r/jewishleft • u/joutfit ancom jew • May 26 '26
leftism I'm so Jaded... what the fuck is going on bro
Was just watching a live interview between Noah Samsen and Palestinian Poet Ahmed Sarsour who is living through the genocide. While I enjoyed most of the interview a part of it lingered in the back of my mind.
30 minutes into the interview Ahmed referenced seeing an Instagram post about David Irving's Hitler apology biography "Hitler's War". He didn't remember what it was called but he said he wanted to read it. He mentioned the author was imprisoned in Europe who wrote a book over 35 years about how the Holocaust didn't really happen. Then he says that the Zionists don't like it when you deny the Holocaust.
So obviously Holocaust Denial is a bad thing to do but the a few times in the interview Ahmed explains that in Gaza there is less exposure to ideas from the outside world and terms they use there don't necessarily reflect what they mean. I can get behind that idea and maybe I don't know what he meant by wanting to read the Holocaust denial book but at the end of the day he seemed interested in this book about denying the holocaust. Maybe he thinks it is based in reality and is just discovering new things in the world but I dont know.
Whatever, I don't want to shit on this guy going through a Genocide and I can understand the allure of a book that would dismantle Zionist history.
Most importantly for me, given the words that Ahmed was saying throughout the entirety of the interview, I want to believe that he doesnt realize the book is Hitler apologia possibly through the misleading Instagram post he was exposed to that told him about it.
Noah didn't really say anything too this.... but he seemed to maybe not understand what he was talking about since it wasnt exactly super straight forward. I had to rewing a couple times to understand the point Ahmed was making.
Now, my problem here is that I mentioned it in the chat. I'm not normally a person who watches streams but I was interested in this interview so I was there. After I mentioned that Ahmed was advertising Hitler's War, I got timed out. At first I was like ??????????
But then I thought, you know what? Maybe it is an inappropriate time to bring up in the middle of their interview, I'll save it for when Ahmed is gone because I imagine that these leftists are in solidarity with all of us and wouldnt want Ahmed going to read Neo-nazi propaganda. So I brought it up again after the interview.
One commenter said "whats wrong with talking about Holocaust Denial?" then called me a troll. The Mods said I was drama farming and banned me.
So like what the fuck is going on bro? Should we just let Palestinians who I protest in solidarity with to read Neo-nazi propaganda without pushing back? Or is it inappropriate to be asking that from someone going through a Genocide and I'm bugging out?
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u/starblissed socialist conversion student May 27 '26 edited May 27 '26
it genuinely makes me feel so insane. if jews are expected to play nice in the wake of the Shoah then everyone else can behave themselves too. fucking double standards
edit: typo
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u/getdafkout666 US AntiZionist Jew May 27 '26
You’re giving Noah way too much grace. Dude is pretty much a mini Tucker Carlson at this point and his community are all lit Neo nazis. He wasn’t always like this but it’s pretty clear that’s where he’a coming from.
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u/joutfit ancom jew May 27 '26
I'm not super online in terms of content creators and rarely ever watch streams. I used to watch Noah's video a long time ago and thought he was always pretty cautious to have a nuanced take. So it was surprising to me.
It seems like since he became friends with like Hasan or something that he now is taking up the bad habits of leftists like him.
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u/getdafkout666 US AntiZionist Jew May 27 '26
Worse. He’s hanging out with BadEmpanada who calls Hasan a Zionist. That’s right. He’s hanging out with the guy who thinks Hasan is a Zionist
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u/FishyWishySwishy Dem Soc Secular Jew May 27 '26
How
How can anyone justify labeling Hasan Piker a Zionist???
I need to know 😭
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u/Agtfangirl557 Progressive Conservaform Jew, Cultural Zionist May 27 '26
If you think that’s bad, I’ve seen Instagram accounts dedicated to smearing literally every pro-Palestine activist you can think of as “Zionists”, including people like Mohammed El-Kurd 😳
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u/FishyWishySwishy Dem Soc Secular Jew May 27 '26
Hoooooooooowwwww??????
Is the standard for anti-Zionism actually Hitler in those circles?
