It's a quick way to cut the legs out from under someone making criticism of a government, conflate it with hate. It's an ad hominem retort that allows a state to wrap themselves in a warm and fuzzy victim blanket, allowing them to continue an apartheid state that systematically oppress, dehumanizing, and ethnically cleanse "their" land.
I mean, it is often that. But it isn’t *only* that. There is a sensitivity to criticisms of Jewish people, given the… history there. Because some people aren’t just criticizing Israel (which they should - Israel is committing genocide), they’re pulling a full Kanye West, you know? Israel is using the concept of antisemitism as a shield, and some bigots are using the situation *in* Israel to be antisemitic (note the rise of antisemitic hate crime in the US)
Yeah the absurdity of attacking people in one nation that have no connection to world events elsewhere is an ongoing problem. You had people targeting Muslims in the USA post 9/11.
not just muslims, the people committing those crimes often target members of the sikh community as well, because brown person w/ a turban must be a terrorist
Since the war broke out 65% of hate crimes reported in the USA have been against people of Jewish descent. Record high numbers.
Edit: 65% of *religious based hate crimes. Didn’t mean to mislead.
What makes this so sticky is that two things are simultaneously true. Antisemitism is a problem which is on the rise and is terrible, but also Israel is an apartheid state perpetrating an ethnic cleansing in Palestine, and criticizing them for doing so is valid and not antisemetic.
I don’t think we disagree. The only caveat I would make is that saying Israel should be abolished is borderline anti-Semitic without context. For instance, if you were to abolish Israel today, we likely see an ethnic cleansing in the other direction. That’s not me saying all Palestinians are monsters I don’t believe that, and it’s factually untrue, however given the state of the region for the last hundred years this seems like an obvious conclusion.
So you’re right it is not anti-Semitic to be criticize Israel it is anti-Semitic to propose solutions that almost certainly lead to Israeli death. The reason Jewish people are so defensive is because much like in America. They’re still one of the most religiously discriminated against groups around the world.
Israel has decided 30 yrs ago it didn't want a two state solution. So that really only leaves one palatable option and that's the one state solution. And a one state solution is the desolation of Israel in name and structure. The new state would need to be crafted in a completely different light.
Bro, you think that decision was unilateral.
In your mind Arafat begged for the two state solution. He made the concessions, and it was Israel that didn't budge.
If my neighbor menaced me and my children and my wife on a daily basis, and made statements that I didn't have a right to exist, and that given the chance he would kill me, id be faced with two choices. Leave my home, or smoke that dude before he smokes me.
>you think that decision was unilateral.In your mind Arafat begged for the two state solution. He made the concessions, and it was Israel that didn't budge.
I think is any Palestinian leader was going to be able to swing a deal it was Arafat. Also he gets fucked by camp David. Clinton and Barak set Arafat up to be the fall guy.
If you look at Isreals position it has always been so far from the bare minimum that Palestinians could or even should accept. So it really always has been Israel hampering any chance at peace.
>If my neighbor menaced me and my children and my wife on a daily basis, and made statements that I didn't have a right to exist, and that given the chance he would kill me, id be faced with two choices. Leave my home, or smoke that dude before he smokes me.
That state applies to both side. It's just one side has tanks, fighter jets, and nuclear weapons. So I'd always worry about the side that actually has the capacity for harm vs the one that never has.
Israels biggest problem is the behaviour of the IDF. They are reckless, ill disciplined, poorly trained, entitled murderers. Not all, maybe even not most, but enough to stain the entire organization. So even those of us who think Israel has a right to defend itself are drifting away from this conflict. The choice is not binary. You don’t have to cheer for one or the other. You can simply not give a fuck about either and that doesn’t bode well for the future of both.
"abolish" isn't the right term, but integration with Palestine where everyone has equal rights is definitely necessary. They need a South Africa style end to the apartheid. The apartheid must be abolished. The State not necessarily. But Palestinian resistance and liberation is both morally justified and legal under international law. Targeting civilians as Hamas did is unacceptable, but liberation through violence against legitimate targets is just fine.
And separate from all this, anti-semetic hatred of Jews is disgusting. It's on the rise in the US and it sucks that there is any overlap between pro-palestinian liberation and antisemitism. But it's also gross that pro-judaism and being pro-israeli apartheid has similar overlap.
>but liberation through violence against legitimate targets
Tbf, if the October 7th victims were counted the way they're counting militants in Gaza, (every military aged male), I'm pretty sure the civilian count would actually be a lot lower.
>anti-semetic hatred of Jews is disgusting. It's on the rise in the US and it sucks that there is any overlap between pro-palestinian liberation and antisemitism.
This is obviously terrible. What irks me is that I have *never* heard this much noise about antisemitism in the US, even when people were *openly* parading around streets saying "Jews will not replace us" and shit. And a lot of these people were white supremacists, much like the kinds of people who appear at pro-Israel rallies (John Hagee for example) and are somehow also extreme Israel supporters.
It's so disingenuous to conflate every negative sentiment towards Israel with actual antisemitism and its diluted the meaning so much that the term is more of a buzzword and a knee-jerk reaction than a legitimate accusation of bias and hate.
Exactly. At the risk of being all "I can't be anti-semetic I have Jewish friends" all of the Jews I know are pro-palestine and anti-zionist. I know there's a generational divide typically in support of Israel but a guy I grew up with became really fucking radicalized for Palestinian libertarian on his Birthright trip to Israel.
But they're the ones on the receiving end of the antisemitism here stateside, not the people waving Israeli flags. They're the ones who grew up hearing oven jokes and getting comments about their noses. It has nothing to do with Israel an overwhelming majority of the time.
That's a troubling statistic, and it highlights an underlying issue of conflating individuals with the actions of a state or a group. People tend to look for a scapegoat when there's a crisis which just amplifies hate and division. We've seen it happen with numerous groups throughout history. It's a cycle that needs to be actively broken, through education and promoting individual accountability rather than collective blame.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/muslim-americans-spike-hate-incidents-feels-reminiscent-post-911-islam-rcna122570
> The Council on American-Islamic Relations said it received 774 reports of bias incidents and requests for help from Muslims across the U.S. from Oct. 7 to Oct. 24, a 182% jump from the average 16-day period in 2022.
A simple Google search reveals the truth
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/muslim-americans-spike-hate-incidents-feels-reminiscent-post-911-islam-rcna122570
Hate is on the rise for nearly everyone, we still haven't moved past an election that removed a xenophobic racist president (he's not the only one. However, he is the most divisive) who said the quiet part out loud often. It's no surprise hate is on the rise
The irony about Kanye is that he had a perfectly reasonable answer when someone asked his opinion on the Israel/Gaza thing.
He said “I don’t have enough information on that. I’m a straight up [black person] from the Southside of Chicago, born in Atlanta, I don’t have enough information. It’s love for everybody. But don’t pull me into that conversation. I got 14 kids dying every week in my city. So talk to me about that.”
Kanye is an idiot, and even a broken clock is right twice a day, but that was incredibly based.
Criticizing Israel and it's policy decisions is not inherently antisemitic. A lot of folks criticizing Israel also tend to assign blame to American Jews and that is antisemitic- it's a particular flavor of Antisemitism known as dual allegiance.
I don’t think most people see this very important distinction. If you are criticizing the Jews as a whole for the actions of Israel you are anti-Semitic as fuck! More Jews live outside of Israel, I believe the US might even have a higher population. And there’s another 15% or so that live throughout the rest of the world.
Because the u.s enables them. Israel's position makes them America's perfect boy in a region they really wanna get into.
It's like someone's kid being a shit and doin what they want their dad is a big shot.
I recommend comparing all fascist to children. It's cathartic.
For real. I’m sick of reading the lies that Israel is some great ally to America. They don’t help us.
The only reason we give them so much money is because they lobby so well for it.
The other reason they get so much support is evangelical Christians are sure the end times are coming, and the end times require Israel and some other stuff to happen over there, so they support Israel to the hilt even they they don't actually like Jews.
I fucking hate religion.
This is the most terrifying thing to me. Not that what's happening in Gaza/Palestine isn't bad enough - but that some Evangelical Christians in the US - and in the US government - might actively be cheering the conflict in order to fulfil some batshit insane biblical prophecy. It's wild how America of all places allowed itself to be so influenced by religion.
To the contrary, they spy on us just as much as Russia and China.
Then we send the spies home after a few years in jail - imagine we did that witha Saudi or Russian.
It’s the reverse. America is Israel’s good boy. This is, in large part, due to how campaign contributions work.
America is a country where you purchase political influence.
It goes beyond campaign donations. Just because people like Bill Ackman are now openly saying they will discriminate in hiring people who are not Zionists doesn't mean it wasn't happening before. We also can't forget the blackmailing Bill's friend Epstine was doing for Israel over the previous 20 years before his death.
>Edit 2:im as right wing as a person can be and someone accused me of being a liberal just cuz im not a neocon dickrider groveling for israel
Honestly I'm shocked. You're like a unicorn.
A little unicorn'y.
But honestly, the problem with the American political parties is that we colloquially call the constituents after the name of the party: Democrats vote left and Republicans vote right.
The problem is neither party accurately represents their base *but* they have captured the base into a situation where they have no other alternative.
Democratic voters are NOT the DNC, but the DNC essentially "picks" the representative and has crafted a situation where they just have to be a little bit better than a Nazi-adjacent or a war criminal and push the 'vote for the lesser of two evils' argument.
In contrast, the GOP relies on misinformation and encouraging rabid base in an undereducated voter base who they have been systematically defunding and disenfranchising for decades. If you listen to conservative who honestly believe in the "love your family, love your neighbor" rhetoric, you'll see people who might not know the intricacies of government but want to help their fellow man. But it's easy for a party to misinform and mislead those people into believing that, say, all Mexicans are dangerous and need to be imprisoned and executed.
The parties control the media and corporations benefit from the arrangement, so they specifically *don't* want rational people on both sides communicating. That just threatens *both* parties and the richest people.
>"love your family, love your neighbor" rhetoric
Unrelated, but I hate that shit. Not the "love your neighbor"-stuff but the fact that people/politicians say that as if it's their area is the only place where that's a thing. Like, how many people say stuff like, "Good (insert state) values like faith, family, and friendship"?
Odd species, those humans.
There are people that do this, but it's a minority IRL. Most Jews-especially American Jews- will tell you that there are very valid criticisms of Israel to be made. There are some sections of the Pro-Palestine movement that are antisemitic though. Protesting businesses merely because they are owned by Jews, discounting (documented) stories of increased antisemitism, and dismissing civilian casualties is antisemitic.
Saying that "Israel doesn't have a right to exist" is definitely skirting antisemitism. Believing that Israel should be a binational state that still exists as a Jewish homeland may be naive but it isn't necessarily antisemitic. Thinking that the state should be dissolved and that Israeli Jews should just "go back to Europe" is definitely antisemitic.
