Comment by tptacek | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tptacek | Hacker News Reader

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They also call a lot of things antisemitic because they are antisemitic. The notion that Israel is an ethnically Euro-American colony is antisemitic (and racist), erasing the MENA origins of a plurality of its citizens. The notion that Jewish Americans are untrustworthy interlocutors because they have duel loyalties is antisemitic. Calls to "decolonize" Israel and to "globalize the Intifadah" are straightforward appeals to ethnic violence on civilians, just as "Palestinians had a right to self-defense against colonizers" is a straightforward excusal of an atrocity. This stuff is all over the place. Just today, the Harvard Faculty SJP chapter posted an old racist SNCC poster depicting a hand with a Star of David puppeteering two Black men.

Nobody can deny that the concept of "antisemitism" is weaponized against critics of Israel. But at the same time, nobody can deny that many critics of Israel, or out ignorance or animus, weaponize antisemitism against Israel.

For context, here is the newsletter that Harvard image was from: https://www.crmvet.org/docs/sv/6707_sncc_news-r.pdf (page 4)

Seems to me, given the text, that the image was depicting the hand as Israel. Poor choice imo but doesn’t reek of overt antisemitism.

You're now at the point of sticking up for something even SJP has disavowed. And this isn't like my best example, it's just one fresh in my mind because it happened 2 days ago. Further, the idea that any symbol of Judaism is properly understood as support for Israel is itself prima facie antisemitic!

Posting context isn’t “sticking up” for it, unless you decide to interpret it less than charitably.

The Star of David is on Israel’s flag and the official adopted symbol of Zionism.. The entire article was about Israel and Zionists. That you claim it is antisemitic is just another example of what I mentioned.

many many people can and do and correctly deny that "many critics of Israel" "weaponize antisemitism against Israel". Lots of weasel words on that post! Which just so happen to themselves de-legitimize very necessary criticism of both Zionism writ large and Israel itself! And calls to "globalize the Intifadah" are overwhelming about a popular revolution you know nothing about but love to post about with some very racist certainty. The intifadah was a popular revolution that caught much of the self anointed Palestinian leadership by surprise, and has been consistently criticized for selling it (the popular organizing committees) out for Oslo. This isn't particularly hidden and isn't some kind of wild take but in fact quite well understood outside of a media landscape that endlessly portrays all attempts at Palestinian self-determination as necessarily violent. I suggest maybe taking a step back from these threads, you are very clearly speaking about a thing you don't understand while and ongoing campaign of mass murder is being conducted and you are defending the murdering. That isn't a value statement, whatever downvoters may feel, its a fact.

Well, they have a losing argument, because it's easy to present clear evidence of antisemitism delivered by Palestinian advocates (just like it's easy to present Kahanist rhetoric from Israeli advocates). I gave an undeniable specific example from Harvard's faculty SJP. There is stuff being said that is indefensible, and angrily denying it isn't going to get you anywhere; it just discredits your cause.

I would suggest maybe not lecturing others on how to "help the cause" from a ycombinator thread in which you described the Intifada, a popular uprising that was nonviolent for years, including tax resistance and boycotts, as a dyed-in-the-wool-this-is-what-it-is "call to murder civilians". I think you either don't care or don't realize how much you don't know and are absolutely trotting out wide generalizations yourself that are the mirror image of antisemitism, directed at Palestinians. The Kahanist comparison is also an incredibly poor one given that a literal Kahanist (Ben-Gvir), who is on video waving the stolen hood ornament of Rabin's car, saying "we can get to Rabin", is now the minister in charge of national security and has handed out thousands of rifles to settlers, independent of the militia he was given by Netanyahu to not bring down the far right coalition. Seems a bit more important to me than clucking about a harvard faculty advisor to a student group, and especially wrapping that in "well it only hurts your side" message board rhetoric! Israeli soldiers fired on crowds queuing for food from aid trucks yesterday, again. Every single hospital in Gaza has been bombed with some utterly destroyed. You are welcome to snipe in these threads as much as you want but this is a thing you are pretty clearly out of your depth on and should devote some time, which I know you are able to do, to following up. That is simply the most charitable way I can put it.

I agree that Ben-Gvir is a Kahanist (and a monster) and have said as much on HN. I don't know who you're arguing with here, but I get the sense that it probably isn't me. If you are, it appears to be your claim that any critique of Palestinian activism, in any form that it or the criticism takes, equates to support for Israel. No.

No, I am speaking directly to your castigation of "calls to globalize the Intifada". So, don't do that Tom. Its right there in my thread, in both of my comments. I could go back and find other examples from other threads in the last couple of months, but I'm pretty clearly talking about this thread, right here.

Edit: Can't reply to you for some reason, and no, you don't know me, though we have met, and corresponded via email a few times, but attempting to make my reply about "being angry" is really gross dude. I responded substantively to both of your comments and your reply appears to be to simply ignore that; so be it!

I get that you're angry, but I don't know you, I'm not angry at you, and my name is Thomas.

On this conflation, I think the best discussion I read up to now was this: https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-weekend-essay/in-the-shad...

Like every other Masha Gessen piece, this is an engrossing read, and the Jerusalem Declaration is helpful: what I mean to say is that it's easy to come up with examples of Palestinian advocacy that are, according not just to the IHDRA definition but the Jerusalem Declaration, antisemitic.

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