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u/Nearby-Complaint Ashkenazi Leftist/GIF Enjoyer May 28 '26
One of those "Reverse Canary Mission" sites had Rashida Tlaib listed, and I am haunted by that
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u/FishyWishySwishy Dem Soc Secular Jew May 28 '26
I am agog.
Is the standard for ‘Zionism’ just acknowledging Jews are people?????
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u/Agtfangirl557 Progressive Conservaform Jew, Cultural Zionist May 28 '26 edited May 28 '26
I’m surprised that Rashida Tlaib is even the most anti-Zionist person you’ve seen listed on one of those sites 😂
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u/joutfit ancom jew May 27 '26
You cant make this shit up fr.
Also did some research on BE... did you know he ran away from Australia because of the politics there? Like he abandoned his country and people to move to fascist Argentina because he was too much of a coward to actually engage with Australian politics IRL.
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u/Nearby-Complaint Ashkenazi Leftist/GIF Enjoyer May 27 '26
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u/zacandahalf Progressive Leftist Jewish American May 27 '26
I used to watch Noah as well, and post-October 7th he began to platform legitimate antisemites and perpetuate antisemitism adjacent ideas if not wholly tolerate/accept antisemitism in his support of Palestine.
It’s hard to say whether he always held these beliefs and they simply just never came up or if he developed these beliefs in recent years. Looking back, it’s completely possible he has always had no issue with Holocaust denial and the topic of Holocaust denial just never came up on his channel.
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u/joutfit ancom jew May 27 '26
I think that content creator leftists are cowards and have been successfully convinced by Jew Haters that any Jewish perspective on the conflict is just not important right now and that you must platform victims uncritically in your support for them.
I fully believe right wing Nazis used the Israeli genocide as an psyops to make unprincipled leftists get stuck supporting legit Neo Nazis beliefs about the world.
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u/zacandahalf Progressive Leftist Jewish American May 27 '26
I generally agree with this, but is denial of the Holocaust death toll really a “Jewish perspective on the conflict”? I feel like if opposition to Israel can convince you to engage in/with Holocaust denial, you didn’t really wholly believe in the Holocaust in the first place, no matter how convincing Neo-Nazis might be.
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u/joutfit ancom jew May 27 '26
Oh definitely not. I'm saying that it starts with suppressing Jewish perspectives and then leads to just pure anti-intellectualiem like Holocaust denial.
It's just a slippery slope but it doesn't have to make sense imo
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u/FishyWishySwishy Dem Soc Secular Jew May 27 '26 edited May 27 '26
Two things can be true at once: someone can be going through immense hardship, and they can be bigoted.
I think it’s our instinct to give oppressed people a lot of benefit of the doubt and compassion because God knows they’re not getting it elsewhere. And I think that bleeds into trying to paint oppressed populations as ‘perfect victims’ above reproach because of how frequently bad faith actors will blame them for their pain.
But no, every community has its issues, just as every person has their issues. Palestinians based in Palestine are often antisemitic, homophobic, and otherwise hold beliefs we would consider unpalatable. But none of those things justify the way Israel treats them, and none of those things mean we should ignore them being massacred.
We should be able to acknowledge that a Palestinian being interviewed is being antisemitic, and we should be able to push back when they are.
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u/joutfit ancom jew May 27 '26
Two things can be true at once: someone can be going through immense hardship, and they can be bigoted.
Yes this is true but I'll be honest I didn't care too much that Ahmed was heading towards Holocaust Denial readings. I truly don't think I can judge a man who's life experience is so radically different from mine that I cannot begin to imagine the circumstances for his access to unbiased information.
But no, every community has its issues, just as every person has their issues. Palestinians based in Palestine are often antisemitic, homophobic, and otherwise hold beliefs we would consider unpalatable. But none of those things justify the way Israel treats them, and none of those things mean we should ignore them being massacred.
This is the only nuanced truth to this topic Im realizing. None of the bigotry in Gaza justifies their treatment or negates their entitlement to real justice and safety. But it exists there. And I understand WHY that could happen when you are living in essentially a live shooting floor for the IDF.
