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Comment by aprilthird2021 | Hacker News Reader

aprilthird2021

You have to sign a document saying you won't boycott Israel, academic journals cancel editions which talk about Palestine, you can't be part of UNESCO for Israel. You can't write a college article critical of Israel or we'll kidnap you off the streets into an unmarked van. You can't be a business and not give a contract to Israel or your employee will tip off the Anti Boycott Office against you. Your Congressmen wear Israeli military fatigues into the Congress. Your mayoral candidates have to pledge fealty to Israel.

We aren't Israeli citizens. Why are we treated like we are?

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The thing about this that bothers me the most (ok maybe not the most... but its troubling), we have gotten to a point that we are more free to criticize our own government than a foreign government (unless it is about this topic).

Like, how that ever became OK is insane to me.

That's true, nobody's ever invented an entirely new word for when you criticize the U.S. government, but you start criticizing the Israeli government and all of a sudden you're "aNtIsEmItiC"...

Nah, I just think that in the 21st century, people shouldn't invade a country, kill all their children, and steal all their land.

Right, that is the problem. That word (rightly so) carries a lot of weight.

But instead it has turned into a word that is used to try to shut down any criticism. Things get labeled as such, schools and others have a zero acceptance policy and here we are.

I have never seen a school having an "un-patriotic" policy. I would say even the opposite, they encourage getting involved in the government and making your voice heard.

Well this is obviously not true so i wouldn't worry about it too much....

Care to tell me how what I said is not true?

I can say and criticize a lot of crap about my government without worrying about being kicked out of school or anything like that. The most I may be called is "unpatriotic" but I think most people here (maybe at least until recently) recognized that that was one of our core freedoms.

The same is not true if I tried to criticize one foreign government in particular.

> We aren't Israeli citizens. Why are we treated like we are?

shower thought, maybe you aren't, if we look at history, the closest analogy is:

you are the equivalent of 'natives' in the colonial era where the vassal states population have all the obligations (and more) and none of the rights and need to jump through hoops to show allegiance and maybe gain it at the individual level as a reward in the end.

You aren't russian gubernia neither, why does your country behave like one?

The right (same people behind project 2025) planned (and are now executing) an effort to use opposition to Israeli policy (calling it anti-Semitic) as a way to crack down and disrupt liberal and progressive groups across the Us. It’s all out in the open, they don’t hide it.

To clarify: my point is they don’t really care about antisemitism, it’s just useful as a wedge

And the left does the same kind of thing when it suits them.

You mean the Heritage Foundation's Project Esther.

Left/right is not a useful distinction for the present moment. The recent mayoral elections in New York and Minneapolis suggest that the relevant divide is pro/anti Zionist. You have Democrats, Republicans, Donald Trump, Silicon Valley and the media establishment on one side; with campus leftists, Tucker Carlson, Saagar Enjeti and global public opinion on the other.

What happened on April third 2021?

Something of significance? I can’t find anything germane here https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events/2021_A...

What happened?

It's a date important to me personally

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