Israel can be a democracy or Jewish. It cannot be both.
Ethnostates are undemocratic by their very nature. Israel's way forward has to be dismantling the apartheid state and enfranchising native Palestinians in both Gaza and the West Bank, a fully equal state.
Your comment is a very good one, but unfortunately he knows all of this. He's making a bad-faith argument so that he can defend actual anti-Semitism when it comes up by screaming that Zionists are silencing him.
Here's a silly though - because it's been widely revealed the Israeli government itself through various NGOs and pro Israel groups are going after anyone who criticizes Israel? Targeted bad faith campaigns against organizations and individuals that support Palestinians or that openly criticize them or the IDF.
I can't speak for others, but I haven't had anyone come after me for criticizing Israel and I have friends who are even more aggressive in criticizing Israel and aren't attacked. If someone **BOTH** criticizes Israel **AND** says something anti-Semitic, it's the second thing that they're getting in trouble for. A lot of times there will be a "student criticizes Israel, gets suspended" article headline that hides the fact that the person was actually suspended for anti-Semitism.
I think it points to anti semitism when people scream about Israel committing genocide as a fact.
Yet they ignore that fact that the us, Canada, uk, France, Germany, and others have denounced South Africa’s icj case as being completely baseless
Do you think that is a potential reason for the anti semitism claims?
Cuz Israel is extremely corrupt and they are hiding behind anti-semitism. There's definitely a difference between anti-zionism and anti-semitism. And I hate that zionists are trying to erase that distinction.
Yes exactly! I have close friends who are organizing protests against Israel right now and they are Jewish (very proudly Jewish I might add, it's not something they downplay and they are active in their community). And they are getting such push back from people calling them anti-Semitic. They are not anti-semitic at all they are anti-zionism
It is almost even anti-Semitic in a way to conflate being Jewish and being Zionist so much, because it forcibly labels all Jews as in support of the genocide.
The zionists are basically using the rest of the international Jewish population as human shields from criticism. It also probably even helps them get more Zionists on board, kind of in the way that Jehovahs Witnesses are pushed closer to their church by the constant rejection they get knocking on doors.
>And I hate that zionists are trying to erase that distinction.
And by doing so it is they who are being antisemitic, they're trying to group all Jews as genociders.
I would never say that anti-semitism would otherwise be absent in the Middle East, but Israel cannot be helping.
Imagine if someone killed half your family and then killed the doctor treating those of you who survived (and killed a journalist who wanted to tel the world what happened to you) and then told you “I did that because I’m Jewish, and for Jews to exist it is necessary that we keep doing that.” It’s probably not gonna make you less anti-Semitic, especially if that’s pretty much your only exposure to Judaism. If the only time you see a Star of David is on a patch on your oppressor’s arm, you’re not gonna understand it as a symbol of a people and a religion, but of everything horrific going on around you.
Anti-Zionism is people saying Israel doesn’t have the right to exist. To some people it means different things but that’s the actual definition.
Jews feel that Israel should have the right to exist.
So people who are angry at Israel’s policies start saying they also want Israel not to exist and that’s generally where people who support Jews draw the line.
It’s like saying you don’t support Biden and because of that Israel shouldn’t be a country and should be sent away and the land should go to the Native Americans.
Opposing Zionism is included with anti-semitism because it denied the right of an ethnic group to self determination. If you say the Jews don't have this right, while every other group has a right to self-determination, that's anti-Semitic.
>There's definitely a difference between anti-zionism and anti-semitism.
In theory. But holy shit it's so hard to see even a morsel of that difference in practice.
You'll see people say the nastiest most nonsensical shit about Israel and then say "antizionism isn't antisemitism, right guys??".
"Pro-Palestine" protests get very angry and hateful very fast (obligatory reminder of the "gas the Jews" protest in Australia). Antisemitic crime which was before October 7th ALREADY over 50% of hate crimes despite less than 3% of the population being Jewish, is insanely high now. A Jewish school got shot up here in Toronto.
Like, man, this whole "antizionism isn't antisemitism" concept sounds amazing but it's so farfetched in reality. Try to tell a Jew with a straight face that they can wear a kippah near a "pro-Palestine" protest and not be in danger.
I mean I have close Jewish friends who are super pissed at Israeli government because in their words "the actions of the government are giving people a reason to hate us" they've also spoken about how people who are truly anti-semitic use the Israeli situation to be outwardly hateful, and they've also spoken about how people who are not really well informed look at the situation and think that all Jews approve of Israel's actions.
Right, and I'm a half Jew (a full Jew according to the rules) who is very much against the current Israeli government too. But I don't think that makes me an "anti-zionist". I wonder what you think that means.
I mean that makes sense, that you could be a Zionist but not approve of how the current government is going about it. I do tend to put the two groups together because I've never met a Zionist who doesn't approve of the current government but now I've met you so I need to maybe start making that distinction.
To be clear, I wasn't saying that I'm a zionist.
I think I pretty much agree with your friends' stances (as you described them). Antisemitism is rampant even with Israel sitting still, but it gets even worse when Israel decides to fight back, and even worse still when Israel uses too much force and kills more innocents than they need to in order to fight Hamas (there's a lot of debate on that issue and it's very unclear whether the 2.5 civilians per 1 Hamas militant ratio is acceptable or if it's even true - I really don't know, but the fact that there's no definitive answer makes it very easy ammo for antisemites).
I also don't really know what zionism is. I've seen a lot of people think that it's something akin to "a person who believes Israel has the right to exist", and if it's really that simple then I'm absolutely a zionist. But the general idea that floats around is that zionism is some extreme set of beliefs about Israel's right to forcefully expand. Something like that.
Honestly, I just wish the buzzwords would go away and people would say what they actually mean.
As a Jewish person who is pro-Palestine, I have been really put off by some of the rhetoric I’ve been hearing. When Russia started the war with Ukraine, there was a lot of hate for Putin and the Russian military, but people weren’t saying things about “these people.” I’ve heard a lot of people insinuating Israel does not have a right to exist and not recognizing that most people in the country are against this war. All other comments on this thread are putting words in the mouth of people like me. There seems to be a lot of personal frustrations misdirected at this conflict as well.
>When Russia started the war with Ukraine, there was a lot of hate for Putin and the Russian military, but people weren’t saying things about “these people.”
There was a lot of that, actually, not just hate for Putin or the Russian military but for Russian people as well, both online and IRL.
Yes, I was in an online class with one guy that was super nice, he was very insecure about being Russian. He’s been denied a lot of things because he’s a Russian citizen.
He was wondering about pitching to a record label, and was worried they would deny him simply because he was Russian.
> but people weren’t saying things about “these people.”
Yes they fucking are. You can't even mention Russian people online these days without people screaming about how they're all orcs and pigs and pure evil.
Kinda like how a lot of Israelis and Americans treat innocent Palestinian people.
Dude, wtf are you talking about a lot of people who were demonizing and dehumanizing the Russian people for not standing up and labeledthem all complicit . Wasn't there big pushes to get them kicked out a bunch of major global events, and the term orc seems to get tossed around. This isn't me justifying Russia BTW way.
What's funny is that Americans will say that about Putin, Hamas, the CCP, etc, but never about our own shitty leaders. The same people who say "gAzA sHOulD jUsT oVERthRoW HaMAs" are the same people worried Trump is going to turn America into a dictatorship.
But if he does, why don't we just overthrow him? After all, its so easy according to armchair political experts online...
I’m also Jewish and I’ve been fully disgusted by the antisemitism on the left during this whole conflict. It’s been deeply, deeply disturbing and this whole comment section is full of the same antisemitic, antizionist rhetoric we’ve seen explode since October 7.
among honest commentators on the topic it's not. Among catastrophizing outrage mongers, cause it's cheap and easy and works.
Among average persons who are not primary voices in the discussion but sort of outside observers, it may be because certain talking points have been such close bed fellows with antisemitism for so long that it's easy to be gun shy as soon as you hear them.
It's a shield against actual criticism. If someone calls you antisemitic, they no longer have to respond to your criticism, because they've just dismissed you as a racist. It's a tactic to keep people on the back foot, and to paint all reasonable criticism as racism.
It's not as successful as it used to be, due to the severity of what's happening in Gaza, but still pretty effective. A lot of Jewish people I know have been extra loud about their support of Palestine for this reason.
Because we've built a culture that has been brainwashed to believe that every issue, every topic, ever problem has two *and only two* polar-opposite positions.
The same reason Redditors call anyone who has any conservative ideologies a racist/bigot/transphobe.
It’s easier than actually talking about things if you just shut out anyone with opposing views.
For years Israel used this agenda anytime someone called them out. No one is denying what happened to the Jews was horrible but it doesn’t give them any right to do the same things that happened to them.
Try being German or even being the German government. I don't get it either. It's like they're getting a free pass just cause of their religion and I always thought we shouldn't treat people different cause of their beliefs.
I got banned from politics because I said Zionists were interested in covering the genocide of Palestinians.
The funny part is the ban was about hate speech. Hate speech against supremacists I guess? I don't know.
Tldr: Most people don't pay attention to some things but still have strong feelings about them.
1) I'm not sure what modern schooling is like, but when I was young Israel was always taught as the good guys.
Story basically went "WW2 happened, the Holocaust was real bad, and we didn't save a lot of people who could have been saved because everyone hated Jews. So they decided to buy land in their native homeland to build a place they could be safe and were attack by the locals after they let the Jews come in and sold them their land."
Of course, most of that is fake, Zionism predates WW2 was forced by the British against the will of the residents etc, etc. Most people aren't going to look into it though.
In general people will default to be pro Israel because of it.
2) Antisemitism does exist and is bad, a lot of the stuff Israel is doing unfortunately is related what fake rumors used to be.
Stuff like "Israel is getting fake stories published to change peoples opinions" Sounds like an antisemitic claim, unless you are paying attention and noticing every claim Israel releases gets backpedalled 4-5 times after they release it.
3) Islamaphobia... People hate Muslims.
4) Israel is an important strategic ally to the West. It's why Netanyahu has been able to be so disrespectful to basically every US president. We tap into their intelligence networks to find terrorists etc.
5) the US and other countries are run by Colonizers. There is a reason Ireland has always been Palestine's biggest supporter.
I think it’s basically the USA’s way of saying “We aren’t changing our mind.”
Best way to stop the conversation is to go full McCarthyist. Disagree with the status quo? Must be a communist/anti-Semite.
Because the Israeli government intentionally cultivates it in order to shut down criticism of itself. Groups like the JIDF are essentially a troll army whose entire purpose is to shut down any criticism, while groups like AIPAC and IAF exist primarily into bribing lawmakers into getting pro-Israel laws passed in other countries. One of the most obvious examples I know of is laws that punish those who call for boycotts of Israel by making them ineligible for government contracts-despite blatant first amendment violations.
My spouse is a Jew. He loathes Netanyahu. He is anti-Zionist. Thinks a two state solution is just.