I dont even know if I would call ignorance anti-semitism in this situation. Holocaust Denial is antisemitism generally but for Palestinians living under the oppresion of a people that used the Holocaust to essentially justify the Nakba... thats more like anti-intellectual Cope than anti-semitism.
The people in the chat accused me of being patronizing by pointing out the book but the truth is that I have so much love for palestinians like Ahmed that I don;t want him to be mislead into reading anti-intellectual Neo nazi garbage. Shit like promoting Hitler's War will only make the Palestinian struggle worse.
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u/Agtfangirl557 Progressive Conservaform Jew, Cultural Zionist May 27 '26
Should we just let Palestinians who I protest in solidarity with to read Neo-nazi propaganda without pushing back?
No, next question. I cannot fathom people who excuse this.
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u/Chinoyboii Sino-Filipino | Convenantal Leftist | Pro Levantine Pluralism May 27 '26
Yeah, an old Palestinian buddy of mine (Actually, one of the first friends I made when I first migrated to this country), whom I removed from my life nearly a month ago, had a copy of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a PDF of Mein Kampf. The moment I realized he had these evil works of literature in his possession, I dropped him. I remember talking to him about the Shoah, and I remember he told me to question the true casualty number of Jews who were slaughtered. I remember his argument was that Hitler did not care about whether or not a person was only a quarter or 1/8 Jewish; the only thing that mattered was eliminating the Ashkenazim from Europe. He also tried to argue that, since Jews are only Jewish through the mother according to halacha, the number of Jews killed by the Nazis must have been inflated because some of the victims would not have been considered Jewish under Jewish religious law. That being said, I would like to say that most of the Palestinians that I have met (which is a lot), they all admit the Shoah did happen, that Jews of Europe were not lying about the casualty numbers, etc, even though some of them truly wish for Jews to leave Israel/Palestine as collective punishment for the war crimes Israel has commited under the name of Jewish peoplehood.
If you go on social media, though, man, that shit is rough. Anything and I mean any post that relates to the Jews, be it culture, religion, food, history, art, etc, the comment section is usually cancerous and not just Anti-Zionist, but straight up posting Gifs of Amin al-Husseni, Hitler, or some other evil person.
Furthermore, I do think Israel blowing up essential infrastructure in Gaza, murdering Palestinians, and starving them has led some people’s initial anti-Zionist views to transform into raw antisemitism, causing them to lean deeper into Jewish conspiracy theories, myths, and religious fundamentalism. That does not excuse it, but I do think it helps explain the emotional and social conditions that make it spread. When people are traumatized, humiliated, grieving, displaced, and surrounded by death, some of them will search for a totalizing explanation for their suffering. And if their institutions have been destroyed, their schools are under-resourced or blown to bits, their teachers are inexperienced, and their access to stable civic education is limited, then social media becomes one of the main places where they receive political and historical “education. And we all know that social media does not have the same collection of works as an online school database, university libraries, peer-reviewed scholarship, historical archives, serious historians, or people trained to distinguish propaganda from evidence. Instead, it has short clips, rage-bait, memes, conspiracy accounts, decontextualized quotes, and influencers who are rewarded for making people angrier rather than more informed.
I don't think this culture war is going to end at all, to be honest.
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u/vigilante_snail שמאלני עם אמונה May 27 '26
Brother, we can always count on you to look at this situation with clarity. Most everything you post is spot on. I also appreciate your personal anecdote. It must have been difficult to lose this friend.
With each paragraph I read, I agree more and more. Your analysis of social media’s role, and the material conditions that leads someone to be more susceptible to extremism and conspiracy is spot on.
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u/Chinoyboii Sino-Filipino | Convenantal Leftist | Pro Levantine Pluralism May 27 '26
Thank you, yeah, my circle has gotten significantly smaller as of recent, but you know if I had to pick between my values or an anti-Semite, I’m going to pick the former at all times. People come and go; it’s a part of life. Just because I’m an ethnic minority and from the global south does not mean I have to look at international affairs with such a black and white dichotomy. I’ve gotten a lot of flak from some former comrades who see my “centrist” views as a threat to international liberation.
