immigrants. This increasingly popular lie obfuscates Germany’s brutal, anti-Jewish history and somehow dumps blame for the suffering of Jewish people onto Palestinians who are victims of a European racist, settler-colonial regime.

It also covers up the German society’s anti-Semitic present. Anti-Jewish sentiment still persists in Germany. According to official statistics, the vast majority of documented anti-Semitic incidents are committed by the political right.

It is not coincidental that the far-right party AfD has reached an all-time peak in popularity in recent weeks. According to polls from mid-December, it is now standing at 23 percent, second only to the right-wing CDU and far ahead of any of the parties in the current governing coalition.

AfD representatives have glorified German ethno-nationalism and downplayed the crimes of the Nazi regime while consistently insisting that immigrants are anti-Semitic and demanding that the federal government prioritise combatting “imported anti-Semitism”.

This combination of Zionism and toxic German nationalism may further fuel racist violence against minorities, including the Jewish community.

Germany’s anti-Palestinianism needs to be viewed not as a reaction to, but rather a continuation of, Germany’s racist crimes. Palestinians and other victims of Israeli and German violence have never been considered human enough.

Like Germany’s colonial genocides and its support for apartheid in South Africa and racist regimes elsewhere – which never received sufficient attention in public discourse – its role in the genocide in Palestine upholds racist hierarchies and its own self-image as a “civilised” and “morally superior” nation.

The German-backed slaughter of Palestinians thus serves to strengthen the fantasies of white, ethnic German supremacy.”

https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2024/1/7/why-is-germany-so-viciously-anti-palestinian

Jurgen Habermas has damned himself to be banished into the history of genocidal infamy.

“we are deeply troubled by the apparent limits of the solidarity expressed by the authors. The statement’s concern for human dignity is not adequately extended to Palestinian civilians in Gaza who are facing death and destruction. Nor is it applied or extended to Muslims in Germany experiencing rising Islamophobia. Solidarity means that the principle of human dignity must apply to all people. This requires us to recognize and address the suffering of all those affected by an armed conflict.

(…)

We are concerned that there is no mention of upholding international law, which also prohibits war crimes and crimes against humanity such as collective punishment, persecution, and the destruction of civilian infrastructure including schools, hospitals and places of worship. Being guided by principles of international legal standards, solidarity and human dignity compels us to hold all participants in the conflict to this higher standard.

We cannot allow the atrocities to force us to abandon these principles.”

https://publicseminar.org/2023/11/a-response-to-principles-of-solidarity-a-statement/

Gladwyn d'Souza's avatar

In this case we see the media carry the message and the consequence- Israel lied Palestinians died. Often we don’t see, Washington lied Falujaians died. Or it’s obscured, Washington lied, East Timor, Nicaragua, Haiti died. Why postmodernist analysis when the psychos own the media and the white settler tells the story?