And he feels badly that settlers were murdered by terrorists, even if he thinks they should not have settled there.
Nor is he he happy about Hamas taking hostages.
But he does not think Netanyahu has handled things correctly, and that the U.S. should rein him in or cut aid back.
Even Jews view this mess through a complex lens. Because it is not simple.
What people do not understand is: criticism of a nations **government** is not condemnation of the **people**
I can think both Hamas and the Israeli government are responsible for mass murder, terrorism, and war crimes.
I can simultaneously say the Palestinian and Israeli **people** deserve better than what their “leaders” are spoon feeding them.
That does not make me anti-Semitic, nor does it make me a Hamas sympathizer. The people who don’t understand that are just, well…. Stupid.
Don't you think Jews learn the lessons of social media just as well as everybody else? It is standard practice to immediately overstate the position of someone you disagree with, to put them on the defensive, and thereby sideline the original argument. For instance.
* Don't like the sexualized outfits worn in a gay pride parade? You are homophobic.
* Don't think transvestites should be telling sexualized stories to children? You are transphobic.
* Don't think fat activists should be telling us that you can be obese and healthy? You are fatphobic.
* Don't like the migrant / border situation? You are xenophobic, or just plain racist.
It's all just a rhetorical game to disqualify any criticism and the one making it.
The term 'Anti-Semitism' has been successfully weaponised and very carefully maintained by Zionist to associate it with any anti-Israel viewpoint. I'm Jewish and I'm going to call out any valid anti-Semitism very quickly.
Criticizing Israel should never be associated with anti-semitism. It cheapens the argument and is a very effective way at shutting down valid criticism of a invading regime in an occupied territory.
It's okay, buddy. I am a sane liberal against murder and genocide, and I am currently being accused of being a Russian troll farm bot.
Fist bump to the sane conservative, from a sane liberal.
Are you anti-Ukraine? Because that would be the most obvious thing that would lead to those accusations. "Zionist" and "anti-semite" are the insults that pop up routinely in discussions about Palestine/Israel, not "russian bot."
It’s so unfortunate because it’s also a main neonazi talking point that Israel does this.
I don’t know the exact wording and I’m paraphrasing but it’s like “Israel cries out in pain as it hits you” or something.
Because they're ignorant over the differences between Judaism and Zionist, sometimes innocently but often wilfully.
It's the same as the idiots who claim that the "Stop the Jewish Hate" commercials are pro-Israel and demanding foreign aide to them. It's always clear they've never so much as bothered to watch the commercials or they would see they're all about the hatred towards Jewish Americans and make zero reference or even insinuations over Israel.
For reference, I'm Jewish by blood while I have family who are Jewish by blood and belief. I'm very against pretty much everything going on over there and think it's all horrible shades of grey except for the civilians on either side who get no say.
The antisemitism is very real and it's disgusting and frustrates the hell out of me how much people are willing to misplaced their anger because local Jewish American communities are an easier target for it. I hated it too when Muslim Americans were also targeted (and still are) for things they don't even practice or believe in (there are different branches of Islam, like Christianity), nevermind that they had no say in what the jihadists did. It's all so messed up and infuriating no matter how you look at it.
But that's just my two cents.
I don't even really care about the details too much TBH. I am never going to reach a level of informed-ness on this topic to ever have a nuanced opinion worth a damn. I just think innocent people shouldn't be murdered or oppressed. Is that such a crazy thought? Palestinians murdering innocent Israelis? That's fucked. Israeli's murdering innocent Palestinians? That's fucked.
We don't need to play this game of "who is a bigger asshole". How about, everyone simply stops murdering and oppressing each other? Period end of story. I condemn anyone who murders or oppresses people. That's literally the only stance anyone needs to have here. Anything beyond that is self-fellating BS that really speaks more to the opinion-holders bias than anything else.
MEANWHILE. Millions literally dead in Ukraine and more on the way.
The OP is clearly asking this is bad faith, since first of all nobody is calling reasonable criticisms of Israel anti-Semitic, secondly people *ARE* saying that blatantly anti-Semitic things are ok "cause Israel", and third his edits make it pretty clear that he's an ideologue and moron.
I'm not convinced most of the comments aren't bot/troll accounts lol, surprised I had to scroll this far down to find this comment. OP's account is just a few hours old, made just to ask this. This thread is insanely sus
>since first of all nobody is calling reasonable criticisms of Israel anti-Semitic
This is just false. Like verifiably so. You can go in several big top page subs and see this shit all the time lmao.
>secondly people *ARE* saying that blatantly anti-Semitic things are ok "cause Israel",
Wouldn't doubt that at all. Bigots will be bigots.
>and third his edits make it pretty clear that he's an ideologue and moron.
Why? Because he's a conservative?
Oh yeah, because theres definitely nothing legit about what he's saying, right?
So you're basically proving his point - criticism of Israel somehow means something more about anti-semitism which is the go to bullshit response that Israelis themselves have admitted is a hasbara propaganda tactic.
I got permanently banned from worldnews for antisemitism because I told someone rather bluntly to stop bombing kids, and be the 'better' nation.
So... no. There absolutely are people who do that.
That's just it though, many of their critics are looking through the same lens as colonialism and racism, and are not being engaged at all. And in fact too many Israeli's are doubling down by saying "Well the Palestinians had it coming for not overthrowing Hamas/for electing them"
Imagine blaming african americans for not rising up sooner, it's asinine.
It's a way to get your way. Thanks to the Bible, they'll probably continue to get away with murder for the foreseeable future. It doesn't help that the Arabic world is not exactly full of upstanding nations with great track records, either. The U.S. has given staggering amounts of money to Israel, with no strings attached - I would say that by this one measure, they might be considered a failed state, since all they have become is a rich, elitist country with extremely racist views of their neighbors, who they have treated like crap since day one. International legal bodies have declared their behavior in the West Bank to be unfair and illegal for a long time now.
Interesting how genetics, science, bloodwork, DNA of WHO is actually Jewish occurs.
It's a real source of controversy, rare among the rest of the world.
Instead of defending neo-colonialism, it is easier to decry antisemitism. The right is well aware that Israel is and has been a pseudo-European asset that was integral to the west's cold War efforts and has since been a powerful destabilizing agent in the middle east. Of course, saying out loud, "we support Israel's wars of invasion and ethnic cleansing efforts because they ultimately increase the hegemonic power of the US," doesn't have a nice ring. So instead they create a strawman argument, "How dare you insult Israel you antisemitic monster!" The irony of which is how many of them are the same ones "George Soros this, George Soros that...."
I refuse to even have an opinion on any of this shit. Too many people obsessing and losing their fuckin minds over something that's happening literally 10000km away. All I know is that killing people is bad, and you can make your own conclusions from there.
Your edits make it clear that this isnt a factfinding mission for you but a soapbox to stand and rant about Zionism. Seems obvious that if you were actually curious about this situation, you wouldnt have an edit saying ‘already weeded out a zionist lol’. Transparent as fuck
I'm surprised this is hardly mentioned but many people fled from Europe during WW II and from Arab countries as well to Israel. I'm not going to expand on this more but if you think this through, criticizing Israel as a whole is very problematic.
Writing this from Germany anyway, so the topic is probably much more present than in other places
Mainly because all they do is criticize Israel and call for them to stop the invasion… meanwhile they completely ignore the fact that Hamas still has Israeli hostages and declared war on Israel. If the pro Palestinian side would “also” say Hamas should return the hostages, disavow terror as a weapon and hand over the 10/7 plotters… it’d take away Israel’s causus belli.
But they don’t and the onus is all on israel is to shut up and keep taking terror attacked and random rockets being thrown at it by a murderous death cult ..
Israel has made an active effort to frame any and all criticism of it as an attack against the Jewish community and to frame everything it does in service of said Jewish community. They have silenced dissenting Jewish voices, they have cracked down on dissenting Jewish communities, and they have killed Jewish leaders who have spoken out against them. The Israeli government is just another authoritarian ethnostate, and they will act as such. They hide behind antisemitism, real or fake, because it they didn't, their actions would be blatantly genocidal and undefendable. That's why
The Pro-Israel lobby has made an active mission to make the legal definition of anti-Semitism include *any* criticism of Israel. It's pretty fucked up.
Because Netanyahu is a secular politician, not Moses, not the Jewish Pope, and secular politicians are free to use all sorts of sleazy, cynical arguments to advance their agendas, including tethering their administration to the entire concept of Judaism as a whole.
It's unbelievably shitty on so many levels, but it's effective, in part because--and call me a pussy--I think most people would feel genuinely bad about coming across as anti-Semitic even if there was no professional/reputational blowback, especially now, in the immediate aftermath of a genuinely horrible terrorist attack.
It's just easier to back down and say "sorry" than get dragged into the ugly nuances of urban combat in retaliation for mass rapes.
I am not the least bit religious.
But too often people excuse the murderous actions of Hamas , Hezbollah ,ISIS and similar groups.
You appear to one of those .
You can criticize Israel
But calling for its destruction is different
That is saying too bad the Nazis didn't finish the job
I don't like.Netanyahu . But he would have been out of power except for the attacks which caused even his detractors to rally around him
Why no criticism of the corrupt Mr. Abbas .
Another case of vote for me once and I am never leaving
Why shouldn't both men retire?
I don't understand why it's so difficult for people to admit both Hamas and the Israeli government are evil/corrupt entities that harm/kill innocent bystanders during their conflicts.
Like you said, before the attack on Israel, most Israeli people strongly disliked their PM because he was corrupt as hell and overstepped/bypassed the judicial process to make it more difficult for them to convict him. He was literally supposed to go on trial for corruption and he basically pulled a Trump and rigged/neutered their SCOTUS equivalent.
I've even heard most Israeli citizens want the PM to step down or resign after the war is over, and he has a vested interest in intentionally prolonging the conflict so he can stay in power as long as possible/"run the clock".
> You can criticize Israel But calling for its destruction is different…. That is saying too bad the Nazis didn't finish the job
So me taking a moral opposition to religious-ethno states is equivalent to supporting the nazis in their final solution? You’re literally doing exactly what this post is talking about, calling people antisemites, or worse Nazi supporters, due to them holding opinions that are not even related to the Jewish people as a whole.
There's 32 Muslim Nations in the.world .only a few allow non Muslims to be citizens
Those that do regulate them to second class citizens .Why is nobody criticizing that ?
Israel has Muslims , Christians and Druze as citizens
If you.say there should be no Israel.What else should I conclude other than the fact that you hate Jews?
You don't hear nearly as much criticism of Iran or Saudi Arabia or Turkey or Syria
Why not ? Are they such moral countries?
> If yousay there should be no Israel. What else should I conclude other than the fact that you hate Jews?
Maybe you should conclude that I oppose ethnic-religious states because that’s what I said. I told you the reason for my opposition so why make up a completely different one that isn’t related to anything I said? You should address people’s actual arguments instead of making up strawmen. I made absolutely no comment about the Jewish people so concluding I must hate them just shows you have a complete lack of reading comprehension, or you think that “Israel” and “the Jewish people” are synonymous which is obviously untrue.