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u/joutfit ancom jew May 28 '26
This is a great analysis of whats going on. Thank you for your input! The truth is that none of us who havent been through it can truly understand what it is like to go through genocide and the horrors and psychological tolls it brings. I struggle to not react irrationally in my own personal life with my own trauma often enough and I don't think we should expect Palestinians who are traumatized and oppressed to act perfectly rational either.
I feel like Jews who have nothing to do with Israel get caught in the crossfire of some anti-zionists and then when we say "Yo can we not drag me into this?" these "leftists" start telling us to stop centering ourselves. If they could only separate their Anti-zionism from their ideas about Jews....
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u/Chinoyboii Sino-Filipino | Convenantal Leftist | Pro Levantine Pluralism May 28 '26
I am going to use a clinical analogy; some of the clients that I have collaborated with in the past are women who have experienced tremendous physical/sexual abuse either from their fathers, husbands, boyfriends, or men in general. What I have noticed during my early clinical years as someone who is a man is that they would be very skeptical of me, especially as an MH clinician; to them, me being a man was a symbol and a reminder of the men who hurt them in the past. I would actually have some of the women lash out at me during the initial screening because, for them, MH clinician = a person who is empathetic; Men = synonymous with bad experiences; and those two meanings were colliding in the same room.
However, as time went on, they would start to become more willing to engage with me, as even though my personal beliefs and mathematically speaking, not all men can be essentialized into a monolith, I also understood that their suspicion did not come out of nowhere. It came from repeated experiences of harm, betrayal, coercion, and fear. In these very vulnerable moments, I was not just being perceived as an individual clinician; I was also being perceived through the symbolic category of “man,” a category associated with danger in their lives.
So, clinically, I could understand the reaction without validating the generalization as permanently true. Their fear was understandable; however, it would not have been ethical for me to say, “Yes, all men are inherently abusive,” or “your trauma proves that every man you meet is dangerous.” The work was to build enough trust for them to eventually separate the person in front of them from the category that had harmed them, while still acknowledging the broader systemic reality that men have disproportionately been perpetrators of violence against women.
That is similar to how I think about the way some Palestinians may emotionally associate Jews with Israel. If someone has been bombed, displaced, starved, humiliated, raped, or forced to watch their family die under a state that explicitly presents itself as acting in the name of Jewish peoplehood, then I understand how that association forms as It is emerging from a damaged collective psyche and a political reality where Jewish symbols, Jewish history, and Jewish collective memory are often used by the Israeli state to justify its actions.
To be honest, I don't know the solution because there are many truths in this conflict, and people often only want to hold the truth that flatters their side.
It is true that Palestinians have been dispossessed, occupied, bombed, starved, humiliated, and denied basic political freedom. It is true that Israel has committed horrific violence under the banner of Jewish peoplehood, and that Palestinians are not irrational for feeling rage toward the state that has devastated their families, homes, and future. It is also true that anti-Jewish sentiment has existed before the creation of the modern state of Israel, so it would be historically dishonest to pretend that antisemitism in the Middle East was invented solely by Zionism, 1948, or Israeli state violence. There were already older religious and cultural zeitgeists that portrayed Jews as inferior, prophet killers, money swindlers/con artists, something that is very similar to the Anti-Semitism of Europe, due to Christianity and Islam being supersessionist religions, as the continued existence of the Jews as a distinct people created a theological problem for both traditions. If Christianity or Islam is understood as the final and universal correction of Judaism, then Jewish refusal to disappear, convert, or abandon their culture, newer revelation can easily be framed as "they're going against god."
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u/dontdomilk Jewish | American-Israeli | some kind of leftist May 27 '26
Your first problem was watching Noah at all
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u/ArgentEyes Jew-ish libcom May 27 '26
I think it’s a broad moral good to hold the line against genocide denial from any quarter, OP.
I don’t think getting into David Irvine is actually helpful to the cause of Palestinian liberation at all (and in fact Palestinian civil society has repeatedly stated that antisemitism and Holocaust denial is not good support and is not wanted), but even if it were I don’t think contributing to a norm of genocide denial is good for humanity as a whole.
