Especially early on in the Iraq war it was considered anti-American to be critical of it. Of course, that doesn’t have the kind of baggage that anti-Semitism has, but I do think it’s being used in exactly the same way, and it’s just conveniently more effective because of the very real history (and present) of anti-Semitism and anti-Jewish violence. Where as (settler) America isn’t exactly an oppressed people
The typical English name for that is Canaan. There’s a lot of history surrounding that name in the Bible (OT, so shared by Jews, Christians, and somewhat accepted by Muslims too) and a lot of it not positive. I don’t think a lot of people would appreciate that association even though it’s likely based on myth.
Personally I don’t really see that Palestine is a bad name as it’s really just a name for the region and the only baggage it has is quite modern; Zionist Jews might prefer some acknowledgement of the land as Israel and so it would be tough to get them to accept something that doesn’t include that IMO
It’s still something you can argue should be done even if it’s not currently politically feasible. Things don’t always stay politically unfeasible, but they usually don’t get pushed in that direction by people not making that argument in public.
My utopian take would be that Israel should become fundamentally secular, remove references to being a ‘Jewish state’, grant all Palestineans citizenship and full rights, and perhaps change the name - a lot of people would say that should just be called Palestine, but frankly I think a compromise of Israel-Palestine or some other completely new name would be fine too. End the colonialism & apartheid, everyone who’s there lives in peace, people who had to flee during previous wars get to come back.
I don’t know that we’ll ever see that, but it probably is much more unlikely if we don’t try to convince people that it’s a good idea.
And ironically screwing it up by still supporting European settler colonialism?
Thanks for sharing, that was interesting