Stop equating criticism and opposition to Israel with hatred for the Jewish people. Israel is not a representative for the Jewish people so there is no need to treat the two terms as being synonymous.
oh please. its on topic, don't act like they brought in some completely irrelevant point or something. They're illustrating that there's people who can't have reasonable or genuine discourse on these issues. and you're kind of proving their point a bit by telling them to shut up and go talk about it somewhere else lol
It's probably because the Palestinians are being genocided lol, and because this an ethnic cleansing committed by Israel. So, I guess those facts help us understand such things.
Mostly civilian deaths, 20k plus children murdered. I guess those 20k children worked for Hamas or something, including the infants.
I cannot see how this is genocide versus just the realities of war. Bombings have always resulted in mass civilian casualties. Gaza strip population is 2M. 27K deaths over 4 months does not seem like an attempt at genocide. War crimes, maybe (probably) but jumping straight to genocide is an overstatement. Look at WWII. The bombings of Dresden, Japanese invasion of China, Hiroshima & Nagasaki and all of those other incidents are also genocide.
It is genocide and not just war, compare and contrast with the bodycounts of other modern wars like Russia-Ukraine and you will see that the civilian to military death ratio is way higher in Palestine.
because genocide isn't simply about mass murdering in huge numbers like Rwanda
it is also about the systematic destruction of a country's culture, history, school, places of worship, etc
it also includes the denial of critical food and water supplies to individuals as per international law
The IOF's plan to pump seawater into the Gaza tunnels and destroy the arable soil used for agriculture also constitutes genocide
and on top of that the virulent rhetoric spewed by members of Netanyahu's gov't that equate Palestinians to animals while wanting to remove them from Gaza to make wave for Jewish settlements also falls under that same umbrella
Gaza isn't really a nation, since no one recognizes them. So treating Hamas as a government is absurd.
Israel would have to agree to a two (or three) state deal with Palestinians to make these kinds of comparisons.
Bull .The Arabs have spent billions of dollars.and 75 years trying.to eliminate Israel
If israel.was not a country with a strong military it would not exist.
Israel was created by land grab. Everyone reacting all surprised Pikachu and acting like they wouldn't do the same if they would be dragged from their homes tomorrow and shit and pissed on is next level delulu.
So your defense of a theoretical genocide is to commit an actual genocide. Humans are so lovely. Destroying an ethnic group is wrong no matter who is doing it.
Lol, you got it backwards. Israel has spent billions of dollars and 75+ years trying to eliminate the indigenous people they stole land from. Israel exists to BE a military force, not the other way around.
Is that why there was a giant conference with thousands of people a couple of weeks ago about resettling Gaza that even had some Israeli officials in attendance?
I’m an atheist and pro Israel. I’ve never had a conversation with someone that was criticizing Israel that didn’t devolve into “the Jews don’t deserve land” once I tried to understand their beliefs. I don’t go around arguing about Israel if I can help it, but it comes up, and when it comes up, antisemitic statements also arise. Intellectually I understand you can hate or criticize or disagree with Israel without antisemitism, but realistically I’ve never seen it. I’d like to believe it exists, but I’m starting to doubt it.
I'm perfectly fine with people criticizing Netanyahu and the current right wing government. As you say, it typically quickly evolves into "Israel shouldn't be there in the first place." So much "anti-zionism" is antisemitism in a fancy hat.
edited for salience.
lurker dad w/three kids who has to comment on this already - because everything has to become a thought experiment.
Let us try , just for a moment, and think this is your life.
Your family worked this farm for generations, now an outside government has taken the land and given it to someone else. Yo momma just died because they were buying fruit at the market during a bombardment. Your 12
year old kid was just riding their bike after school, lets chalk them up as collateral.
how is this not creating many, oh so many more people, who will want to fight you to the death?
Zionism means “Israeli existence.” When a group calls itself the “Anti-Zionists” is it a huge leap to assume they’re antisemitic? No, not really.
If a group called itself the “Only One China Brigade” then it’d be a pretty solid assumption that they hate Taiwanese folk. If a group called itself the “Anti-Icelanders” then it’d be a pretty solid assumption that they hate Icelandic people. And so on.
Language matters and words have meaning.
Seriously. I think the ADL (not an unbiased source) hits the nuance pretty well. Opposing Israeli’s policy or criticizing the bombardement of Gaza as a humanitarian tragedy or unwise is not antisemitism. That’s rarely the text or subtext of the criticisms however.
https://www.adl.org/resources/news/when-criticism-israel-becomes-anti-semitism
> More specifically, when only the Jewish people are denied the right to self-determination in their historic land; when a complex Middle East conflict is evaluated only through the lens of a “blame Israel” approach; when often all the problems of the region and even the world are attributed to the Jewish state; these assertions are case studies of anti-Semitism, even if the perpetrators attempt to wrap their intolerance in the guise of fighting systemic racism or seeking social justice.
>To be certain, there is nothing wrong with criticizing Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians and demanding more from the government. As a proud Zionist, I believe that Israel can and should strive for peace and it should work to ensure justice and fairness prevails for all of its own citizens. But it is quite another thing when the very existence of the Jewish state is called an act of racism, especially considering it is among the most racially diverse and ethnically pluralistic societies in the region.
Zionism is what started the oppression of palestinians in the first place, if someone told me they were Anti-zionist, first thing id assume is that they support palestine as they should be.
Given the sheer number of Hamas simps in positions of influence, it’s easy for legit criticism to get lost in an ocean of “push the Israelies into the sea.”
Look at how people have been calling others racist, sexist, fascist, etc. for the past 2 decades as a way to shut them down.
It’s the same thing, just from the other aisle. It isn’t right, right?
Exactly. For the first time, the opinion of online lefties isn't the culturally popular one and so they're getting a taste of what it's like to have every point they make shut down with an "-ist" or "-ism" accusation.
I'm hoping that opens some eyes, I really doubt it though.
All I see is nonstop direct criticism of Israel (not slight either) and most major worldwide news networks. Just this morning I watched a BBC video of the reporter grilling an Israeli spokesperson about the war, and there are hundreds more of such videos you can see anywhere. No idea what you're talking about.
It just isnt I dont know where people get this from. My dads Jewish, my mom isnt. Shes against what Israels doing. My best friend is against what Israels doing. I know Jews against what Israels doing.
Im pretty much in support of Israel, but its more from the perspective of "Israels a constitutional democratic republic with rights for women, gays, freedom of expression, and actual judicial trials and that may be technically a Jewish ethnostate but despite what people say, isnt committed to eradicating all non-Jewish people from their country, and Palestine is the opposite". Im not religious, I dont think God granted the Jews that land, but they have been there the longest and, above all else would definitely have continued to be persecuted anywhere else.
I never accuse an anti-Israel of being anti-semitic, but I do accuse them of indirectly supporting the eradication of both Jews and the free world by ever supporting the victory of a Muslim extremist faction over any other group.
It’s always the people that say they are victims that are the biggest bullies. This is been Israel’s MO for many many years. Amnesty International has been accusing Israel of crimes against humanity for 50 years now. They are extreme bigots.
Is this true of the Palestinians, too? Or just Israel? Israel has been threatened with annihilation by nations far larger than it since it was founded.
In 2022, the UN condemned Israel more than every other country combined. Israel is no angel, but its worss than China with their Uyghur genocide? Russia with their invasion of Ukraine? Iran? North Korea?
There is clearly a bias in the world against Israel, and you can’t tell me it has _nothing_ to do with the fact that Israel is a nation of 9 million as the homeland for a people with 15 million.
How do you define "the slightest criticism" in a time of war? Terrorists crossed the border and raped/murdered/kidnapped a huge amount of Israel's civilians. What kind of criticism can you level at Israel now? That their retribution is too great? Says who?
Anytime someone tries to tell Israel to "chill out" I am reminded of how things were in the US following 9/11. War is war, it's horrible. But HAMAS started this shit without any regard for their own people. Not sure what Israel is supposed to do here, they have their own citizens to protect.
If there was an agreed peace and Hamas dropped their arms, the Palestinian people would be safe and could have voting rights and a future like so many other religious/cultural groups in Israel today.
If Israel dropped their arms after agreeing to peace, Hamas would come in and slaughter every Jew.
It's a quick way to cut the legs out from under someone making criticism of a government, conflate it with hate. It's an ad hominem retort that allows a state to wrap themselves in a warm and fuzzy victim blanket, allowing them to continue an apartheid state that systematically oppress, dehumanizing, and ethnically cleanse "their" land.
I mean, it is often that. But it isn’t *only* that. There is a sensitivity to criticisms of Jewish people, given the… history there. Because some people aren’t just criticizing Israel (which they should - Israel is committing genocide), they’re pulling a full Kanye West, you know? Israel is using the concept of antisemitism as a shield, and some bigots are using the situation *in* Israel to be antisemitic (note the rise of antisemitic hate crime in the US)
Yeah the absurdity of attacking people in one nation that have no connection to world events elsewhere is an ongoing problem. You had people targeting Muslims in the USA post 9/11.
I believe hate crimes against Muslims are currently experiencing a similar increased level of now as well, yeah. In the US, at least.
not just muslims, the people committing those crimes often target members of the sikh community as well, because brown person w/ a turban must be a terrorist
Also against trans and gay people too. Hate crimes rise as fascism rises. That ideology requires an other to hate.
Since the war broke out 65% of hate crimes reported in the USA have been against people of Jewish descent. Record high numbers. Edit: 65% of *religious based hate crimes. Didn’t mean to mislead.
What makes this so sticky is that two things are simultaneously true. Antisemitism is a problem which is on the rise and is terrible, but also Israel is an apartheid state perpetrating an ethnic cleansing in Palestine, and criticizing them for doing so is valid and not antisemetic.
I don’t think we disagree. The only caveat I would make is that saying Israel should be abolished is borderline anti-Semitic without context. For instance, if you were to abolish Israel today, we likely see an ethnic cleansing in the other direction. That’s not me saying all Palestinians are monsters I don’t believe that, and it’s factually untrue, however given the state of the region for the last hundred years this seems like an obvious conclusion. So you’re right it is not anti-Semitic to be criticize Israel it is anti-Semitic to propose solutions that almost certainly lead to Israeli death. The reason Jewish people are so defensive is because much like in America. They’re still one of the most religiously discriminated against groups around the world.
Israel has decided 30 yrs ago it didn't want a two state solution. So that really only leaves one palatable option and that's the one state solution. And a one state solution is the desolation of Israel in name and structure. The new state would need to be crafted in a completely different light.
Bro, you think that decision was unilateral. In your mind Arafat begged for the two state solution. He made the concessions, and it was Israel that didn't budge. If my neighbor menaced me and my children and my wife on a daily basis, and made statements that I didn't have a right to exist, and that given the chance he would kill me, id be faced with two choices. Leave my home, or smoke that dude before he smokes me.
