Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, meanwhile, called for immediate punishment for the Palestinian Authority and expanded settlement construction in the Occupied West Bank as a response.
This is unhinged, wanting to punish the PA for other countries recognizing Palestine.
The word you’re looking for is nationalism. It’s the same word Netanyahu should be using to defend criticism of his nation, rather than antisemitism.
Antisemitism is a form of racism and/or religious persecution that has affected Jews around the world for over two millennia, the majority of whom are unaffiliated with the Zionist state of Israel. It would be cool if you stopped making fun of it. I’d ask Netanyahu too, but I don’t see him on Lemmy.
Antisemitism is a form of racism and/or religious persecution that has affected Jews around the world for over two millennia, the majority of whom are unaffiliated with the Zionist state of Israel. It would be cool if you stopped making fun of it.
I don’t think they’re making fun of antisemitism itself. People can refuse to indulge the spurious accusations of antisemitism Israel’s right-wing throws out in knee-jerk fashion every time it is criticized, and still take antisemitism seriously as a real and dangerous phenomenon with a long history. I understood the comment above yours as making fun of the former, not the latter.
I get it. Had Netanyahu claimed antisemitism anywhere in the article, I would’ve upvoted and laughed, but he didn’t. It seems like it’s become the go-to joke for any post about Israel now, and it has a real-world impact on the majority of Jews who have no affiliation with Israel whatsoever.
You’ve got it backwards. The constant conflation of antisemitism with criticism of Israel by Israel and its stooges is what’s bad for Jews. Making fun of how disingenuous they are is good for Jews who don’t want to be associated with a genocidal apartheid regime.
You’re correct that Netanyahu is to blame for the initial misuse of the term, but there’s absolutely no reason to continue to dilute its meaning for fun. It’s completely fair to mock him when he uses it incorrectly. My comment was intended to be critical of mocking it without provocation, as the initial commenter had done.
When both America and Israel accuse anybody demonstrating against the killing of children by the IDF as being antisemites they’re implying that killing children is a Jewish thing to do, because there is no doubt or denying that the IDF is killing children and they’re not even denying it.
The real antisemitism is doing and supporting highly immoral deeds and then when criticised for those specific deeds claim that those criticizing it are against Jews, because that’s saying that the people doing said highly immoral deeds represent all Jews and the highly immoral deeds themselves are the product of Jewish values.
Not even the worst antisemites since the time of the Nazis (with their “Jews eat babies” kind of propaganda) have associated mass murder of children, journalists and medical personnel with Jewishness and yet here we are with Zionists doing exactly that.
People making fun of that strategy from the Israeli and American administrations are doing more to undo the damage done by those politicians as they shamellessly bind some of the most evil actions imaginable with Jewishness by using that accusation in an attempt to silence criticism of those action, than any amount of “but, but, but think about the Jews!” propagandists: the best thing for Jews in general is exactly that people aren’t thinking about Jews when they think about Zionists, Israel, their actions and their propaganda.
It’s racism and/or religious persecution, hence the specific term. Not all genealogical Jews practice Judaism, and not all who practice Judaism are genealogically Jewish.
‘Racism’ is a good enough umbrella term for ‘being shitty to people because of some demographic category’. Whether the basis is ethnic, national, religious or anything else doesn’t seem like an important distinction. Nobody considers ‘race’ to be a useful term any more, after all.
I think we should use specific terms for specific things. There is differences in the origins, interests and means of different bigotries. Antisemitism is very different from Racism against Black people, which is very different from Racism against Asian people, which is different again from Racism towards Middle Easterners or general Islamophobia.
For Jews it makes sense to distinguish Antisemitism, as it is specific in regards to the Religion+Ethnicity combination you just don’t find with Christianity or Islam. E.g. there is many Christians and Muslims of all ethnicities while most religious Jews are also ethnically Jewish.
They’ll retract Sacha Baron Cohen’s citizenship, and leave The West saddled with him, his shitty movies, and the irreparable wreck of his once brilliant career
I’m not a fan of his broad style of comedy, but a huge number of people love his TV shows and movies, he’s made a lot of people laugh, and he made Rudy Giuliani look like a pedo. I really don’t have an issue with the dude.
“Sorry best we can do is more bombs, officially define antisemitism as calling these guys assholes, and, uh, oh yeah, giving their military benefits packages!”
All that work putting together a “humanitarian help” system which was only ever meant as propaganda and never meant to actual put a dent in Israel’s Final Solution of death by Starvation, and Biden throws all that aways like this.
Bet even his Campaign and Press people are pissed of at that one, though probably not for “normal person empathising with the suffering of others” reasons.
Not sure how the Jewish would think about this but I’m starting to think it’s antisemitic to link the Jewish and Israel (apart from Israel defining itself as a Jewish state). Funny how that might go full circle.
I dunno. It definitely will incentivize “otherising” of the Jewish diaspora. Which may be a tertiary objective of it. And it will definitely lead to increased conflict.
Which is a shame because most the Jews I know well enough to talk to about it, are extremely anti-genocide, and they’re vocal about it because… they know “I’m Jewish, [awkward stare]” is a great way to not get dinged for politics at work. (At least when the political topic is Gaza.)
