Antisemitism in the US

Maybe tell the terrorists to not rape, kidnap and kill innocent people first and this wouldn't have happened.

 

Celebrating the massacre of people is obviously disgusting. Celebrating the massacre of people because they're Jewish is obviously antisemetic.
Protesting the actions of the Israeli govt is not necessarily antisemetic.

 

I hear you. All I did was question the extent to which this was happening on college campuses and was quickly rebuked. Time to dip out of these murky waters. Wait . . . was that offensive?

 

I have a niece who fits every stereotype: PhD, college professor, extremely and right-down-the-line liberal. Just to be clear, way left of me. Yes, it's true.
We've discussed the Israel/Palestine situation, not since the attacks, though. And her sympathies are clearly with the Palestinians. And it's not because she doesn't like Jewish people. She simply sees the Palestinians as the unfairly displaced victims. Maybe it's simply rooting for the underdog.
But it's not antisemetism

 

There is definitely a generational divide, and that is the way it is described - standing up for the oppressed party. That seems to capture a lot of the generational differences. I just cannot absorb the specificity of some of the messages/actions after 10/7, given what occurred. But that is a lot of the generational framework

 

Well, you have things like the open letter from over 100 Columbia/Barnard faculty members that calls the events of October 7th “military action” and says:

“In our view, the student statement aims to recontextualize the events of October 7, 2023, pointing out that military operations and state violence did not begin that day, but rather it represented a military response by a people who had endured crushing and unrelenting state violence from an occupying power over many years. One could regard the events of October 7th as just one salvo in an ongoing war between an occupying state and the people it occupies, or as an occupied people exercising a right to resist violent and illegal occupation, something anticipated by international humanitarian law in the Second Geneva Protocol.”

And to the extent people want to protest Israeli policy and call for an end to “occupation,” they need to make real clear what exactly they think is being illegally occupied - because the group they’re supporting considers the existence of Israel at all to be an illegal occupation.

There’s some margin to, carefully, have a nuanced debate about Israeli policy with respect to the West Bank and Gaza without being per se antisemitic. When that shifts to Israel shouldn’t exist, full stop, that nuance is gone - that’s antisemitic IMO.

 

When I was at UF in the 80s there were lots of protests of apartheid in South Africa. Many kids these days see the same thing in Israel now.

 

I’d say this paragraph of the faculty letter pretty directly calls it military action:

“we feel compelled to respond to those who label our students anti-Semitic if they express empathy for the lives and dignity of Palestinians, and/or if they signed on to a student-written statement that situated the military action begun on October 7th within the larger context of the occupation of Palestine by Israel.”

 

Absolutely. Second time in this thread I have thought of an 80s U2 track. Your post reminded me of Silver and Gold.

Earlier, the repulsion at "revolutionary tactics" (in Bono's case, the Remembrance Day Bombing) in Sunday Bloody Sunday

 

They're referring to what the student statement called it.

You left out the remaining part of that paragraph you quoted...

 

If being wrong grew facial hair you would look like Santa. My “Tribe” is the human race. I attack all other tribes equally, because all of them promote division and hatred. Some much worse than others. Everything you posted is wrong. I award you no points. May God have mercy on your soul.

 

Except the student statement does not call it “military action” - that phrase only appears in the faculty letter.

And, while the faculty letter says that the student letter condemns the killing of civilians, it does not (at least by Hamas). The only time the word “condemn” appears in the student letter is to condemn an email sent by Columbia’s School of General Studies, and the only reference to “civilians” is an assertion that “As an occupying power, the state of Israel has a responsibility to protect civilian life under its own occupation.”

 

Underdog? The Jewish people are the underdog here. They got "Pearl Harbored" by Hamas. This never happens if Hamas didn't kidnap, rape and kill 1,300+ Israelis. Anyone thinking Israel isn't in their right to retaliate with a large show of force isn't using common sense.

 

If we are going to call anti-semitism not condemning certain acts of violence forcefully enough for certain people, God help us all. This is all just campus activist BS, I feel like this is 90% of these threads, particularly on this subject. Many of the same people who make fun of whiny college students getting mad at the faculty for not denouncing something in highly specific terms are demanding the same here. "Oh, you didnt say the magic words calling it genocide and are therefor a colonizer, or you called it genocide and therefore are a blood-libeling anti-semite." "Oh, you called it a military action and not terrorism you are celebrating dead Jews." Trust me, there is no language people are going to settle on where the other side will be like "oh you have a point because you said these words."

 

The student letter framed it as a military conflict, calling Oct 7th as Palestinians launching a "counter-offensive against their settler-colonial oppressor."

Is framing something as a counter offensive framing it as a military action?

I think it is.

That said, I agree, the student letter didn't condemn violence in the way the faculty letter suggested. Though even here, there is actually plenty of nuance that stems from how their letter is framed as a grievance about not caring about violence against Palestinians.

 

I thought I made it clear: my conversations with her were before the Hamas attack.

 

Again, I reiterate (rhetorically):

What significant event happened that prompted all of these *protestors* to take to the streets to *protest*, other than, the massacre of 1,400 JEWS by HAMAS--+ the BEHEADING of 40 JEWISH BABIES!!!!--plus the RAPE of multiple JEWISH WOMEN by Hamas TERRORISTS--plus the taking of HUNDREDS OF JEWISH HOSTAGES???

Nothing?

...then it damn sure seems like--THEY'RE CELEBRATING the above.

which is about as antisemitic as you can get, this side of the actual terrorists actually doing the above.

 

I think there has been a lot of pressure for people--real or imagined--to pick a side, and to some extent that side must be Israel. Yet, even though I think the colonization argument is the wrong framework for understanding this issue, the suffering of ordinary Palestinians is a legit concern, but one that is often dismissed or ignored, which is one of the main grievances of the Columbia student letter.

 

Well said

 

I think people are protesting Israel's response to that significant event. Hamas claims 6,747 Palestinians killed so far (that number is no doubt exaggerated but clearly a lot civilian deaths). I'm sure some are celebrating the terror attacks. But I'd be careful about painting with too broad a brush as I'm sure many are not.