Antisemitism in the US

Some people are more concerned with 20 year olds holding a Palestine flag on a college campus

 

Great post and point, because you nailed the problem, which is ignorance fueled by propaganda. The kids in our country, including most Jews, couldn’t find Israel on a map. They have been programmed to despise “oppression” so when someone gets in their ear and tells them that Israel is an oppressor, they just pick up a sign and march. But to your point: oppression is not a unique quality attributable to Israel, and more important to Jews. Being against war is not anti-Semetic….but…that is not what is being said by some. Praising the attack by Hammas or calling those cowards martyrs crosses the line, surrounding Jews in a library or airport crosses the line. Supporting Palestine is not anti-Semetic. I don’t believe criticism directed towards the nation of Israel is anti-Semetic by itself, but context matters. If you are using Israel as a synonym for Jews, then maybe.

 

Protest when Israel does something bad. It ain't protesting when they take to the streets in the wake of Israel being on the receiving end of an orchestrated TERRORIST attack that killed more Jews since the Holocaust.

That's called CELEBRATING.

 

You guys think Israel never does anything bad, so what's the difference to you? The ADL basically says criticism of Israeli policy is anti-Semetic. If people want to equate Israel to being Jewish, then I'm afraid a lot of stuff is "anti-semetic."

 

What event of significance occurred that prompted your warm fuzzy Palestinians to take to the streets?!?!?

 

Its pretty telling you dont find the bombing of civilians significant. Showing popular support for a ceasefire our country opposes isnt enough either?

 

I actually don't think this is true. The bigots reveal themselves pretty easily, because they aren't particularly ashamed of it, especially now when open bigotry is celebrated as being anti-woke by some. The 'smart' people are the ones that parse minutia or seemingly innocuous statements to find some kind of hidden message, because everyone in this country has Q-Anon brain of some sort. Good faith is in short supply for many reasons.

 

I hesitate to wade into this too much given how much I underestimated the amount of virulent anti-Semitism from the far Left as of 3 weeks ago. I fear that whatever I post now will not stand up well.

But I do think two broad categorical observations are still valid. First, it seems that the anti-Semitism from the far Left and far Right are different in philosophical origin, although they can and do merge.

I think it's accurate to say that the far Left anti-semitism comes out of the Israeli-Palestinian issue, but it's wider. It's part of the whole purported anti-colonial, anti-capitalism model, very broadly and crudely stated. I think I will go homicidal the next time I see a statement justifying October 7th with words to the effect of "this is what de-colonizing looks like". This worldview looks at the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as arising from a group of Europeans that have come to oppress and colonize a third world land and take it of their own. They're often incredibly ignorant of Jews' historical connection to the land, or at least downplay it significantly. It finds common cause with some of the traditional Arab historic rivalry anti-Semitism although it's more than that - it comes out of an anti-colonial worldview that sees almost all world affairs as the result of or an extension/continuation of European and Western colonialism.

The anti-Semitism from the far Right is much more of the traditional European stereotypes of Jews as rootless cosmopolitans/Shylocks that control the world behind the scenes and exploit Christians and raise up blacks and other minorities. You see a lot of it in the George Soros conspiratorialism or the Marjorie Taylor Greene Rothschild Jewish space lasers. It also factors into support for Russia against Ukraine although it's only a part of that. This is the type of anti-Semitism that has always been latent but Trump released, DeSantis has actively courted and hired, and Elon has valorized and given prominent platform to.

Either way it's deadly, dangerous, morally wrong and not justifiable by any ethical code derived from any major religion. It's completely inconsistent with anything our country stands for and should be uniformly condemned. And eventually both sides overlap in another example of our horseshoe example of extremist politics. The wildest example I've seen of this lately is that far Left hero Bernie Sanders put out a perfectly appropriate memorializing tweet on the 5-year anniversary of the massacre at the Tree of Life Synagogue by a far Right anti-Semite and was attacked on Twitter by some of his fans pointing to the "genocide" that Israel was committing. Also no less that Rashid Khalidi called out for tweeting that it wasn't helpful to refer to Israeli victims of Hamas as "colonizers".

I don't know if this will stand up well but it's something I've debated with friends for a long time, although I greatly underestimated the extent and virulence of far Left anti-Semitism. It just hurts the heart to see and it's something that should be uniformly condemned by all right thinking Americans who try to uphold true American values.

 

It's always been there. You just may not have seen it because there wasn't a polarizing conflict happening. Of course, I want to make clear that opposing Israel's actions is not necessarily antisemitism. That said, even acknowledging that, there have been a lot of antisemites outing themselves since October 7.

