Plenty of Jewish people that live both inside and outside of Israel are critical of the state.
People can be critical of the state of Israel, but they should not be antisemitic. His comments are offensive for this reason.
However part of the problem is that zionists within the state of Israel work really hard to blur this distinction.
You can see for example arguments being made in that sense in this debate here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1VTt_THL4A
Or the French parliament deciding that anti-Zionism is antisemitism: https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/antisemitism/french-parliamen...
Even within Israel there are of course fringe groups (e.g. Naturei Karta) and such, but unfortunately, the reality is that while it wouldn't suit most Jews for Judaism to be conflated with Zionism, it suits most zionists, so they try to further that notion.
Edit: To be clear I'm addressing the Judaism x Zionism aspect of this comment thread, not the blog post in the topic post.
So, by criticising Zionism in a middle of a self defense operation in Gaza (as they see it), you look like you don't know its roots and look like they ignoring the Jewish right for self defense.
1) Hitler was right,
but (contradictorily)
2) The Holocaust/Progroms were exaggerated,
and finally
3) there was never any instances of strife in the region before the forming of the state (and if there was it was always the Irgun and nobody else ever).
I’m not saying all people who criticize Israel believe the above but many of the people in “The Balance” room who criticized Israel appeared to.
> So, by criticising Zionism in a middle of a self defense operation in Gaza (as they see it), you look like you don't know its roots and look like they ignoring the Jewish right for self defense.
Yes, this is an excellent example of exactly that sort of blurring that GP was talking about, thanks.
What do the military actions of the state of Israel have to do with the "Jewish" right to self defense? Many Jews don't live in Israel and Israel contains many non-Jews.
Sadly the moment you call out Israel's human rights violations and ethnic cleansing you get automatically branded as antisemitic on all major social media and by most mainstream outlets too.
Sorry, why is it a "social media" problem if there isn't unanimous agreement on a certain issue in the comments?
Back on topic, the blog post title is definitely offensive, you can't label people like that. Maybe it was a bad tongue-in-cheek, thinking about it, I don't think you can even say Israelis or citizens of Israel, since not all people have the same political views or support the same solution of the "Palestine problem".
Antisemitism, antizionism and anti Israel sentiments relating to current events are distinct in purely theoretical terms. One does not imply the other and they often are distinct in practice. IRL though, they're very often intermingled.
The banal example is the PNA president's doctoral thesis, that the holocaust was faked to justify zionism. Most Israel critics and all antizionists define/use the term "zionism" entirely differently to how zionists use(d) it... Very often these draw from, or are similar to new world order conspiracy theories, most famously "the protocols." Speaking of old tropes, The Protocols are regularly republished in Islamic publications today. I ran across it once in a random indonesian magazine, for example. This obviously has roots in the Israel Palestine conflict, not antisemitism. Anti Semitism is not part of indonesian culture.. but intermingling.
It is true that anti-antisemitism organisations, jews, especially those with ancestral ties to europe can be paranoid about antisemitism and see it where it doesn't exist. It's also true that they often have a better eye, and recognise actual antisemitism where others don't. We know the old stereotypes and libels.
A lot of it is contextual. The vast majority of Israelis (myself included) do not suspect antisemitic motives in Palestinians, no matter what "Jews be like X" stuff they say. Antisemitism doesn't mean animosity towards Jews (or semites). It is a specific, european cultural phenomenon that persisted for a long time, and still exists. Many of its features or ostensibly banal. I'm not american, but I think "why is blackface racist" is an analogy of sorts.
For "proof" look at unmoderated comments sections of many/most anti-zionist posts. You'll find obvious, unmasked antisemitism very commonly.
This is not apologetics, nor does it mean that criticism of Israel is inherently anti semitic, invalid or unacceptable. It also doesn't mean that people are never unjustly accused of antisemtitism.
Speak for yourself, I'm Israeli as well and most Israelis don't agree with you. There is antisemitism among Palestinians and there is Islamophobia among Israelis (though to a lesser degree in my opinion), wishing it away won't make it go away
What I'm saying is that antisemitism is a distinct thing.