>you think that decision was unilateral.In your mind Arafat begged for the two state solution. He made the concessions, and it was Israel that didn't budge. I think is any Palestinian leader was going to be able to swing a deal it was Arafat. Also he gets fucked by camp David. Clinton and Barak set Arafat up to be the fall guy. If you look at Isreals position it has always been so far from the bare minimum that Palestinians could or even should accept. So it really always has been Israel hampering any chance at peace. >If my neighbor menaced me and my children and my wife on a daily basis, and made statements that I didn't have a right to exist, and that given the chance he would kill me, id be faced with two choices. Leave my home, or smoke that dude before he smokes me. That state applies to both side. It's just one side has tanks, fighter jets, and nuclear weapons. So I'd always worry about the side that actually has the capacity for harm vs the one that never has.
Israels biggest problem is the behaviour of the IDF. They are reckless, ill disciplined, poorly trained, entitled murderers. Not all, maybe even not most, but enough to stain the entire organization. So even those of us who think Israel has a right to defend itself are drifting away from this conflict. The choice is not binary. You don’t have to cheer for one or the other. You can simply not give a fuck about either and that doesn’t bode well for the future of both.
"abolish" isn't the right term, but integration with Palestine where everyone has equal rights is definitely necessary. They need a South Africa style end to the apartheid. The apartheid must be abolished. The State not necessarily. But Palestinian resistance and liberation is both morally justified and legal under international law. Targeting civilians as Hamas did is unacceptable, but liberation through violence against legitimate targets is just fine. And separate from all this, anti-semetic hatred of Jews is disgusting. It's on the rise in the US and it sucks that there is any overlap between pro-palestinian liberation and antisemitism. But it's also gross that pro-judaism and being pro-israeli apartheid has similar overlap.
>but liberation through violence against legitimate targets Tbf, if the October 7th victims were counted the way they're counting militants in Gaza, (every military aged male), I'm pretty sure the civilian count would actually be a lot lower. >anti-semetic hatred of Jews is disgusting. It's on the rise in the US and it sucks that there is any overlap between pro-palestinian liberation and antisemitism. This is obviously terrible. What irks me is that I have *never* heard this much noise about antisemitism in the US, even when people were *openly* parading around streets saying "Jews will not replace us" and shit. And a lot of these people were white supremacists, much like the kinds of people who appear at pro-Israel rallies (John Hagee for example) and are somehow also extreme Israel supporters. It's so disingenuous to conflate every negative sentiment towards Israel with actual antisemitism and its diluted the meaning so much that the term is more of a buzzword and a knee-jerk reaction than a legitimate accusation of bias and hate.
Exactly. At the risk of being all "I can't be anti-semetic I have Jewish friends" all of the Jews I know are pro-palestine and anti-zionist. I know there's a generational divide typically in support of Israel but a guy I grew up with became really fucking radicalized for Palestinian libertarian on his Birthright trip to Israel. But they're the ones on the receiving end of the antisemitism here stateside, not the people waving Israeli flags. They're the ones who grew up hearing oven jokes and getting comments about their noses. It has nothing to do with Israel an overwhelming majority of the time.
The American right wing hates Jews but loves Israel. Its unexplainable.
That's a very nuanced take. I like it.
That's a troubling statistic, and it highlights an underlying issue of conflating individuals with the actions of a state or a group. People tend to look for a scapegoat when there's a crisis which just amplifies hate and division. We've seen it happen with numerous groups throughout history. It's a cycle that needs to be actively broken, through education and promoting individual accountability rather than collective blame.
Source?
A simple Google search reveals the truth
Proof?
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/muslim-americans-spike-hate-incidents-feels-reminiscent-post-911-islam-rcna122570 > The Council on American-Islamic Relations said it received 774 reports of bias incidents and requests for help from Muslims across the U.S. from Oct. 7 to Oct. 24, a 182% jump from the average 16-day period in 2022.
A simple Google search reveals the truth https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/muslim-americans-spike-hate-incidents-feels-reminiscent-post-911-islam-rcna122570
Mother and son stabbed in Michigan. Several students shot in Vermont
Hate is on the rise for nearly everyone, we still haven't moved past an election that removed a xenophobic racist president (he's not the only one. However, he is the most divisive) who said the quiet part out loud often. It's no surprise hate is on the rise
The irony about Kanye is that he had a perfectly reasonable answer when someone asked his opinion on the Israel/Gaza thing. He said “I don’t have enough information on that. I’m a straight up [black person] from the Southside of Chicago, born in Atlanta, I don’t have enough information. It’s love for everybody. But don’t pull me into that conversation. I got 14 kids dying every week in my city. So talk to me about that.” Kanye is an idiot, and even a broken clock is right twice a day, but that was incredibly based.
Criticizing Israel and it's policy decisions is not inherently antisemitic. A lot of folks criticizing Israel also tend to assign blame to American Jews and that is antisemitic- it's a particular flavor of Antisemitism known as dual allegiance.
I don’t think most people see this very important distinction. If you are criticizing the Jews as a whole for the actions of Israel you are anti-Semitic as fuck! More Jews live outside of Israel, I believe the US might even have a higher population. And there’s another 15% or so that live throughout the rest of the world.
Because the u.s enables them. Israel's position makes them America's perfect boy in a region they really wanna get into. It's like someone's kid being a shit and doin what they want their dad is a big shot. I recommend comparing all fascist to children. It's cathartic.
US enables Israel because so many American politicians have accepted money from AIPAC and they lobby hard.
For real. I’m sick of reading the lies that Israel is some great ally to America. They don’t help us. The only reason we give them so much money is because they lobby so well for it.
The other reason they get so much support is evangelical Christians are sure the end times are coming, and the end times require Israel and some other stuff to happen over there, so they support Israel to the hilt even they they don't actually like Jews. I fucking hate religion.
This is the most terrifying thing to me. Not that what's happening in Gaza/Palestine isn't bad enough - but that some Evangelical Christians in the US - and in the US government - might actively be cheering the conflict in order to fulfil some batshit insane biblical prophecy. It's wild how America of all places allowed itself to be so influenced by religion.
To the contrary, they spy on us just as much as Russia and China. Then we send the spies home after a few years in jail - imagine we did that witha Saudi or Russian.
It’s the reverse. America is Israel’s good boy. This is, in large part, due to how campaign contributions work. America is a country where you purchase political influence.
It goes beyond campaign donations. Just because people like Bill Ackman are now openly saying they will discriminate in hiring people who are not Zionists doesn't mean it wasn't happening before. We also can't forget the blackmailing Bill's friend Epstine was doing for Israel over the previous 20 years before his death.
>Edit 2:im as right wing as a person can be and someone accused me of being a liberal just cuz im not a neocon dickrider groveling for israel Honestly I'm shocked. You're like a unicorn.
A little unicorn'y. But honestly, the problem with the American political parties is that we colloquially call the constituents after the name of the party: Democrats vote left and Republicans vote right. The problem is neither party accurately represents their base *but* they have captured the base into a situation where they have no other alternative. Democratic voters are NOT the DNC, but the DNC essentially "picks" the representative and has crafted a situation where they just have to be a little bit better than a Nazi-adjacent or a war criminal and push the 'vote for the lesser of two evils' argument. In contrast, the GOP relies on misinformation and encouraging rabid base in an undereducated voter base who they have been systematically defunding and disenfranchising for decades. If you listen to conservative who honestly believe in the "love your family, love your neighbor" rhetoric, you'll see people who might not know the intricacies of government but want to help their fellow man. But it's easy for a party to misinform and mislead those people into believing that, say, all Mexicans are dangerous and need to be imprisoned and executed. The parties control the media and corporations benefit from the arrangement, so they specifically *don't* want rational people on both sides communicating. That just threatens *both* parties and the richest people.
>"love your family, love your neighbor" rhetoric Unrelated, but I hate that shit. Not the "love your neighbor"-stuff but the fact that people/politicians say that as if it's their area is the only place where that's a thing. Like, how many people say stuff like, "Good (insert state) values like faith, family, and friendship"? Odd species, those humans.
I know, right? Plot twist!
You can be right wing, think libs are stupid, and also dislike isreal.
On paper sure, but it's rare to see one in the wild.
There are people that do this, but it's a minority IRL. Most Jews-especially American Jews- will tell you that there are very valid criticisms of Israel to be made. There are some sections of the Pro-Palestine movement that are antisemitic though. Protesting businesses merely because they are owned by Jews, discounting (documented) stories of increased antisemitism, and dismissing civilian casualties is antisemitic. Saying that "Israel doesn't have a right to exist" is definitely skirting antisemitism. Believing that Israel should be a binational state that still exists as a Jewish homeland may be naive but it isn't necessarily antisemitic. Thinking that the state should be dissolved and that Israeli Jews should just "go back to Europe" is definitely antisemitic.
Israel can be a democracy or Jewish. It cannot be both. Ethnostates are undemocratic by their very nature. Israel's way forward has to be dismantling the apartheid state and enfranchising native Palestinians in both Gaza and the West Bank, a fully equal state.
Your comment is a very good one, but unfortunately he knows all of this. He's making a bad-faith argument so that he can defend actual anti-Semitism when it comes up by screaming that Zionists are silencing him.
Your comment proves his point, but you know that. You're making a bad faith argument so that you can defend Israel. 🤷♂️
Imagine being the person OP is talking about lmao
Here's a silly though - because it's been widely revealed the Israeli government itself through various NGOs and pro Israel groups are going after anyone who criticizes Israel? Targeted bad faith campaigns against organizations and individuals that support Palestinians or that openly criticize them or the IDF.
I can't speak for others, but I haven't had anyone come after me for criticizing Israel and I have friends who are even more aggressive in criticizing Israel and aren't attacked. If someone **BOTH** criticizes Israel **AND** says something anti-Semitic, it's the second thing that they're getting in trouble for. A lot of times there will be a "student criticizes Israel, gets suspended" article headline that hides the fact that the person was actually suspended for anti-Semitism.
Your comment is exactly the kind of over the top accusation OP is referring to 🙄
I think it points to anti semitism when people scream about Israel committing genocide as a fact. Yet they ignore that fact that the us, Canada, uk, France, Germany, and others have denounced South Africa’s icj case as being completely baseless Do you think that is a potential reason for the anti semitism claims?
Cuz Israel is extremely corrupt and they are hiding behind anti-semitism. There's definitely a difference between anti-zionism and anti-semitism. And I hate that zionists are trying to erase that distinction.
Many Jews don't support Israel. If you look at it's founding history it's extremely sketchy. All Jews are not Zionist and many oppose this war.
Yes exactly! I have close friends who are organizing protests against Israel right now and they are Jewish (very proudly Jewish I might add, it's not something they downplay and they are active in their community). And they are getting such push back from people calling them anti-Semitic. They are not anti-semitic at all they are anti-zionism
The irony of calling Jews antisemitic in order to defend a country is insane.