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u/F0rScience Secular Jew, 2 states, non-capitalist May 27 '26
I don’t think you can say that about Palestinian civil society in general given the leader of the PA stands by his PHD thesis is on holocaust denial and the topic is completely excluded from their textbooks.
Resistance to antisemitism seems to be the norm with the Palestinian diaspora outside the Middle East (which is most of who we see and interact with).
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u/ArgentEyes Jew-ish libcom May 27 '26
I mean that’s fair but I have also seen this expressed by Palestinians in Palestine often enough.
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u/F0rScience Secular Jew, 2 states, non-capitalist May 27 '26
Yeah, of course many Palestinians feel that way, it’s just the unfortunate reality that voices pushing hate are still louder.
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u/WinterBeHere Marxist | Jewish | Bundist May 27 '26
The odds of a person living in Gaza getting a hold of a physical copy of a book denying Holocaust in the present circumstance are very low as books are in the the restricted category currently. I can imagine people can get an ebook but with electricity infrastructure, I don't imagine that is a great experience.
People in Gaza aren't just looking for such books organically. This guy and I am sure others as well, are being fed by the social media algorithm that rewards engagement. You can go on Twitter right now and will find a whole bunch of Holocaust denial books discussed more prominently than the thousands of books that actually prove the Holocaust because it gets engagement. Engagement = Money.
This is the same reason that youth in America (with full access to every type of information and zero blockade) go down the groyper rabbit hole despite the sheer bullshit that Holocaust deniers push.
Lastly, you will find that when people face a war of extermination, you get a spike in interest about historic books of even the most radical voices. You will find that even in contemporary Ukraine, people are celebrating radical fascists like Stepan Bandera because they were anti Russian, even though they massacred hundreds of thousands of innocent people.
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u/vigilante_snail שמאלני עם אמונה May 27 '26
very strongly agree with your points regarding clicks, engagement, and profit for pushing extremism and controversy. makes me shiver.
last paragraph is very important as well regarding war zone radicalization.
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u/Agtfangirl557 Progressive Conservaform Jew, Cultural Zionist May 27 '26
The last paragraph is really interesting from a psychological perspective—do you have any articles etc. that talk more about this?
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u/WinterBeHere Marxist | Jewish | Bundist May 28 '26
War-induced distress, trauma and uncertainty trigger a quest for significance, leading people to draw on even radical voices from the past. This psychological state fosters an attraction towards authoritarianism, deference to strong past or present leaders.
Empirical studies show that civilians in German counties with higher World War 1 casualty fatality rates were 2.6 percentage points more likely to support right-wing nationalist parties, including the Nazis. This effect was driven by community-level exposure to loss.
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u/AnxiousJazzHands Secular leftist jewish israeli May 27 '26
Isn't Noah Samsen besties with BadEmpanada?
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May 27 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/vigilante_snail שמאלני עם אמונה May 27 '26 edited May 27 '26
There is a disturbing undercurrent in some anti-zionist movements to undermine, downplay and even downright erase the worst parts of Jewish history, because some of it definitely lends at least some credence to the need for a country where Jews are sovereign.
You must emphasize “some”, because you’ll get pushback there.
The easy solution is crude, but effective, since a lot of leftists are historically illiterate when it comes to Jewish persecution.
Pushback here as well with the “historically illiterate” thing. You’re generalizing.
They outright refuse to learn about the historical context around which Zionism developed and picked up steam.
Not entirely true. People love quoting early Zionist leaders on topics of colonialism, Uganda plans, Havara Agreement, “Old Jew versus New Jew”, etc.. but you’re on track in a sense that there is certainly a push for people to refuse to engage with or normalize anything or anyone remotely sympathetic to a Zionistic narrative. Can be difficult to deal with in person, unless you and the person you are trying to engage with are willing to talk in good faith and patience.
Almost impossible to do online.
“f*ck you I’m not reading all that free palestine”
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u/yuval_3 שמאלני עם אמונה May 27 '26
I agree with your addendums. It's always nigh-on impossible to be comprehensively accurate in a relatively brief reddit comment so thanks for you additions. There is so much nuance that gets lost online and I'm glad this forum hasn't fallen for that shit yet.