My point is we are a long way away from that, despite how many Ashkenazi Jews live in the US.
Israel is and will always remain the eternal Homeland of the Jewish people. Am Yisrael Chai.
The whole concept of having a natural "homeland" because of your DNA/ethnicity/race is bullshit, land doesn't care what color your skin is or what religion you practice.
The premise of zionism was never "having a natural "homeland" because of your DNA." The premise of Zionism was that Jews could not stay in Europe, particularly in the age of nation states. Most commonly, this was referred to as "The Jewish Question."
The majority of secular Jews believed in emancipation. The majority of religious jews believed that only god could create the Jewish state. They were also skeptical of Zionism's desire for secular Jewish identity.
That said, my grandparents never referred to themselves as zionists. Before the war, zionism just meant "want a jewish state to exist." Foreign politicians (eg Churchill) were referred to as zionist for this reason. After the war, it generally meant exuberance about zionists political ideologies of the time. Founding Kibbutz, farming, hebrew language revival, etc. "Zionists" wanted to take hebrew names, for example. Today, "zionist" just means Israeli patriotism.
Bundism also continued to exist after the Holocaust, albeit in a diminished form.
"premise of Zionism was that Jews could not stay in Europe" -> the creation of a state where citizenship is granted explicitly on the basis of your ethnicity, in the form of a "right of return" is 100% the premise I suggested.
I do dispute that it was a a sentiment at all, at least in grandparents' case. It wasn't ideology either. It was just a fact. They couldn't stay in europe. A right of return to a Jewish State^ was the only practical way to survive, besides conversion. My grandfather considered that route, as an atheist, but his first wife dissented. He also looked very Jewish. That was their conclusion att. You are free to disagree.
The majority of post war immigration was non ideological. There wasn't much daylight between ideological and non-ideological zionism, for the most part.
It also (in my opinion, this time) proved true for 1.5 million people who found that they could not stay in Egypt, Iraq, Yemen, etc. The new world wasn't an option for them, as it had been for many europeans.
I might agree with you that nation states, or the common form of nation state, isn't ideal. It is quite terrible in its purist form. However, I don't see why this criticism is so often leveled at Zionism exclusively. I'm also Irish, and have never heard such a criticism of Irish Republicanism. Besides that, lots of countries' have rights of return, ethnonational symbolism, etc.
Meanwhile, most Israelis supported South Sudanese and Kurdish independence for similar reasons. Me included. I think that Kurds have been screwed since the fall of the Ottomans, because they ended up without a state. Lebanon was founded on this premise. Pakistan. Lots of examples
^Zionism originally called for a homeland, not necessarily a state, and hoped to achieve this as cultural autonomy and migration rights under Ottoman sovereignty. Nation States were not the norm, when zionism was first conceived.
+The downvotes are not from me.
I don't dispute that most of this immigration was non-ideological, I wasn't trying to suggest that it wasn't. Nor am I opposed in any way to Jewish immigration to Israel.
Moreover, racial & ethnic separatism is a very common and understandable reaction to oppression. But I still remain critical of it - just as I would be if Black people in the United States established a separate Black state in North America.
The crime, in my view, was the insurgency, bombings, and driving out of the British following their announcement that they planned to transition Palestine into an independent, multi-racial state with majority-rule. Fighting against that goal in order to form an ethno-state is, in my view, analogous to what the white minority in Zimbabwe/Rhodesia pulled after similar British announcements around their colonial state. The primary difference is that Israel remains, Rhodesia no longer does.
> I'm also Irish, and have never heard such a criticism of Irish Republicanism. Besides that, lots of countries' have rights of return, ethnonational symbolism, etc.
My understanding is that Irish republicanism is not based on the same principles as Zionism, namely there is no opposition for a multi-ethnic/racial state with majority democratic rule.
There is quite a lot of similarity between the two movements, current antagonism aside. Language revival being the most commonly noted. IDK what you would consider "principles of," but they're both nation state ideologies of the time... as opposed to republican universalism (a la france) of previous centuries.