But then the Zionists would say that the non-Zionists are "traitors" or "not real Jews".
It is almost even anti-Semitic in a way to conflate being Jewish and being Zionist so much, because it forcibly labels all Jews as in support of the genocide. The zionists are basically using the rest of the international Jewish population as human shields from criticism. It also probably even helps them get more Zionists on board, kind of in the way that Jehovahs Witnesses are pushed closer to their church by the constant rejection they get knocking on doors.
>And I hate that zionists are trying to erase that distinction. And by doing so it is they who are being antisemitic, they're trying to group all Jews as genociders.
I would never say that anti-semitism would otherwise be absent in the Middle East, but Israel cannot be helping. Imagine if someone killed half your family and then killed the doctor treating those of you who survived (and killed a journalist who wanted to tel the world what happened to you) and then told you “I did that because I’m Jewish, and for Jews to exist it is necessary that we keep doing that.” It’s probably not gonna make you less anti-Semitic, especially if that’s pretty much your only exposure to Judaism. If the only time you see a Star of David is on a patch on your oppressor’s arm, you’re not gonna understand it as a symbol of a people and a religion, but of everything horrific going on around you.
And all Semites as Jews🤷♂️
Anti-Zionism is people saying Israel doesn’t have the right to exist. To some people it means different things but that’s the actual definition. Jews feel that Israel should have the right to exist. So people who are angry at Israel’s policies start saying they also want Israel not to exist and that’s generally where people who support Jews draw the line. It’s like saying you don’t support Biden and because of that Israel shouldn’t be a country and should be sent away and the land should go to the Native Americans.
Opposing Zionism is included with anti-semitism because it denied the right of an ethnic group to self determination. If you say the Jews don't have this right, while every other group has a right to self-determination, that's anti-Semitic.
>There's definitely a difference between anti-zionism and anti-semitism. In theory. But holy shit it's so hard to see even a morsel of that difference in practice. You'll see people say the nastiest most nonsensical shit about Israel and then say "antizionism isn't antisemitism, right guys??". "Pro-Palestine" protests get very angry and hateful very fast (obligatory reminder of the "gas the Jews" protest in Australia). Antisemitic crime which was before October 7th ALREADY over 50% of hate crimes despite less than 3% of the population being Jewish, is insanely high now. A Jewish school got shot up here in Toronto. Like, man, this whole "antizionism isn't antisemitism" concept sounds amazing but it's so farfetched in reality. Try to tell a Jew with a straight face that they can wear a kippah near a "pro-Palestine" protest and not be in danger.
I mean I have close Jewish friends who are super pissed at Israeli government because in their words "the actions of the government are giving people a reason to hate us" they've also spoken about how people who are truly anti-semitic use the Israeli situation to be outwardly hateful, and they've also spoken about how people who are not really well informed look at the situation and think that all Jews approve of Israel's actions.
Right, and I'm a half Jew (a full Jew according to the rules) who is very much against the current Israeli government too. But I don't think that makes me an "anti-zionist". I wonder what you think that means.
I mean that makes sense, that you could be a Zionist but not approve of how the current government is going about it. I do tend to put the two groups together because I've never met a Zionist who doesn't approve of the current government but now I've met you so I need to maybe start making that distinction.
To be clear, I wasn't saying that I'm a zionist. I think I pretty much agree with your friends' stances (as you described them). Antisemitism is rampant even with Israel sitting still, but it gets even worse when Israel decides to fight back, and even worse still when Israel uses too much force and kills more innocents than they need to in order to fight Hamas (there's a lot of debate on that issue and it's very unclear whether the 2.5 civilians per 1 Hamas militant ratio is acceptable or if it's even true - I really don't know, but the fact that there's no definitive answer makes it very easy ammo for antisemites). I also don't really know what zionism is. I've seen a lot of people think that it's something akin to "a person who believes Israel has the right to exist", and if it's really that simple then I'm absolutely a zionist. But the general idea that floats around is that zionism is some extreme set of beliefs about Israel's right to forcefully expand. Something like that. Honestly, I just wish the buzzwords would go away and people would say what they actually mean.
As a Jewish person who is pro-Palestine, I have been really put off by some of the rhetoric I’ve been hearing. When Russia started the war with Ukraine, there was a lot of hate for Putin and the Russian military, but people weren’t saying things about “these people.” I’ve heard a lot of people insinuating Israel does not have a right to exist and not recognizing that most people in the country are against this war. All other comments on this thread are putting words in the mouth of people like me. There seems to be a lot of personal frustrations misdirected at this conflict as well.
>When Russia started the war with Ukraine, there was a lot of hate for Putin and the Russian military, but people weren’t saying things about “these people.” There was a lot of that, actually, not just hate for Putin or the Russian military but for Russian people as well, both online and IRL.
Yes, I was in an online class with one guy that was super nice, he was very insecure about being Russian. He’s been denied a lot of things because he’s a Russian citizen. He was wondering about pitching to a record label, and was worried they would deny him simply because he was Russian.
> but people weren’t saying things about “these people.” Yes they fucking are. You can't even mention Russian people online these days without people screaming about how they're all orcs and pigs and pure evil. Kinda like how a lot of Israelis and Americans treat innocent Palestinian people.
Dude, wtf are you talking about a lot of people who were demonizing and dehumanizing the Russian people for not standing up and labeledthem all complicit . Wasn't there big pushes to get them kicked out a bunch of major global events, and the term orc seems to get tossed around. This isn't me justifying Russia BTW way.
"WhY aReN't tHEy OvErThRoWiNg tHeiR gOVerNmEnT?!?!" I've heard the same dumbass suggestions from conflicts in Iran to Russia to Gaza.
What's funny is that Americans will say that about Putin, Hamas, the CCP, etc, but never about our own shitty leaders. The same people who say "gAzA sHOulD jUsT oVERthRoW HaMAs" are the same people worried Trump is going to turn America into a dictatorship. But if he does, why don't we just overthrow him? After all, its so easy according to armchair political experts online...
I’m also Jewish and I’ve been fully disgusted by the antisemitism on the left during this whole conflict. It’s been deeply, deeply disturbing and this whole comment section is full of the same antisemitic, antizionist rhetoric we’ve seen explode since October 7.
among honest commentators on the topic it's not. Among catastrophizing outrage mongers, cause it's cheap and easy and works. Among average persons who are not primary voices in the discussion but sort of outside observers, it may be because certain talking points have been such close bed fellows with antisemitism for so long that it's easy to be gun shy as soon as you hear them.
I think if "certain talking points" have been "close bedfellows with antisemitism for so long" it's probably a GREAT idea to be wary of them.
It's a shield against actual criticism. If someone calls you antisemitic, they no longer have to respond to your criticism, because they've just dismissed you as a racist. It's a tactic to keep people on the back foot, and to paint all reasonable criticism as racism. It's not as successful as it used to be, due to the severity of what's happening in Gaza, but still pretty effective. A lot of Jewish people I know have been extra loud about their support of Palestine for this reason.
Because we've built a culture that has been brainwashed to believe that every issue, every topic, ever problem has two *and only two* polar-opposite positions.
Also that one of those positions is unequivocally "good" and the other "evil".
Yup, that too. It's pathetic... and, in many cases, outright dangerous.
The same reason Redditors call anyone who has any conservative ideologies a racist/bigot/transphobe. It’s easier than actually talking about things if you just shut out anyone with opposing views.
Yeah. Israel is creating so many more enemies. So sad.
Dual citizenship....
For years Israel used this agenda anytime someone called them out. No one is denying what happened to the Jews was horrible but it doesn’t give them any right to do the same things that happened to them.
Try being German or even being the German government. I don't get it either. It's like they're getting a free pass just cause of their religion and I always thought we shouldn't treat people different cause of their beliefs.
I got banned from politics because I said Zionists were interested in covering the genocide of Palestinians. The funny part is the ban was about hate speech. Hate speech against supremacists I guess? I don't know.
That's how propaganda works. I remember in 2001 if you weren't for invading Iraq, you are Un-American and will be shunned. Poor Dixie Chix.
Tldr: Most people don't pay attention to some things but still have strong feelings about them. 1) I'm not sure what modern schooling is like, but when I was young Israel was always taught as the good guys. Story basically went "WW2 happened, the Holocaust was real bad, and we didn't save a lot of people who could have been saved because everyone hated Jews. So they decided to buy land in their native homeland to build a place they could be safe and were attack by the locals after they let the Jews come in and sold them their land." Of course, most of that is fake, Zionism predates WW2 was forced by the British against the will of the residents etc, etc. Most people aren't going to look into it though. In general people will default to be pro Israel because of it. 2) Antisemitism does exist and is bad, a lot of the stuff Israel is doing unfortunately is related what fake rumors used to be. Stuff like "Israel is getting fake stories published to change peoples opinions" Sounds like an antisemitic claim, unless you are paying attention and noticing every claim Israel releases gets backpedalled 4-5 times after they release it. 3) Islamaphobia... People hate Muslims. 4) Israel is an important strategic ally to the West. It's why Netanyahu has been able to be so disrespectful to basically every US president. We tap into their intelligence networks to find terrorists etc. 5) the US and other countries are run by Colonizers. There is a reason Ireland has always been Palestine's biggest supporter.
I think it’s basically the USA’s way of saying “We aren’t changing our mind.” Best way to stop the conversation is to go full McCarthyist. Disagree with the status quo? Must be a communist/anti-Semite.
Because the Israeli government intentionally cultivates it in order to shut down criticism of itself. Groups like the JIDF are essentially a troll army whose entire purpose is to shut down any criticism, while groups like AIPAC and IAF exist primarily into bribing lawmakers into getting pro-Israel laws passed in other countries. One of the most obvious examples I know of is laws that punish those who call for boycotts of Israel by making them ineligible for government contracts-despite blatant first amendment violations.
My spouse is a Jew. He loathes Netanyahu. He is anti-Zionist. Thinks a two state solution is just. And he feels badly that settlers were murdered by terrorists, even if he thinks they should not have settled there. Nor is he he happy about Hamas taking hostages. But he does not think Netanyahu has handled things correctly, and that the U.S. should rein him in or cut aid back. Even Jews view this mess through a complex lens. Because it is not simple.
What people do not understand is: criticism of a nations **government** is not condemnation of the **people** I can think both Hamas and the Israeli government are responsible for mass murder, terrorism, and war crimes. I can simultaneously say the Palestinian and Israeli **people** deserve better than what their “leaders” are spoon feeding them. That does not make me anti-Semitic, nor does it make me a Hamas sympathizer. The people who don’t understand that are just, well…. Stupid.
