Ezra Klein asked Ta-Nahesi Coates a completely reasonable question about Hamas - don’t their actions empower Israeli hardliners? Ta-Nahesi says “I don’t care what Hamas did on October 7” then denounces Ezra Klein as an evil Jewish Zionist

I'd like to go back two weeks in time when I had no idea who this Coates was.

The "I don't know how you're different" hit HARD for me. What a piece of shit Coates is. Like Play-Doh, he molds arguments to fit his narrative. His argument of Israel being like the Jim Crow south, he's right, but he has the sides mixed up. American white Southerners were EMBARRASSED and HUMILIATED that blacks got equal rights as whites after the Civil War. For generations, whites stepped on the necks of blacks and viewed them as 'less then', and they'd DIE rather than see them as equals. In the Middle East, for GENERATIONS, Jews were viewed as 'less than', and when they got their state, Muslims were EMBARRASSED and HUMILIATED that they got equal rights, after having their necks stepped on. The Muslims refused to accept it, and started a war THE DAY AFTER Israel was made a state, and they IMMEDIATELY kicked every Jew out of Muslim countries. Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Iraq, Egypt, Yemen, Lebanon, Syria, Bahrain, Iran, Turkey, Afghanistan, Malaysia, Pakistan, Sudan, Bangladesh... they were KICKED OUT. And where did these Jews go? Mostly to Israel. And for 75 years the entire Arab region has been trying to convince the WORLD that the JEWS are evil, and their state is illegitimate, but et's not talk about how countries were formed in the 20th century, or British Mandate for Pakistan/India of French Mandate for Syria/Lebanon. The Muslim world like the white American south was HUMILIATED by the 'lesser thans' having a chance at equality. But the Civil War ended in 1865, and Israel became a state almost 100 years later, a mere 3 years after literally half of their global population was murdered en masse. And yet Coates thinks that the American South is somehow still more relevant. FUCK that guy.

I think Ta-Nehisi needs to get help. A bad case of Palestine Derangement Syndrome. I recommend that great therapist that @alitlstrawberry saw. “Does that Palestine tshirt make you feel powerful?” 🙃

I actually feel for Ezra here. I hope he’s feeling alright, not easy to be on the other end of anti-Semitism masquerading as intellectualism.

Worst part: “I don’t care what their [Hamas’s] leadership did [on October 7th]; once you start dropping bombs” He is very clearly saying that he thinks any retaliatory strikes in response to Oct 7th are by nature wrong &unjust. That is just straight up insane, a losing argument

Dude is just an ignorant, childish, violent, racist, privileged, thin skinned douche nozzle. Never right but always certain and always playing the victim to justify his abhorrent behavior. Doesn’t even realize he’s just reinforcing & proving the racial stereotypes he decries.

I heard every word of this interview and nowhere did I hear Ta-Nahisi Coates denounce Ezra Klein as an “Evil Jewish Zionist”.You might be pro many things, but you are certainly not Pro truth. Shame on you.

I’m in the middle of listening to this show and it represents a very civil and largely copacetic discussion with some respectful disagreement between the two men.

Coates' framing of every reply depends on an imaginary place called the Gaza Correctional Facility. He has a book to sell based on that fairy tale & that is his priority. Israel left Gaza in 2005 & there were no fences at the border. They only needed when Hamas attacked Israelis.

This is such a dishonest characterization of what Coates said. He did not say Klein was a Zionist. At all. He said that there is no action on the part of Palestinian leadership that should diminish one’s principled commitment to democracy if one were to be morally consistent.