It is also true that ireland was segregated along religious/national lines, and that protestants in ROI (I am catholic-jewish-atheist, as the old joke goes) are nonexistent today. They were about 25% before independence. Driving out protestants is emphatically not a principle of irish republicanism. Many/most founders of Irish Republicanism were, in fact, protestant. Most emigrated, moved north or converted in the generation following independence. There is some dark, rarely mentioned parts of our history of that time.
I'll also note that driving out arabs is emphatically not a principle of zionism, never was. The coming of the nation state had other ideas. zionism started in the ottoman period, and aspired to cultural autonomy of a kind that was practiced there. A nation state goal was adopted after France and Germany decided this was the future of the region.
People seem to forget how mixed Europe was before the wars, before nation states. Poland was about 50% polish. Jews, Germans and other minorities made up the rest. Its now 99% Polish-catholic. My grandfather's region (now eastern Slovakia) were Slovaks, Jews, Czechs and Ukrainians in a "majority-minority" mix. Now 99% Slovak. All of mainland europe shares this history.
When the Ottoman empire fell, giving way to nation states, same. Greek & Turkish ethnic "exchange." The Syriac & Armenian genocide. Yugoslavia & multiethnic arab countries segregated more recently. India, despite Gandhi's efforts. Etc. Empires were more multicultural than the current states.
I'll note that the philosophical distinction between universalism and ethno nationalism is barely noticeable in actual history.
Re: racial & ethnic separatism
Seeing independence as synonymous with racial & ethnic separatism is a leap. But, as I said, but if it applies to Israel it applies to half the world. In Israeli law, now and since founding, there is no preference or limits on any citizen. The only preferential law is the right of return. Actual discrimination, especially during wars, is a real thing. It is a failure though, not an ideal.
Rhodesia practiced apartheid and only allowed whites to vote. Israel never practiced apartheid, and all citizens can vote.
During the 1948 war about >1m palestinians became refugees, most ending up in the Jordanian or Egyptian parts of Palestine. >1m european jewish refugees arrived from europe and >1m arab-jewish refugees who were forced out of various countries. Thats how the demographics came to be. There was never a time when israel, as an independent state, had a jewish minority.
I'm not american, but I'll hazard a guess that "certain Native Americans" who take this position are also more often assumed than real.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Paper_of_1939#Content
"history of Israel is centered around" - bollocks.
First, the main faction, which later became the government, did not "rebel" against the British Empire. In fact, they offered to contribute troops and enforced a truce on the grounds that the UK was fighting nazis. It was a minority faction that fought the British, both before and after this event.
Second, nothing about the white papers had anything to do with voting rights. There were no voting rights during the British period. Arabs had voting rights in Israel once Israel existed, but that's neither her nor there. The "rebellion" was about immigration restrictions. More to the point, it was about emigration restrictions, cutting off the last escape route out of the third reich.
Third, the "Palestinian Civil War," as the British called it, had started 10 years prior, shortly after the first partition of Palestine. It started when it became clear the French & British were going to chop the region into nation states and skedaddle.
The people actively involved in fighting are going to be a minority in any rebellion you would ever study.
> First, the main faction, which later became the government, did not "rebel" against the British Empire.
They were clearly opposed to the idea of a state with joint rule between different ethnic groups. What is the Jewish Resistance Movement if not a rebellion against the British mandate?
It is disingenuous to suggest that they did not "rebel", indeed, I have an older friend who has recounted blowing up British police stations as a member of the Palmach, which was not the minority faction.
> There were no voting rights during the British period. Arabs had voting rights in Israel once Israel existed, but that's neither her nor there
Most post-British former-colonies had majority rule voting rights. You're right (and I was wrong) that the white paper didn't explicitly address that, but it did address the creation of a multi-ethnic state.
None of the fighting had anything to do with anything but migration, with the primary emphasis on getting Jews out of the Reich. Ships being returned to Italian ports were the main incendiary. You are caught up the the boilerplate, which preceded any document from that era. It was the British trying to square the circle of contradictory promises made to different factions. Jews & Arabs. Hashemites & Bedouins, etc.