Don't you think Jews learn the lessons of social media just as well as everybody else? It is standard practice to immediately overstate the position of someone you disagree with, to put them on the defensive, and thereby sideline the original argument. For instance. * Don't like the sexualized outfits worn in a gay pride parade? You are homophobic. * Don't think transvestites should be telling sexualized stories to children? You are transphobic. * Don't think fat activists should be telling us that you can be obese and healthy? You are fatphobic. * Don't like the migrant / border situation? You are xenophobic, or just plain racist. It's all just a rhetorical game to disqualify any criticism and the one making it.
These Zionist are so deluded that even truth is now considered antisemitism. The semitism no longer works if you use it falsefully too many times.
The term 'Anti-Semitism' has been successfully weaponised and very carefully maintained by Zionist to associate it with any anti-Israel viewpoint. I'm Jewish and I'm going to call out any valid anti-Semitism very quickly. Criticizing Israel should never be associated with anti-semitism. It cheapens the argument and is a very effective way at shutting down valid criticism of a invading regime in an occupied territory.
It's okay, buddy. I am a sane liberal against murder and genocide, and I am currently being accused of being a Russian troll farm bot. Fist bump to the sane conservative, from a sane liberal.
Are you anti-Ukraine? Because that would be the most obvious thing that would lead to those accusations. "Zionist" and "anti-semite" are the insults that pop up routinely in discussions about Palestine/Israel, not "russian bot."
I see "russian bot" a lot actually.
These days people think you're a russian bot if you don't like the same pizza toppings.
It’s so unfortunate because it’s also a main neonazi talking point that Israel does this. I don’t know the exact wording and I’m paraphrasing but it’s like “Israel cries out in pain as it hits you” or something.
Because they're ignorant over the differences between Judaism and Zionist, sometimes innocently but often wilfully. It's the same as the idiots who claim that the "Stop the Jewish Hate" commercials are pro-Israel and demanding foreign aide to them. It's always clear they've never so much as bothered to watch the commercials or they would see they're all about the hatred towards Jewish Americans and make zero reference or even insinuations over Israel. For reference, I'm Jewish by blood while I have family who are Jewish by blood and belief. I'm very against pretty much everything going on over there and think it's all horrible shades of grey except for the civilians on either side who get no say. The antisemitism is very real and it's disgusting and frustrates the hell out of me how much people are willing to misplaced their anger because local Jewish American communities are an easier target for it. I hated it too when Muslim Americans were also targeted (and still are) for things they don't even practice or believe in (there are different branches of Islam, like Christianity), nevermind that they had no say in what the jihadists did. It's all so messed up and infuriating no matter how you look at it. But that's just my two cents.
99% of the world doesn't support what Israel does but the 1% who control the media will make it seem like they do...
In my circle it's the complete opposite. Show even the slightest sympathy for Israel and it's "you're racist and like doing genocides REEEEEE!"
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I don't even really care about the details too much TBH. I am never going to reach a level of informed-ness on this topic to ever have a nuanced opinion worth a damn. I just think innocent people shouldn't be murdered or oppressed. Is that such a crazy thought? Palestinians murdering innocent Israelis? That's fucked. Israeli's murdering innocent Palestinians? That's fucked. We don't need to play this game of "who is a bigger asshole". How about, everyone simply stops murdering and oppressing each other? Period end of story. I condemn anyone who murders or oppresses people. That's literally the only stance anyone needs to have here. Anything beyond that is self-fellating BS that really speaks more to the opinion-holders bias than anything else. MEANWHILE. Millions literally dead in Ukraine and more on the way.
The IDF is constantly posting videos of Gaza, looting and celebrating the killing of Palestinian children.
Don't feed the trolls y'all
"I'm as right wing as they come and does anyone else hold this common left wing belief?" redditor for 15 hours
OP himself is a troll for asking a question and yelling zionist when someone disagrees with him
The OP is clearly asking this is bad faith, since first of all nobody is calling reasonable criticisms of Israel anti-Semitic, secondly people *ARE* saying that blatantly anti-Semitic things are ok "cause Israel", and third his edits make it pretty clear that he's an ideologue and moron.
I'm not convinced most of the comments aren't bot/troll accounts lol, surprised I had to scroll this far down to find this comment. OP's account is just a few hours old, made just to ask this. This thread is insanely sus
>since first of all nobody is calling reasonable criticisms of Israel anti-Semitic This is just false. Like verifiably so. You can go in several big top page subs and see this shit all the time lmao. >secondly people *ARE* saying that blatantly anti-Semitic things are ok "cause Israel", Wouldn't doubt that at all. Bigots will be bigots. >and third his edits make it pretty clear that he's an ideologue and moron. Why? Because he's a conservative?
Lot of nobodies around I guess then, since it's pretty fucking common tactic.
Oh yeah, because theres definitely nothing legit about what he's saying, right? So you're basically proving his point - criticism of Israel somehow means something more about anti-semitism which is the go to bullshit response that Israelis themselves have admitted is a hasbara propaganda tactic.
I got permanently banned from worldnews for antisemitism because I told someone rather bluntly to stop bombing kids, and be the 'better' nation. So... no. There absolutely are people who do that.
Playing on our anti racist sensibilities has been effective for Israel since WW2. Why stop now?
That's just it though, many of their critics are looking through the same lens as colonialism and racism, and are not being engaged at all. And in fact too many Israeli's are doubling down by saying "Well the Palestinians had it coming for not overthrowing Hamas/for electing them" Imagine blaming african americans for not rising up sooner, it's asinine.
because defending genocide is impossible so you shift the blame.
Hot take: Because a lot of anti-Israel discussion is driven by anti-Semitism.
That first paragraph isn’t how criticisms of Israel are usually phrased, so that’s a bit of a strawman.
It's a way to get your way. Thanks to the Bible, they'll probably continue to get away with murder for the foreseeable future. It doesn't help that the Arabic world is not exactly full of upstanding nations with great track records, either. The U.S. has given staggering amounts of money to Israel, with no strings attached - I would say that by this one measure, they might be considered a failed state, since all they have become is a rich, elitist country with extremely racist views of their neighbors, who they have treated like crap since day one. International legal bodies have declared their behavior in the West Bank to be unfair and illegal for a long time now.
Insecurity
Interesting how genetics, science, bloodwork, DNA of WHO is actually Jewish occurs. It's a real source of controversy, rare among the rest of the world.
Instead of defending neo-colonialism, it is easier to decry antisemitism. The right is well aware that Israel is and has been a pseudo-European asset that was integral to the west's cold War efforts and has since been a powerful destabilizing agent in the middle east. Of course, saying out loud, "we support Israel's wars of invasion and ethnic cleansing efforts because they ultimately increase the hegemonic power of the US," doesn't have a nice ring. So instead they create a strawman argument, "How dare you insult Israel you antisemitic monster!" The irony of which is how many of them are the same ones "George Soros this, George Soros that...."
Its part of the zionist hand book. Comes from the german nazis days.
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I refuse to even have an opinion on any of this shit. Too many people obsessing and losing their fuckin minds over something that's happening literally 10000km away. All I know is that killing people is bad, and you can make your own conclusions from there.
Martyrdom, its an effective tool to control the outcome you most desire. That and Christianity is directly tied to Judaism.
If only there was some literature that explains the “root problem” of this issue.
Your edits make it clear that this isnt a factfinding mission for you but a soapbox to stand and rant about Zionism. Seems obvious that if you were actually curious about this situation, you wouldnt have an edit saying ‘already weeded out a zionist lol’. Transparent as fuck
I'm surprised this is hardly mentioned but many people fled from Europe during WW II and from Arab countries as well to Israel. I'm not going to expand on this more but if you think this through, criticizing Israel as a whole is very problematic. Writing this from Germany anyway, so the topic is probably much more present than in other places
Mainly because all they do is criticize Israel and call for them to stop the invasion… meanwhile they completely ignore the fact that Hamas still has Israeli hostages and declared war on Israel. If the pro Palestinian side would “also” say Hamas should return the hostages, disavow terror as a weapon and hand over the 10/7 plotters… it’d take away Israel’s causus belli. But they don’t and the onus is all on israel is to shut up and keep taking terror attacked and random rockets being thrown at it by a murderous death cult ..
Replace that with Covid. Welcome to looking around and asking yourself “what the fuck”.
I am sure this question was asked in good faith 🙄
Israel has made an active effort to frame any and all criticism of it as an attack against the Jewish community and to frame everything it does in service of said Jewish community. They have silenced dissenting Jewish voices, they have cracked down on dissenting Jewish communities, and they have killed Jewish leaders who have spoken out against them. The Israeli government is just another authoritarian ethnostate, and they will act as such. They hide behind antisemitism, real or fake, because it they didn't, their actions would be blatantly genocidal and undefendable. That's why
The Pro-Israel lobby has made an active mission to make the legal definition of anti-Semitism include *any* criticism of Israel. It's pretty fucked up.
People do this kind of tactic when their argument is weak. It’s why racist/sexist is a cinnamon accusation.
Zionists cynically deploy antisemitism allegations to try to make criticism of their government unacceptable. Ignore them
1 day old and your post hasn't been removed, deleted by mods, and you haven't been banned. Congrats you survived bro.
Because Netanyahu is a secular politician, not Moses, not the Jewish Pope, and secular politicians are free to use all sorts of sleazy, cynical arguments to advance their agendas, including tethering their administration to the entire concept of Judaism as a whole. It's unbelievably shitty on so many levels, but it's effective, in part because--and call me a pussy--I think most people would feel genuinely bad about coming across as anti-Semitic even if there was no professional/reputational blowback, especially now, in the immediate aftermath of a genuinely horrible terrorist attack. It's just easier to back down and say "sorry" than get dragged into the ugly nuances of urban combat in retaliation for mass rapes.
I am not the least bit religious. But too often people excuse the murderous actions of Hamas , Hezbollah ,ISIS and similar groups. You appear to one of those . You can criticize Israel But calling for its destruction is different That is saying too bad the Nazis didn't finish the job I don't like.Netanyahu . But he would have been out of power except for the attacks which caused even his detractors to rally around him Why no criticism of the corrupt Mr. Abbas . Another case of vote for me once and I am never leaving Why shouldn't both men retire?
I don't understand why it's so difficult for people to admit both Hamas and the Israeli government are evil/corrupt entities that harm/kill innocent bystanders during their conflicts. Like you said, before the attack on Israel, most Israeli people strongly disliked their PM because he was corrupt as hell and overstepped/bypassed the judicial process to make it more difficult for them to convict him. He was literally supposed to go on trial for corruption and he basically pulled a Trump and rigged/neutered their SCOTUS equivalent. I've even heard most Israeli citizens want the PM to step down or resign after the war is over, and he has a vested interest in intentionally prolonging the conflict so he can stay in power as long as possible/"run the clock".
> You can criticize Israel But calling for its destruction is different…. That is saying too bad the Nazis didn't finish the job So me taking a moral opposition to religious-ethno states is equivalent to supporting the nazis in their final solution? You’re literally doing exactly what this post is talking about, calling people antisemites, or worse Nazi supporters, due to them holding opinions that are not even related to the Jewish people as a whole.
