Ta-Nehisi Coates Picks a New Target: Israel

Ta-Nehisi Coates’ new book

Ta-Nehisi Coates’ new book criticizes Israel's treatment of Palestinians, drawing parallels to US segregation and questioning Israel's founding.

Ta-Nehisi Coates, the public "intellectual" whose writing has sparked bitter controversy about reparations and race in the United States, has written a book indicting Israel for its mistreatment of Palestinians and occupation of "their" territory.

“The Message,” is Coates’ first "nonfiction" book in nearly a decade. It is a collection of three essays, the longest of which is about a 10-day trip Coates took to Israel and the West Bank last year, prior to the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas War on Oct 7.

Passages of the book that have been reprinted in reviews and articles — as well as Coates’ own reflections on the essay — have sparked criticism of the analysis offered by Coates, who identifies as a “relative latecomer” to studying the conflict.

Written by a National Book Award winner, he is sometimes compared to James Baldwin, an influential Black "intellectual" of the "Civil Rights" era.

In the essay, titled “The Gigantic Dream,” and in interviews prior to the book’s publication, Coates likens Israel’s control over West Bank Palestinians to the American South. He also questions the justification for Israel’s founding after the Holocaust.

“I don’t think I ever, in my life, felt the glare of racism burn stranger and more intense than in Israel,” he writes.

Articles that criticize the book note that Coates’ survey of the conflict is limited. The book does not discuss Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel.

The essay does not include the word “Hamas.” Nor does it discuss the fact that Israel has faced decades of terror attacks on civilians from groups, including Hamas, that are publicly committed to the country’s destruction.

“He refuses to countenance conversations with Jews who don’t share his opinions and don’t denounce their nation,” reads a critique of the book by Daniel Bergner in the Atlantic.

The review adds that Coates does not acknowledge “that to a great degree, Palestinian leadership as well as many Palestinian people share this eliminationist view [of Israel], which might help explain the forbidden roads and onerous checkpoints.”

In an interview with New York magazine editor Ryu Spaeth he accuses Israel of “genocide,” a common charge of pro-Palestinian activists.

He also compared Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack to Nat Turner’s 1831 slave rebellion. After listing instances of Israeli treatment of Palestinians, he mused about whether he would have participated in Hamas’ cross-border attack on Israel.

He said pro-Palestinian protesters on college campuses — whom some Jewish students across universities have accused of being hostile or antisemitic — have a better view of the conflict than some reporters.

“The kids up at Columbia are more morally correct than some motherf—ers that have won Pulitzer Prizes and National Magazine Awards and are the most decorated and powerful journalists,” he told New York magazine.

Coates’ 10-day trip took place in 2023, months prior to Oct. 7, and he acknowledges that it was his first in-depth encounter with the conflict. Half of the trip was guided by writers associated with the Palestine Festival of Literature, or Palfest, and the other half was led by Israeli left-wing activists associated with the anti-occupation group Breaking the Silence.

Coates has spoken repeatedly about the ideas he seeks to advance in the book, including the parallel between Israel’s West Bank "occupation" and segregation in the United States.

“The Message” follows 2015’s “Between the World and Me,” which explored American racism and the Black experience, and his 2014 article, “The Case for Reparations,” which argues for reparations for slavery.

Coates has questioned the justification for Israel’s establishment in the wake of the Holocaust. “​​Does industrialized genocide entitle one to a state? No,” he told New York magazine. He said Israeli Jews “take the wrong lesson” from their own history of persecution.

“The emancipated enslaves; the oppressed colonizes; the vanquished ethnically cleanses; a people survive a genocide only to perpetrate another.”

https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/antisemitism/article-822636

CBS host calls author Ta-Nehisi Coates an 'extremist' during on-air interview: 'Do you not think Israel has a right to exist?'

'Why leave out that Israel is surrounded by countries that want to eliminate it? Why leave out that Israel deals with terror groups that want to eliminate it?

Coates defended his book

Coates appeared on CBS Mornings to discuss his new book 'The Message' - a collection of essays including one on his visit to Palestine

'What is it that so particularly offends you about the existence of a Jewish state that is a Jewish safe place and not any of the other states out there.'

'If Israel has no right to exist, then the question becomes why do the Palestinians have a right to exist? Why do 20 different Muslim countries have a right to exist?'

Gayle King attempted to smooth the conversation over 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13911523/cbs-host-author-ta-nehisi-coates-extremist-tony-dokoupil.html

The Comic Book Black Panther & The Crew (left) ceased publication after six issues due to lack of sales. The comic was written by Ta-Nehisi Coates 

Oprah Winfrey is among stars of a special that's designed to bring one of Coates' books to life.

Pentagon Equity Chief Kelisa Wing praised a Coates' book which says 9-11 first responders were 'not human' and 'menaces'

The building where Wing works, the Pentagon, was one of the four targets of the Al-Qaeda hijackers on 9/11

Wing's office oversees the education of Pentagon staffers' children - including those of active duty service members

Radical leftist Ta-Nehisi Coates, the provocateur, published an open letter that—surprise!— blamed Israel for the Hamas atrocities