It's also not the beginning of anything, neither conflict with the British or Arabs. It's certainly not what the country is "centred on." Most notably, it's the only time Jewish militias fought one another.
Who care about insurrection against Britain anyway? Why?
I was quite under the impression that the canonical stance of progressive politics was that they're right about that!
Rise of anti-semitism in Europe - nothing is done
Jews seek safety in other countries - immigration denied
Holocaust happens - world sympathizes and moves on
Israel is under no illusions as to what happens if they don’t have a home and defend it. I kind of don’t blame them for ignoring the worlds criticisms.
What should white people be doing if they want to protect their race?
Why the hell does all this tribalist & essentialist nonsense become acceptable when discussion turns to Israel?
Just like the IDF does which has non Jewish member's.
Someone should probably tell all the people invaded and oppressed by the USA that it's gotten woke now and white supremacist settler-colonialism is over.
See the difference?
Ashkenazi Jews before the war just called themselves Jews, with secular emancipationists often appending nationality.
Naturally under the Ashkenazi umbrella there were people of different cultures (and different degrees of assimilation to the surrounding non-Jewish population), but those Jews were still more similar to one another than to non-Ashkenazi Jews.
It's also not about accent. There are distinct Sephardic reading styles. It's not technically doctrinally different either, at least formally. In religious terms, distinctions are termed is "customary/minhagim" which are lower on the hierarchy.
In any case, etymology is not far off the mark. Ashkenazi judaism isn't just named after germany, it originated in the HRE and Ashkenazim spoke a German dialect.
My grandmother was a native polish speaker, secular, and would not have identified as "askenazi" before the war. She identified as polish, strongly, and was as comfortable in a sephardic synagogue as an ashkenazi one. My grandfather, a Yiddish speaker, was more comfortable in an ashkenazi synagogue. Most are mixed, these days, whatever the majority is.
This is Orientalist as fuck.
That said, it's still a dumb thing to be cancelled over. Everyone has been an asshole to someone else at some point in our lives. Why do people feel the need to socially shame people publicly for an offense over a decade ago?
Because they're playing a game of Moral Supremacy one-upsmanship. In the long run, everyone who plays this game must lose, because were all humans. But in the short term this game can be quite lucrative in terms of attention getting, internet points, and money.
Search for the word "white" or "Jew" in his blog [1] posts to see for yourself.
[1] http://kamaubobb.blogspot.com/
Since Google supports "cancel culture", Kamau Bobb needs to be fired.
> The cost of elite education for our children is extraordinary. I dropped my beautiful black star into a sea of white children and it hurt.
> among the increasing number of white women holding leadership roles in the academy and in the public and private sector, they surely see younger versions of themselves in the next generation of white girls. It is a natural instinct to want the very best for them.
> In a nation with a history such as ours, that imagery is connected to a much longer and darker legacy – a legacy where white men have abused black women and girls with impunity.
> I do not need to be convinced that diversity and excellence are intimately interwoven. But what of my White counterparts? I really do not know how White people learn about Black or Hispanic people in ways that are honest
> Perhaps it is time to focus the inquiry on our White counterparts. They may well feel marginalized by the shortage of academic inquiry into the complexity of their changing American citizenship alongside people of color. Their sense of self-efficacy may be undermined by their pending loss of majority status.
> I was learning about the resilient spirit of black people in America in the context of white American barbarism.
> It is still true that white people kill black people in America with impunity.
...and he's been accused of racism before: http://kamaubobb.blogspot.com/2011/08/accused-of-being-racis...
It goes on and on...
Most russians have nothing to do with putin's regime and it's hackers. Those hackers' nationality may not even be russian. Yet, "russian hackers".
There are scientists deeply upset with state of official science, indians disagreeing with what fellow indians do, and so on.
Theoretically, I guess, but it's really strange how the one tiny country in the whole world that has a Jewish-dominated society is so often a target for complete destruction.
Many of the same countries that have all but eliminated their own Jewish populations somehow find Israel's very existence to be unpalatable, going after them in the UN, in their state-sponsored media, and through military/terroristic acts.