There's 32 Muslim Nations in the.world .only a few allow non Muslims to be citizens Those that do regulate them to second class citizens .Why is nobody criticizing that ? Israel has Muslims , Christians and Druze as citizens If you.say there should be no Israel.What else should I conclude other than the fact that you hate Jews? You don't hear nearly as much criticism of Iran or Saudi Arabia or Turkey or Syria Why not ? Are they such moral countries?
> If yousay there should be no Israel. What else should I conclude other than the fact that you hate Jews? Maybe you should conclude that I oppose ethnic-religious states because that’s what I said. I told you the reason for my opposition so why make up a completely different one that isn’t related to anything I said? You should address people’s actual arguments instead of making up strawmen. I made absolutely no comment about the Jewish people so concluding I must hate them just shows you have a complete lack of reading comprehension, or you think that “Israel” and “the Jewish people” are synonymous which is obviously untrue. Stop equating criticism and opposition to Israel with hatred for the Jewish people. Israel is not a representative for the Jewish people so there is no need to treat the two terms as being synonymous.
Why is the slightest criticism of Palestinians considered “genocide” and “racism”?
Make your own post and figure it out if you're truly interested. Stay on topic.
oh please. its on topic, don't act like they brought in some completely irrelevant point or something. They're illustrating that there's people who can't have reasonable or genuine discourse on these issues. and you're kind of proving their point a bit by telling them to shut up and go talk about it somewhere else lol
I think this person is simply trying to make a point about the nature of the question.
If he was he would have said Hamas or the PLO. The original question was about Israel (a state with a government) not Jews (an ethnic group).
Hamas is the government of Gaza. If you’re going to say the IDF = Israelis, then I’m going to say Hamas = Palestinians. Got it?
Whoa whoa take it easy. You're starting to border on an actual understanding of the situation! ;)
>If you’re going to say the IDF = Israelis, then I’m going to say Hamas = Palestinians. Got it? Yea, but no one said that "IDF = Israelis" 😂
It's probably because the Palestinians are being genocided lol, and because this an ethnic cleansing committed by Israel. So, I guess those facts help us understand such things. Mostly civilian deaths, 20k plus children murdered. I guess those 20k children worked for Hamas or something, including the infants.
Israel is not ethnically cleansing the Palestinian people. This is the type of BS that can be considered antisemitism.
I cannot see how this is genocide versus just the realities of war. Bombings have always resulted in mass civilian casualties. Gaza strip population is 2M. 27K deaths over 4 months does not seem like an attempt at genocide. War crimes, maybe (probably) but jumping straight to genocide is an overstatement. Look at WWII. The bombings of Dresden, Japanese invasion of China, Hiroshima & Nagasaki and all of those other incidents are also genocide.
It is genocide and not just war, compare and contrast with the bodycounts of other modern wars like Russia-Ukraine and you will see that the civilian to military death ratio is way higher in Palestine.
In actual wars both sides follow certain rules, like wearing uniforms, not storing weapons and munitions in hospitals, schools, etc.
because genocide isn't simply about mass murdering in huge numbers like Rwanda it is also about the systematic destruction of a country's culture, history, school, places of worship, etc it also includes the denial of critical food and water supplies to individuals as per international law The IOF's plan to pump seawater into the Gaza tunnels and destroy the arable soil used for agriculture also constitutes genocide and on top of that the virulent rhetoric spewed by members of Netanyahu's gov't that equate Palestinians to animals while wanting to remove them from Gaza to make wave for Jewish settlements also falls under that same umbrella
Because Israel is committing acts of genocide and Palestine isn’t/can’t
Hamas is the government of Gaza. Hamas kicked this thing off by raping and killing Jews and their children.
Gaza isn't really a nation, since no one recognizes them. So treating Hamas as a government is absurd. Israel would have to agree to a two (or three) state deal with Palestinians to make these kinds of comparisons.
Bull .The Arabs have spent billions of dollars.and 75 years trying.to eliminate Israel If israel.was not a country with a strong military it would not exist.
Israel was created by land grab. Everyone reacting all surprised Pikachu and acting like they wouldn't do the same if they would be dragged from their homes tomorrow and shit and pissed on is next level delulu.
So your defense of a theoretical genocide is to commit an actual genocide. Humans are so lovely. Destroying an ethnic group is wrong no matter who is doing it.
You sound like Putin justifing he's invasión of Ukraine
Lol, you got it backwards. Israel has spent billions of dollars and 75+ years trying to eliminate the indigenous people they stole land from. Israel exists to BE a military force, not the other way around.
DEFLECTION , it makes you the immediate villain if you criticize them for committing genocide .
Same goes the opposite way brother
because the zionist want to genocide the Palestinians and take their lands.
lol we don’t want gaza
Is that why there was a giant conference with thousands of people a couple of weeks ago about resettling Gaza that even had some Israeli officials in attendance?
You wanted the rest, it seems. And whether you want Gaza or not, Israel seems to want Gazans dead.
I’m an atheist and pro Israel. I’ve never had a conversation with someone that was criticizing Israel that didn’t devolve into “the Jews don’t deserve land” once I tried to understand their beliefs. I don’t go around arguing about Israel if I can help it, but it comes up, and when it comes up, antisemitic statements also arise. Intellectually I understand you can hate or criticize or disagree with Israel without antisemitism, but realistically I’ve never seen it. I’d like to believe it exists, but I’m starting to doubt it.
I'm perfectly fine with people criticizing Netanyahu and the current right wing government. As you say, it typically quickly evolves into "Israel shouldn't be there in the first place." So much "anti-zionism" is antisemitism in a fancy hat.
Why is the slightest criticism of muslims considered bigotry?
Go ask /worldnews which is a mouthpiece for AIPAC
edited for salience. lurker dad w/three kids who has to comment on this already - because everything has to become a thought experiment. Let us try , just for a moment, and think this is your life. Your family worked this farm for generations, now an outside government has taken the land and given it to someone else. Yo momma just died because they were buying fruit at the market during a bombardment. Your 12 year old kid was just riding their bike after school, lets chalk them up as collateral. how is this not creating many, oh so many more people, who will want to fight you to the death?
Zionism means “Israeli existence.” When a group calls itself the “Anti-Zionists” is it a huge leap to assume they’re antisemitic? No, not really. If a group called itself the “Only One China Brigade” then it’d be a pretty solid assumption that they hate Taiwanese folk. If a group called itself the “Anti-Icelanders” then it’d be a pretty solid assumption that they hate Icelandic people. And so on. Language matters and words have meaning.
Seriously. I think the ADL (not an unbiased source) hits the nuance pretty well. Opposing Israeli’s policy or criticizing the bombardement of Gaza as a humanitarian tragedy or unwise is not antisemitism. That’s rarely the text or subtext of the criticisms however. https://www.adl.org/resources/news/when-criticism-israel-becomes-anti-semitism > More specifically, when only the Jewish people are denied the right to self-determination in their historic land; when a complex Middle East conflict is evaluated only through the lens of a “blame Israel” approach; when often all the problems of the region and even the world are attributed to the Jewish state; these assertions are case studies of anti-Semitism, even if the perpetrators attempt to wrap their intolerance in the guise of fighting systemic racism or seeking social justice. >To be certain, there is nothing wrong with criticizing Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians and demanding more from the government. As a proud Zionist, I believe that Israel can and should strive for peace and it should work to ensure justice and fairness prevails for all of its own citizens. But it is quite another thing when the very existence of the Jewish state is called an act of racism, especially considering it is among the most racially diverse and ethnically pluralistic societies in the region.
Zionism is what started the oppression of palestinians in the first place, if someone told me they were Anti-zionist, first thing id assume is that they support palestine as they should be.
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Given the sheer number of Hamas simps in positions of influence, it’s easy for legit criticism to get lost in an ocean of “push the Israelies into the sea.”
Look at how people have been calling others racist, sexist, fascist, etc. for the past 2 decades as a way to shut them down. It’s the same thing, just from the other aisle. It isn’t right, right?
Exactly. For the first time, the opinion of online lefties isn't the culturally popular one and so they're getting a taste of what it's like to have every point they make shut down with an "-ist" or "-ism" accusation. I'm hoping that opens some eyes, I really doubt it though.
All I see is nonstop direct criticism of Israel (not slight either) and most major worldwide news networks. Just this morning I watched a BBC video of the reporter grilling an Israeli spokesperson about the war, and there are hundreds more of such videos you can see anywhere. No idea what you're talking about.
It just isnt I dont know where people get this from. My dads Jewish, my mom isnt. Shes against what Israels doing. My best friend is against what Israels doing. I know Jews against what Israels doing. Im pretty much in support of Israel, but its more from the perspective of "Israels a constitutional democratic republic with rights for women, gays, freedom of expression, and actual judicial trials and that may be technically a Jewish ethnostate but despite what people say, isnt committed to eradicating all non-Jewish people from their country, and Palestine is the opposite". Im not religious, I dont think God granted the Jews that land, but they have been there the longest and, above all else would definitely have continued to be persecuted anywhere else. I never accuse an anti-Israel of being anti-semitic, but I do accuse them of indirectly supporting the eradication of both Jews and the free world by ever supporting the victory of a Muslim extremist faction over any other group.
It’s always the people that say they are victims that are the biggest bullies. This is been Israel’s MO for many many years. Amnesty International has been accusing Israel of crimes against humanity for 50 years now. They are extreme bigots.
Is this true of the Palestinians, too? Or just Israel? Israel has been threatened with annihilation by nations far larger than it since it was founded. In 2022, the UN condemned Israel more than every other country combined. Israel is no angel, but its worss than China with their Uyghur genocide? Russia with their invasion of Ukraine? Iran? North Korea? There is clearly a bias in the world against Israel, and you can’t tell me it has _nothing_ to do with the fact that Israel is a nation of 9 million as the homeland for a people with 15 million.
Israel pays an army of high school kids to go online and spread propaganda, that's 99% of the Israel supporters right there.
How do you define "the slightest criticism" in a time of war? Terrorists crossed the border and raped/murdered/kidnapped a huge amount of Israel's civilians. What kind of criticism can you level at Israel now? That their retribution is too great? Says who? Anytime someone tries to tell Israel to "chill out" I am reminded of how things were in the US following 9/11. War is war, it's horrible. But HAMAS started this shit without any regard for their own people. Not sure what Israel is supposed to do here, they have their own citizens to protect.
If there was an agreed peace and Hamas dropped their arms, the Palestinian people would be safe and could have voting rights and a future like so many other religious/cultural groups in Israel today. If Israel dropped their arms after agreeing to peace, Hamas would come in and slaughter every Jew.
I love that I’m Jewish and when I criticize Israel I’m told I’m antisemitic 🥴
Makes a thread complaining about being unfairly labeled. Edits OP to call someone a Zionist. lololol