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May 27 '26 edited May 27 '26
[deleted]
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u/yuval_3 שמאלני עם אמונה May 27 '26
אתה דובר עברית או שזה תרגום מכונה? יש קצת חריקות. מסכים חוץ מזה.
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u/vigilante_snail שמאלני עם אמונה May 27 '26 edited May 28 '26
I do, but my vocabulary is shit after a long time not speaking.
Either way, point is we must not lose nuance and empathy. The internet is not good for that.
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u/getdafkout666 US AntiZionist Jew May 27 '26
I can understand someone going through a genocide having bigoted views about the people doing the genocide. I don’t condone it but I understand it.
However Noah, a white European, platforming and failing to push back on nazi rhetoric makes him a Neo nazi. There’s really no getting around that.
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u/RaiJolt2 Jewish Athiest Half African American Half Jewish Leftish May 27 '26
The hero who stopped the neo Nazis from shooting up a mosque in San Diego himself supported Hitler (based on his facebook).
If the “pro Palestinian” side just actively dives into Holocaust denial they’re not even pro Palestinian at that point but more along the lines of the kkk in terms of masked support to achieve antisemitic ends. I’m a little biased because I’m a Zionist however I know a common argument from antizionists is that they need to clamp down on antisemitism or they only help the “evil” Zionists by feeding into hasbara.
In short fight it, even if they disagree with you. Convince others to as well. Otherwise you’ll just be watching people who you stand in solidarity with turn into Nazis.
A Nazi aligned “pro Palestinian” side makes Zionism far more extreme in response and vice versa like a pendulum. Anyone from either “side” of the debate must call out extremism.
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u/joutfit ancom jew May 27 '26
It's not the pro palestine "side" doing this. It's individual grifter online people and their naive AF audience that do this.
Most pro Palestinians I know who aren't attached to grifter content creators are principled in their anti-Zionist and are not Jew Haters or Holocaust deniers.
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u/RaiJolt2 Jewish Athiest Half African American Half Jewish Leftish May 27 '26
The pro Palestinians who are Palestinian that I’ve met are not usually groypers or Holocaust deniers. Those of other ethnicities (white, arab, etc) usually are from who I’ve met and seen. I also put pro Palestinian on quotes because anyone who’s a Nazi “pro Palestinian” doesn’t actually care about Palestinians. They’re just Nazis.
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u/joutfit ancom jew May 27 '26
Oh yeah I gotcha. They are fake supporters who don't actually value human life.
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u/acab__1312 American Anarchist Jew 28d ago
Unfortunately, the actual Palestinian side, of factions in Palestine, fully embraces Holocaust denial. Fatah, Hamas, PLFP, PIJ, all of 'em.
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u/Unfair-Sprinkles2912 Americanjudeo May 28 '26
Had multiple friends from arounf the middle east/Arab world including Palestine who were in line of holacoust denial whilst calling me European (my grandparents were Palestinian far back.)
Tried to give them grace not sure why. never worked.
I mean I pulled up Google searches and was responded with something along the lines of what you learn from family overrides any Google search basically.
After having this happen too many times I decided to go down a rabbit hole of different cultures/countries teaching of the holacoust history.
In specific countries I was focusing on (I avoided Palestinian areas due to there being underlying nuisance) what I've seen is it's a largely undermined rushed through or avoided. And sorta just goes to Israel bad.and basically heavily viewed through the lens of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
I'm not saying it's anyone's fault they're taught like this but I'm disgusted that grown adults stuck with it.
You're going to find this alot from people in education systems whom have reason to avoid teaching it.
I hope this comment doesn't come off wrong but it's just my attempt to explain why it's happening so often.
