My column at The Daily Beast‘s new Zion Square blog will run every other Friday, starting next Friday.
However, I had already sent them a different post, on a topic they asked us all to write about: My relationship with the word “Zionism.” The plan has been to scatter those posts along the way, over the next week or two.
And lo! They decided to run mine today, on the very day that the blog went live! O_O (I’m reduced to emoticons at this point).
Here’s the top of that post:
On my side of the political map, the word “Zionist” is, at the very least, problematic. I’m an American-Israeli peacenik.
I’ve supported a two-state solution since the first intifada, and have made a minor career out of criticizing successive Israeli governments and their American enablers. I’ve gotten threatening phone calls, and certain upstanding Jews have simply stopped speaking to me.
I am, in short, the kind of Jew who finds herself in daily communication with folks who use “Zionist” as a synonym for all manner of nasty things—and they tend to expect me to, if not agree with them, at least disavow the –ism.
Please click here to read the rest — and, really, please click! I am by far the least-known quantity on the roster of bloggers that Peter Beinart has brought together, and I would love to have my very first post get as many reads as possible.
And in honor of the event, I have updated and cleaned up my own Israel/Palestine resources page – if you’re interested in that, you can click here.
Congrats and all the best! (Why are comments closed over there?)
Though I wasn’t involved in the decision-making process on that, as far as I can tell, the decision had to do with the fact that people tend to go freaking ballistic over this issue. It would have descended into the Cesspool of Awful really, really quickly. They’re doing a letters to the editor model – I don’t know what’ll happen with the letters (a regular round-up or something?) but as a contributor, I can’t tell you how pleased I am…!
I think closing the comments is a smart idea — I’ve waded into the Great Beast comments threads on PUMA matters and as toxic as that can be, I’m sure it’s nothing compared to what this issue brings forth. Good introduction to your readers, Ms. Hauser! Congrats again.
Let me belatedly congratulate you on this, I’ve always enjoyed your posts about Israel, Zion Square looks like it’ll be great.
And I’ll echo Kerry’s comment about…comments. Most comment sections that deal with Israel descend into bs about how any criticism of Israel is antisemitic.
Congratulations again, Emily!
And I agree about closing the comments. I used to post a lot on another website, and there was a sub-forum for Israeli/Palestinian issues, and you had to actually pre-submit everything for vetting before it could be posted. Even with that, it could get nasty.