So, sure. You could be critical of Israel but not be antisemitic. But as a matter of probability, a lot of people who criticize Israel are also antisemitic.
You don’t think there’s anything about it’s recent creation that makes this a special case?
There's plenty of states with ongoing ethnic strife, and they do face a lot of deserved criticism. However I can't really recall popular, internationally supported calls for their abolition altogether.
The age of state again has not much to with it: for example Lebanon is younger than Israel and has a rich history of ethnic/sectarian conflict. Now there must be people who want to abolish Lebanon, but somehow you never hear them.
So when some are shouting to end Israel, it’s not unreasonable to think the next step is finish the genocide.
What people usually find particularly offensive is the de-facto annexation and settlement of territories that exceed the UN resolution that created the State of Israel, along with the complete imbalance in both military power and casualties of both sides. It's not just ethnic/sectarian conflict. In many aspects, it would qualify as genocide.
Hell, even outright Nazism wasn't deemed a reason enough to dissolve Germany (although at some point it was seriously considered).
The Israeli government and its people need to take a hard look at what it is doing, whether they'd like to be subjected to it by a foreign military power, and how they'd react against it. If they wouldn't like it, and if they would react violently against it, then I believe we'd have a lesson to learn and understand what Palestinians are experiencing and why a more peaceful solution would be a more constructive way to move forward. Some of the pain points can be immediately addressed.
And Germany was, in fact, dissolved into two smaller and very different countries for a long, long time after WWII. Their own wounds and the memory of the horrors they perpetrated, and the lesson that very normal people can do unimaginable evil is a tough one to learn, but one we must learn nevertheless if we decide to be better than our ancestors.
That's exactly what many advocate. It's in the charter political documents of the Palestinian ruling authorities. Major US politicians hold this position who receive a lot of political and media support. Notable celebrities have tweeted/said "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free". What do you think they mean by that besides the utter destruction of the state of Israel?
whether they'd like to be subjected to it by a foreign military power
Since the Israelis only are responding to being attacked, I fail to see how they're in any way being hypocritical.
Sorry. I meant nobody respectable is suggesting that. Not even the respectable Palestinians.
> "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free". What do you think they mean by that besides the utter destruction of the state of Israel?
A single-state solution where Israelis and Palestinians share the same rights and live under the same democratic government.
> Since the Israelis only are responding to being attacked
The said attacks are extremely ineffective. They always were, since well before Iron Dome became operational.
So only True Scotsman are to be considered respectable? Rashida Talieb, Ilhan Omar, and other overt anti-semites who appear regularly on national media aren't "respectable"? Let me know when they're abandoned by the media and their own party like Steve King was for making racist-adjacent statements.
A single-state solution where Israelis and Palestinians share the same rights and live under the same democratic government.
Voting residents in the region don't agree with you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas_Covenant
The said attacks are extremely ineffective.
The attempt to make this about body counts and not the initiation of hostile military action baffles me. But I disagree with "ineffective". People in Israel are being injured and dying in rocket attacks. That's not ineffective. And then if you want to think this through a bit more, you'd realize that the degree to which it is ineffective is due to the fact that Israel counter-attacks to destroy the ability of Hamas/PLO terrorists to attack them. If they didn't respond to the degree that they do, there would be more Israeli casualties.
BDS is doing so precisely in the guise of
>A single-state solution where Israelis and Palestinians share the same rights and live under the same democratic government [and gerrymandered borders and immigration policy to create a Palestinian majority]
There is an elephant in the room and we must acknowledge it’s there so we can deal with it.
And yes, plenty people do advocate for dissolution of Israel, it's in fact a mainstream (but not the only one) position among pro-Palestinian activists.
It also has a surprisingly long list of separatist movements[0], which it has has thus far refrained from bombing with US-funded F16s.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_active_separatist_move...
What makes it strange is sense of normalcy people (sorry, I mean racists) have about a sense of white / Islamic supremacy over Jews, that makes them think it's ok to say things like 'we will wipe every Jew off the face of the planet' etc.