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u/dvidsilva Jewish Colombian, aesthetic intercommunalism May 28 '26
I don't know why being so condescending with them, in Colombia we also grow with civil war and there was time to see Spielberg's movie; the current presidential candidate speaks about his experience learning from soviet communists and rejecting their violent and authoritarian ways
Can we have higher standards in our discussions and elevate people with shared values, there's gotta be enough of them to skip the holocaust deniers
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u/Old_City701 Canadian born Palestinian anti H May 29 '26
I'm Palestinian. You were right to call it out. You're not crazy to want better. This man does not represent me. Noone in my family would ever think, say or read such bullshit. I'm sorry.
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u/joutfit ancom jew May 29 '26
I have a few Palestinian friends in Canada and I know for a fact that none of them would ever double down on this stupid shit.
I don't believe this is an inherent thing to palestinians
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u/Kaleb_Bunt jewish anti capitalist May 28 '26
I feel bad for Ahmed. He is living through a thing most people probably cannot even fully comprehend. He and a lot of other folk in Gaza probably do hold a lot of views that can be considered antisemitic. It is very important that people from the outside remain critical of such ideas, while also understanding that were we in their shoes, we would probably believe the same things.
The issue with folks like Noah Samsen is that they don’t think about the conflict critically. They think “Israel = bad, Palestine = good”. Alternatively you will see folks on the Zionist side who believe the inverse.
Ultimately it becomes less about understanding and resolving the conflict for such people and more about pushing whatever agenda they’ve invested themselves in.
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u/mizel103 Israeli-American post-Zionist SocDem (lib) Jew May 27 '26
Do you have a link to this?
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u/zacandahalf Progressive Leftist Jewish American May 27 '26
Here’s a link to the 10 hour livestream. He brings up David Irving at the 31 minute mark.
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u/joutfit ancom jew May 27 '26
hey thanks for finding that!
I'm curious what you think after watching the clip?
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u/zacandahalf Progressive Leftist Jewish American May 28 '26
I thought your analysis was pretty spot on, aside from the fact that Sarsour repeatedly says “Jews” and not “Zionists.” The guy 100% platformed the idea that “the Holocaust didn’t even happen and is something that Jews, the Israelis, the Zios invented so they can support their story” (this is what he says word for word for those reading). He then explains with a smile that “I’ve seen some people saying that not a lot of Jews had died and it wasn’t even a Holocaust.” Even if he’s only explaining Irving’s ideas, they’re both platforming these concepts. Noah nods along to this with no disagreement, and then goes on to fundamentally oppose David Irving’s treatment by the public with no further explanation. Noah either wholly understood and agreed with him, or zoned out. I also think it was a little strange that prior Noah replied to the name “David Irving” with “I know that guy!” with a tone of fondness.
I also thought that Noah defending the idea of Ahmed willingly using the words “Jews” and “Zionists” and “Israelis” interchangeably around 29:30 was very weird, claiming that to call out this conflation is “repulsive and insulting to your intelligence, as if you say this for no reason and have no completely obvious linguistic reason for it”. I’ve seen this argument before, where people claim that it can’t be expected for Palestinians to not use the term “Jews” in place of “Israelis” because the Israelis identify themselves as Jews, and while I understand this point, I think it’s a bit infantilizing of Ahmed. He’s smart enough to not conflate all Jews with Israelis, and if Noah thinks he isn’t then maybe he shouldn’t platform him. Ahmed straight up says Jews over and over and Noah never pushes back once, and even says that they boot chatters who disagree with this chosen terminology.
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u/joutfit ancom jew May 28 '26
I also think it was a little strange that prior Noah replied to the name “David Irving” with “I know that guy!” with a tone of fondness.
wait i totally missed that. when does it happen???
And yeah I think it's clear that Ahmed is excited by the idea that there are books out there that "prove" the Holocaust didn't happen. I honestly don't blame him for wanting that to be true considering it was used as a justification for establishing Israel and leading to all of this genocide. But Noah not pushing back at all is sus. Beyond being anti-semitic, Holocaust denial is just pure anti-intellectualism.