 

Maybe you were kidding, but I didn’t defend anti-semitism.

 

ADL is full of shit.

 

Celebrating violence and massacres can be very ugly (even if you find the resistance heroic), but I'm struggling with the "anti-semitic" angle here. The oppressors being Jewish seems incidental to most if not all of the left. Tying Israeli policy to Judaism is problematic, and it seems to set up this kind of thing unfortunately. You can thank the ADL for that, who want to set up a both sides type of thing on this issue. IF the US government were supporting some other 'colonizer' (like we did South Africa in the 80s, the rhetoric would be similar, as people supported "terrorist" orgs like the ANC and so-called terrorists like Mandela resisting white rule). In South Africa the lines were more clearly drawn racially in ways that liberals could wrap their heads around though. Israel has traditionally been viewed very differently here, and I think the lines are definitely drawn generationally too.

 

Why would that be surprising? The governor of our state has a number of times invoked the name of a prominent Jew to try and scaremonger over reform-minded prosecutors. What's the difference today? People have stopped talking themselves into believing that antisemitism isn't actually antisemitism.

 

I think we are talking about two different things. If it wasn't for what happened on October 7th, I would feel comfortable making very public expressions of disapproval or even stronger terms of Israeli policy towards Palestinians. And when I first saw those on the Right criticizing students as anti-Semitic, I assumed they were just referring to those standing up broadly for Palestinian rights. And certainly there is some of that, an attempt to suppress even very legitimate discussion of Palestinian rights and how they are being oppressed by linking the sentiment to Hamas.

But that does not account for physically terrorizing Jewish students at many campuses, surrounding them in rooms and shouting out death threats, or signs that talk about what Hamas did as just a very efficient military operation standing up to colonizers, or tearing down posters of the hostages, or stamping them with "Colonizer". There's still NO way in my mind to talk about the things Hamas did, which I don't even want to repeat, as having any link to legitimacy as a political statement, as "resistance".

For someone to praise that action after it happened, after knowing what happened, it's just beyond anything I can countenance.

 

Colonizer is just a way to clothe anti-Zionism and anti-Jewishness in a word that ignites hatred. It is a blood libel divorced from history. Israel was created by a UN resolution from 1948 in a territory that was stateless for nearly 2000 years. It has been occupied by various empires, most recently the British Mandate, which blocked Jews from entering. Israel was immediately attacked by 5 Arab nations and lost territory. In 1968, Israel captured the Sinai and Judea and Samaria and Golan. Jordan abandoned the territory in Judea and Samaria. Israel negotiated the return of Sinai to Egypt and later turned Gaza over to the Palestinians. Egypt didn’t want Gaza. Meanwhile, in 1967, the Arab nations rejected a return of the captured lands for peace and Syria and Egypt attacked Israel in 1973. In 1999, at Camp David, Arafat, Israel and the US negotiated a two state solution that was reduced to a written agreement. Arafat refused to sign it and said he would be killed. Since then, Israel has continued to settle the lands captured in 1967. And subsequent US Administrations have given lip service to the 2 state solution because everyone knows that the Arab solution is just what they say, “from the River to the Sea.” Subsequent UN resolutions condemning “occupation” are just a reflection of the worldwide hatred for Jews and Israel. It is notable that since 1999, the Palestinians haven’t come up with a two state plan and we can see how Gaza worked out.

 

Israel is not a colonizer. That is another trope. Every day you out yourself.

 

I think both of us know the point. You chose to compare the ADL, an organization that calls out Anti-Semitism, to the KKK, an organization that engaged in Anti-Semitism, because you perceived that they attacked your "tribe." Then, when you think Anti-Semitism is a good way to attack the other tribe, you do exactly what you accuse the ADL of doing (except, this time it is true, as the ADL, unlike you, calls out Anti-Semitism across the board and doesn't engage in it when it is helpful to your "tribe" or minimize it when it isn't).

 

They literally have settlers man, its not a trope of anything, except maybe anti-imperialist academic jargon. Out myself as what exactly? An anti-Zionist? I thought that was obvious, no outing needed. I even put colonizer in quotes in my post as it is contestable, and still I get this sort of pushback.

 

First, I agree that the deaths of civilians is indeed tragic. That being said that should using civilians including children and hospital patients as human shields provide fighters of a terrorist organization with them with immunity?

 

Yes, a lot of folks think being critical of Israel is anti-Semetic.