I am critical of some of Israel’s behavior, but by no means calling for its complete destruction.
The vast majority of people are criticizing the government not the population. It’s unusual for people to consider a nation’s population rather than their government because a nation’s population is largely irrelevant. It’s not random Americans that have a history of overthrowing democratically elected governments, it’s the US government that does so etc.
Israel’s government, like all governments, does plenty of things people disagree with and as such often gets legitimate criticism on it’s own merits.
And yet, Jews are today. It wasn't too long ago that people marched in Charlottesville chanting jews will not replace us. Now there's a massive rise in violence
Yes, they are. The US State Department issues travel advisories over such issues. It’s safer to travel in many places as a Canadian rather than American.
Let’s be very clear, any criticisms of Israels actions should not apply to Jews as a race, people or religion and even more so not be used as an excuse to harm or treat any single Jewish person negatively.
By and large, for example, the UN security council resolutions that the US keeps single-handedly vetoing are not calling for any destruction. They simply condemn Israel's violent behavior.
It's also an entirely an uneven playing field. No other country is condemned and attacked by the international community as often, and as widely despite other countries' far worse offense.
Criticisms of Israel is unique and direct and no other country is held to the same standard.
How much of a joke is it that Saudi Arabia was on the human rights commission at the UN for so long. Or the lack of similar statements against China for their decimation of Uighurs.
This isn't a finger blaming game, its recognizing that the UN demonstrates a massive bias against a single country with standards that no other nation has to face
For what it is worth I have visited Israel and the West Bank, and my sympathies are with Israel as the only democracy in the region.
That does not mean I cannot criticize when it acts wrongly. Sure the whole conflict is incredibly difficult with no easy solutions, but some people want to use it to stay in power.
Of course Hamas is not better, but that is not the expectation for Israel.
Based solely on the merits, you'd think that Israel's ethno-state bona fides wouldn't be any worse than dozens of other countries'. In fact, they're far less problematic. You can be Arabic/Muslim in Israel and rise to the highest levels of government with full rights of citizenship. I can point to many other countries where that wouldn't be the case for ethnically/religiously mal-aligned individuals. But somehow those other countries aren't constantly in the news cycle for defending their ongoing right to exist.
Just fanning the flames, let’s work together to find a solution instead of gaslighting.
This is a meaningless statement though. We can expect that nearly anyone that's antisemitic would be critical of a country run and mostly inhabited by Jewish people.
It becomes a problem when people try to extrapolate that fact to dismiss every criticism of Israel as "this guy's probably just antisemitic."
Its only true as a matter of probability throughout the entire world because its true in a particular region that has an enormous population padding those statistics.
There is antisemitism everywhere in some amounts and it is wrong like all forms of bigotry. However, in many countries, such as the US, you are just as likely to run into a person that criticizes Israel for reasons that have nothing to do with the religion of its inhabitants. You are still free to think that they are wrong, but people should stop using accusations of bigotry as a weapon to silence people simply for disagreeing with them. If you want to call someone a bigot, its pretty important to make sure you are right about it.
And for the record when it comes to that Israel/Palestine conflict I think neither side is even close to being innocent. I don't give a shit about their religions I just want families to stop being murdered by the actions of two shitty governments.
Huh? Are you seriously calling someones words who feels victimized, a weapon? Are you seriously holding fear of actual violence to an unsubstantiated standard?
"If you want to call someone a bigot, its pretty important to make sure you are right about it."
Please show me one other form of bigotry accusation you hold to the same standard.
This perspective is almost certainly a blindspot. Im not certain - but I definitely would not rely on you to stand up or defend folks from actual antisemitism.
How do people even think, let alone say these things and not get called out by everyone immediately?
Do you actually and critically think this is true or even appropriate to say?
The idea of figuratively describing something as a weapon isn't new or unusual. I'm not even sure what you mean by the second sentence. I was talking about people defaulting to claims of bigotry at any sign of criticism. If every criticism of Israel, even legitimate criticisms not coming from a sense of bigotry, makes a person feel victimized then there is something wrong with that person. If words cannot be used as a weapon exactly how do criticisms of Israel make a person feel victimized?