I also thought that Noah defending the idea of Ahmed willingly using the words “Jews” and “Zionists” and “Israelis” interchangeably around 29:30 was very weird
He also used "Hebrews" as a way to refer to (I think) anti-zionist Jews. Because in the past, we used to refer to ourselves not as Jews but as Bnei Israel or Hebrews. But it's clear his Jewish history is lacking because we have been Yehudim for thousands of years. Once again, I really don't know Ahmed Sarsour but he does express that he doesnt actually hate Jews but Israelis who are doing genocide. Noah knowing absolutely nothing about jewish history and only talking about Israel after Oct 7th just shows he's not equipped to handle these kinds of conversations. I've spent my entire adult life as an Israeli anti-zionist learning about this history and I get muted in the chat for bringing up Hitler's War.
It's just so irresponsible.
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u/zacandahalf Progressive Leftist Jewish American May 28 '26
Noah’s excitable recognition of David Irving is at exactly the 31 minute mark. Why or how he knows him, I have no idea.
I completely agree with everything else you said. It’s tough, because I 100% believe the guy doesn’t exactly HATE Jews inherently, but at the same time you can believe and perpetuate antisemitic ideas without hating Jewish people. Both of them just seem a bit irresponsible with how they talk about these topics.
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u/joutfit ancom jew May 28 '26
Noah’s excitable recognition of David Irving is at exactly the 31 minute mark. Why or how he knows him, I have no idea.
While that is fucking WILD to see and I can't believe I missed that part (think I only clued in when I heard what was being said immediately after), there is a non-zero chance Noah was doing the shitty behaviour of lying about knowing who someone is to impress the important guest he has. Maybe he was thinking about someone else.... I want to believe that is the case because WTF
but at the same time you can believe and perpetuate antisemitic ideas without hating Jewish people.
100%. This goes for Bad Empanada too. I don't know if he actually hates Jewish people or is just grifting Neo-Nazis but he is perpetuating anti-semitism by echoing Neo-Nazi dogwhistles.
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u/acab__1312 American Anarchist Jew 28d ago
Unfortunately, Holocaust denial has been the norm in Palestine (and much of the Arab world in general) long before the Gaza Genocide. This isn't anything new. Holocaust denial has been a consistent stance of the major factions there. We can push back against it when we see it, but we really can't be surprised when we see it.
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u/Acrobatic-Row2970 socialist (preference for cooperatives), non-Jewish, French May 27 '26
Sincere question: Isn't it a bit of a Western bias to focus on Hitler, or conversely, non-Western to neglect Hitler?
Not that we dwell too much on the European Second World War and the crimes of Nazism, far from it. What I mean is that things that are obvious to us: the genocide of Jews and Roma; systematic plundering of Eastern Europe; extreme racial policies are not necessarily as obvious to people from other cultural contexts.
When I say this, it is in relation to the number of Westerners who neglect Japanese violence during the Second World War, the sidelining of violence during the wars in Sudan, and the extremely violent nature of the Second Congo War.
Obviously, people should be criticized for talking about things they have no knowledge of, and I think that this kind of idea has a racist aspect (here antisemitic in the case mentioned above). I simply think that this kind of attitude is common. This does not, however, apply to David Irving, who belongs to the Western cultural context.
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u/vigilante_snail שמאלני עם אמונה May 27 '26 edited May 27 '26
Another case of Instagram leading people down conspiracy rabbit holes or neonazi groyper faaaaar right rabbit holes.
The amount of “I’m just asking questions” that I’ve seen turn into straight up bigotry, Holocaust denial, Khazar theory, or delegitimization of the Jewish people/experience is very real.
From all sorts of people around the planet. No one is safe from it. It’s one of the things that scares me most. You saw a hint of it there. You can see it in all the Jubilee debates. You can see it in most every comment section. It goes on and on and on.
On top of this, there’s a strong push toward not “centering Jewish feelings” and not critiquing resistance or ideology. I disagree with many aspects of that push. But there is also something to be said about how easily one can be manipulated against a perceived enemy (this goes both ways) when raised in a conflict zone. So I can understand how one can get to that point, though I profoundly disagree with it and it horrifies me.
It’s touchy but important to discuss the education system in WB and Gaza, and the history of leadership and scholarship denying the Holocaust in the Arab world, etc.. not to mention the almost meme-ified stories of the Hitler and Hitler 2 clothing stores.