> I'm fond of pointing out that you'd have a stronger argument that Texas be returned to the Coahuiltecans.

That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying that the minimal requirements of Anti-Zionists is that the Palestinians which were displaced in the Nakba be granted the right of return. I personally don’t care if there are two states, one called Israel and the other Palestine. But for the state which ends up being called Israel should grant those it displaced the right of return. Texas does not exclude Coahuiltecans from visiting Texas. Texas does not control its demographics with racialized exclusions (I know some Texas politicians would like that, but they are not allowed; and if they were allowed, there would be riots).

I know Japan has a lot of problems with racism. Japan also has a history of being settler colonialist. They’ve even committed a couple of genocides in the past. What sets Israel apart though is they continue and maintain their policies of racialized demography. Japan used to do that (particularly in Korea, but also in Ryukyu), but they don’t any more. Today Japan recognizes the Ainu as a distinct indigenous minority group. They recognize the Ryukyu people as a subgroup (though honestly they need to recognize them as a minority group). They don’t exclude the Ainu nor the Ryukyu from any parts of Japan. They don’t have a policy prevents them from gaining political influence. etc. Stating that Japan has ethnocratic policies similar to those of Israel is lying at best.

For Israel to exist as an independent democratic country besides Palestine in a two state world which meets the minimal requirements of anti-Zionism, they need to relinquish these ethnocratic policies. A good start would be to sign and ratify the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (like Japan has). They don’t have to grant citizenship to every Palestinians, but they must at the very least allow free travel between the two states, and they must allow those which were displaced in the Nakba to have the option of dual citizenship. Recognizing that Israel did settler colonialism and apologize for it would be appreciated as well (Japan has yet to do that).

A viable path forward that gives displaced Palestinians self-determination is to return Israel to its 1967 borders, dismantling the West Bank settlements, and facilitating an independent Palestinian state on the West Bank and in Gaza, with air and sea ports and trade, if not with Israel (though: it would) then with any other state that would trade with them.

A non-viable path forward is demand the repatriation of millions of non-Jewish people to right one half of a wrong (not that it would matter if you could somehow right the other half) done in the 1940s and 1950s. Israel will not allow it to happen. No imaginable Israeli leadership of any ideology or party would allow it. Israel's allies won't allow it to happen, but that doesn't matter.

The Arab world was (is, really) in the verge of normalizing relations with Israel, premised on the viable solution I outlined above. It is not in fact a requirement of the Arab world that Israel accept a Palestinian/Arab majority in its 1967 borders.

What's frustrating about this is not the concern that Palestinians might somehow succeed in the non-viable cause (I don't like ethnostates either?) but rather a certainty that it can't happen, any more than Mexicans will gain as-of-right dual citizenship and free travel into their original Texan lands, and the knowledge that the pursuit of that doomed cause comes at the cost of generations of Palestinian lives deprived of self-determination on any terms because western philosophizers oppose what they see as half-measures.

Hey, I don’t oppose to this as a viable path forward and neither do many anti-Zionists. However I do think this is a half measure which will result in a continued struggle for justice among Palestinians. This would be similar to the Anglo-Irish treaty which history has shown us was actually not a good solution.

If they would have the foresight to include guaranteed civil rights for Arabs living in Israel and a Political avenue for the unification of Palestine which could be executed in a couple of generations, perhaps the worst of the mistakes of the Anglo-Irish treaty could be averted.

What made the Anglo-Irish treaty so disastrous for Northern Ireland were in fact racialized policies and discriminatory practices which denied civil rights and political representation for one group so that the other group could exert their dominance. If a two state solution repeats that, all I can say, is “I told you so”.

> The Arab world was (is, really) in the verge of normalizing relations with Israel, premised on the viable solution I outlined above.

The political class in most of the Arab world is not Anti-Zionist.

To me, with this definition, being "anti-Zionist" makes about as much sense as being "anti-Texan". And, aesthetically, I get it! My wife is from Houston! I've had to go there! But it's not a position I can understand taking seriously. There are multiple ongoing urgent problems, and none of them involve granting millions of people dual citizenship to Israel (or Texas).

I understand and can take seriously a narrower "anti-Zionist" definition that pushes back on "Greater Israel" ideology that impedes Palestinian self-determination.

But what we're talking about here is basically: "I reject the premise of the state of Israel". To which, and I mean this respectfully, the only reasonable response I can see is "it's good to want things, I guess".

(It's fine if we just intractably disagree; it would be weird if any two people here never did.)

Would it help if you thought of Anti-Zionism as a social justice movement rather than a foreign policy ideology?

The goal here is social justice for Palestinians, as of now, they don’t have civil rights, political recognition, nor any non-violent avenues of resistance. So I get your sense that, yes, these are urgent issues which needs addressed. But the anti-Zionist will not stop until full justice is achieved. Maybe you are looking at an anti-racist while slavery is still a thing, or a land-back activist during the trial of tears. Perhaps you are a reformist being presented with a radical (i.e. looking at the root of the issue) solution.

For me the root of the issue is the settler colonial prospect of Israel, while Israel wants to maintain any ethnocratic policies (i.e. zionism) it will have to come at the cost of civil rights for Palestinians. My solution is to not grant Israel the right of ethnocratic policies.

Sure. I have friends who believe that all national boundaries are immoral, that free immigration and equal citizenship is everyone's global birthright. I get that! I can't engage with it (any more than I can engage meaningfully with my anarcho-abolitionist friends), but I can recognize it as a coherent ideal even if my own premises prevent me from recognizing it as a practical plan. And, of course, I can be wrong about all this stuff.

I think the only thing I'd put on the table here past just recognizing that we're working from incompatible premises (at least, when we get past a Palestinian state and self-determination, and probably Netanyahu in a prison cell somewhere) is to try to stay cognizant of whether the standards you're setting for Israel are the same as those of other countries or other people or other ethnicities or whatever. because there's a whole grim history of people pretty much everywhere in the world singling Jewish people out as moral "others". But if you're being consistent about stuff, I don't have much to push back on.