>Please show me one other form of bigotry accusation you hold to the same standard.
I hold all forms of bigotry accusations to the same standard. The example given was basically "a lot of people exist that are antisemitic so we can assume that criticism of Israel is probably antisemitic." Which is an argument that's basically uses the same sloppy logic that actual bigots use to justify their beliefs. Calling someone a bigot can have severe consequences for that person whether they are actually bigots or not. The key part of that sentence is that it can have consequences when they are not guilty. Yet people throw accusations around assuming someone's intentions simply because they said something they don't like. That's wrong so its important to try to only make those accusations against people that are actually bigots. I'm not sure how that's controversial. Some people do this because they genuinely think that anyone that criticizes a thing they like is a bigot. However, some people know better and intentionally falsely accuse people of being antisemitic because they know that it makes people afraid to voice their opinions. Thus, I called it a figurative weapon.
>but I definitely would not rely on you to stand up or defend folks from actual antisemitism.
Well whether you rely on me or not I will do the right thing if a genocidal antisemitic political party attempts to take over US politics. In the meantime, if I see people doing bigoted things I will stand up for people being targeted. Like I always have. This is kind of what I was talking about though, you seem to have labelled me as an enemy of yours simply because I suggested that there are people that criticize Israel for reasons other than antisemitism. There is no government in the world that doesn't sometimes deserve to be criticized.
>Do you actually and critically think this is true or even appropriate to say?
I don't understand. Are you saying its impossible to be critical of Israel without being antisemitic?
To be clear, what I was saying wasn't intended as a defense of the person OP was about. I think that the Google employee's letter was poorly worded and offensive. I don't know if he's antisemitic, but the phrasing saying that "Jews have an insatiable appetite for war" comes across as bigoted to me. It could be the result of poor phrasing causing someone to say something that they didn't mean, but it might not be. I can't blame someone for interpreting his statement as antisemitism because it was an overtly antisemitic statement. He could be a different person today, but no one made him publish that.
The idea that antisemitism is used to silence criticism of Israel is meant to do exactly that, victim shame them into silence - its an outrageous accusation without any factual basis.
I don't know anyone that defaults that way about every criticism of Israel...but there are many types of critiques that are clearly antisemitic - for example blaming Jews or even Israelies collectively for their governments actions - or holding Israel to a standard you dont hold anyone else to or leveling criticism at Israel with no attempt to even get the facts on the ground correct.
Can a claim of antisemitism be taken at face value without accusing the victim of weaponizing it to silence criticism of Israel?
Why are you looking for reasons to dismiss accusations of anti semitism?
Why isn't your default compassion and understanding?
This tactic of saying "oh try to find Israel on the map, it's so tiny, oh poor state of Israel" is often pushed by Zionists, also often trying to link anti-zionism with anti-semitism.
I saw a talk with Ruth Wisse, a professor at Harvard University pushing this narrative.
If Israel weren't Jewish, nobody would care about it. You can go line by line describing Israel and its so-called "atrocities" and I'll show you countries that are far more appropriately accused of those types of atrocities... yet those other countries never make it into the international news cycle.
I'm not Jewish. I'm not religious.
But the singling out of Israel by political/antisemitic forces has not escaped my notice.
Plenty of countries get criticised for their treatment of minorities when they do something wrong.
But instead, we see more media coverage in a single day of Israel's counter attacks from rocket fire than we do for a year of Uighur genocide.
There were plenty of news stories about the Uighurs last year.
The international community is not doing much about Israel either.
Agreed. In practice, antizionists (folks who believe that Israel shouldn't exist) virtually are virtually always antisemitic. Whatever you think of him, Bret Stephens makes a pretty insightful analogy that it's like how there could theoretically be segregationists that aren't racist, but they don't exist in practice.
That said, there's a distinction to be made between antizionism (i.e., "Israel shouldn't exist") and criticism of Israel (e.g., "Israel's settlement policy violates human rights"). The former is de facto (but not de jure) antisemitism while the latter is not.
EDIT: I'm getting a lot of downvotes for this, I'm guessing I've offended a lot of people who identify strongly with antizionism/antisemitism. My intention wasn't offense, but rather observation. That said, I make no apology for any offense taken--enjoy my Internet Points! (:
At that point, it's not a very interesting statement
>Plenty of Jewish people that live both inside and outside of Israel are critical of the state.
Is this not exactly what this thought experiment of an article is talking about? Trying to put themselves on the shoes of a Jewish person who is critical of Israels politics
Edit because I realized I may not have been clear: what I mean is that in a lot of country Christian and Muslims are in power. For Jewish people, it's the case in one country, and there's not much big minorities like there are Muslim minorities in Chrisian countries and the opposite.
Being jewish does not mean you are a zionist. Being a zionist does not mean you are jewish (many evangelicals in the US's "south" are staunch zionists).
You can want the palestinians to have basic human rights and still be pro-Israeli state.
BTW, I don't think most people who use the term Zionism in a negative context actually understand what it means. It's just the desire of Jews to live in its historic homeland - Israel, in a peaceful coexistence with its neighbors.
[1] https://unwatch.org/updated-chart-of-all-unhrc-condemnations...
You're doing the same thing this Googler is accused of. Assigning some characteristic/desire to the whole class of people.
That way you can’t criticize Israel without being labeled and anti-Jewish semite. Nothing he posted was offensive. Israel is an apartheid state
> “If I were a Jew I would be concerned about my insatiable appetite for war and killing in defense of myself”
How about that?
It’s easy to spot people who know less than nothing about the situation when this word shows up. Israel is literally not an apartheid state. “Palestine” is literally an apartheid state. This is a demonstration of supreme ignorance.
Definition of apartheid: "a rigid former policy of segregating and economically and politically oppressing the nonwhite population"
Arabs and Jews are both white but I am guess that in your analogy you are referring to segregation of those groups, correct me if I misinterpreted your specific version of propaganda.
In apartheid South Africa, whites and blacks didn't live in the same areas and blacks couldn't vote.
Taking a look at the countries around Israel, in Egypt there used to be 100,000 Jews, they were mostly forced out by president Nasser, there are less than 20 left today.
There are no Jews in Saudi Arabia. During the Gulf War when US military forces were stationed there, the Saudis allowed Christian worship services but prohibited Jewish worship services for the military personnel, Jews had to hold services in ships offshore.
There are no Jews in Jordan. There are less than 20 Jews in Syria. There are around 100 Jews in Lebanon.
There are 1,900,000 Arabs in Israel, that is around 20% of the population. They have full voting rights, around 16% of the parliament in Israel are Arabs. They enjoy full civil rights.
Describing Israel as an apartheid state is anti-Jewish, and it is ridiculous.
I find this a very curious definition. Why should the skin color of the oppressed population matter? Googling it returns this dictionary entry[1]:
> (in the Republic of South Africa) a rigid former policy of segregating and economically and politically oppressing the nonwhite population.
> any system or practice that separates people according to color, ethnicity, caste, etc.
So the definition you quoted only applies in the context of South Africa, in general apartheid refers to any system or practice that separates people according to color, ethnicity, caste, etc..
The word apartheid is an Afrikaans word (Afrikaans is a Germanic language spoken in South Africa) that was used as an election slogan by a South African political party that implemented complete segregation and racial classification in South Africa in the 1950s.
If you are not making a specific comparison to the former racial policies of South Africa, there are better words to use.
Although I know over time, meanings change, so that words like anti-Semitic, racist, fascist, etc. all just become synonyms for "bad" or "things I don't like".
Filled with a nation of people persecuted for millenia, who have been victims of racism forever, who yet become massively successful, and don't act like victims.
Yes, I understand it's a ridiculously annoying example that counters every woke left ideal. Can't blame the woke for being anti semitic.
What happened in the recent past to American Jews on university quotas and discrimination is now happening to Asian Americans.
The issue is both cases showcase upwards mobility by investing in your future generations. Going against the left belief social mobility is dead.