You are absolutely right on that. It keeps many anti-genocide Jews silent. It kept me silent for a very long time. I didn’t even like talking about being Jewish. What changed my mind was a British documentary by a British comedian named David Baddiel called Jews Don’t Count (based on his book of the same name), which is specifically about the “othering” of Jews, especially how many white people don’t see Jews as white, but most non-white people don’t see Jews as non-white. It’s made me more vocal about things. I had already seen the documentary a few years before, but what has truly cemented it for me was the “you have said the actual truth” tweet by Elon Musk in response to someone who said Jews were oppressing white people.
It was streaming somewhere where non-Brits could see it (I think Dailymotion), but it doesn’t appear to be there anymore.
especially how many white people don’t see Jews as white, but most non-white people don’t see Jews as non-white.
There are people who are Jewish and non-white though - Ethiopian jews for example.
Which seems to negate the (Zionist-created) argument that there is such a thing as a Jewish ethnicity in the first place, as opposed to Judaism simply being a multi-ethnic faith like Christianity or Islam.
Clearly though plenty of people who are Jewish are also white. And clearly there is a history of denying them this Whiteness once their faith is “discovered” by those they know. Same as Irish or, to a lesser extent, Italians and Slavs. Which is wrong - as is the concept of race/ethnicity/“Whiteness” in the first place
The vast majority of Jews are white. Yes, there are a few exceptions like Beta Israel, or what you call Ethiopian Jews (less than 200,000 people) or Yemenite Jews (Around 400,000 people), but considering there are around 16 million Jews on the planet, around 11 million Ashkenazi and around 2 million Sephardic. I think “Jews are white” is, as a general rule, a correct statement whether or not someone like Elon Musk think otherwise. I mean there are non-white Icelanders, but I think most people would say that claiming Icelanders are white without specifying that that’s only a generality is acceptable as a statement.
But there’s a difference between saying most Icelanders are white and saying whiteness is a necessary condition to being Icelandic.
Either ethnicity/race is a necessary component of belonging to a group, or it isn’t. And if it isn’t, then idk how one can claim that such a group is an ethnicity.
So long as human beings who are black, Arab, Asian, etc can be Jewish, then idk how we can say that Jews are an ethnicity
No one is saying whiteness is a necessary condition to being Icelandic or Jewish. The point is that when Elon says “you have said the actual truth” to someone who claims Jews are oppressing white people, he isn’t thinking of Beta Israel or Yemenite Jews. He isn’t even thinking of Sephardic Jews. He is thinking of Ashkenazi Jews, who are white. He just doesn’t understand that. He very likely doesn’t even know non-white Jews exist… but the Jews who are white are often not considered to be white because they are Jewish. It is the othering of Jews we’re talking about.
the Jews who are white are often not considered to be white because they are Jewish. It is the othering of Jews we’re talking about.
Yeah I agree. But those people would be white regardless of if they were Jewish. Whiteness as a social construct is determined by skin color or national origin or both. Religion doesn’t have anything to do with it, although clearly through history it has - which catholics have also dealt with to some extent, especially in the WASP areas of the southern US.
But those people would be white regardless of if they were Jewish.
Except we aren’t. Many other white people don’t consider me white. I know that for a fact from personal experience. It doesn’t matter that I am genetically European and my skin is light.
And it is not just religion. I’m an atheist. That wouldn’t make a damn bit of difference to the SS or any of the people chanting, “Jews will not replace us” in Charlottesville or Elon “you have said the actual truth” Musk. I am a Jew regardless and, thus, not white.
By the way, this is also true of Roma people. They are (or can be anyway) in almost every way visually indistinguishable from the rest of the European population. It doesn’t matter, they’re not white anyway.
Yeah we’re saying the same thing. I recognize that there is a long history of denying Whiteness to people who have white skin. As I said, Irish, Italian, Slavic, and other catholic/orthodox peoples have been denied Whiteness at various points in history, in the US and elsewhere, in addition to people who are Jewish or Roma.
My point though is clearly the typical Irish person is white even if they are not seen as “White.” The typical Bosniak is white, even if they are not seen as “White.” And yes, clearly the typical Jewish person is white, even if they have not historically been seen as “White.” But that’s because really only White Anglo-Saxon Protestants are reliably considered to be White in the United States - which is a 3-part conjunctive test, of which people who are Jewish only satisfy, at most, the first two parts.
The point is that Whiteness doesn’t even objectively exist, and is a socially constructed tool used to maintain the historical/current superstructure of Anglo Bourgeois hegemony in the West. So we should reject the classification of anyone as White rather than merely try to expand its definition to include historically oppressed peoples with white skin
Nevertheless, my point originally was that you don’t need white skin to be Jewish. And because there are Ethiopian and Polish and Arab jews, it seems difficult to believe that there could be a Jewish ethnicity like the Zionists claim. And it seems that claiming that Jews are a distinct ethnic group is itself highly othering - and that othering is the intentional goal not only of White supremacist bigots, but also, for different reasons, is the goal of Zionist ethnostates such as Israel
I’m starting to think it’s antisemitic to link the Jewish and Israel
It definitely is. There’s few things more antisemitic than assuming that all Jews approve of the fascist government of an apartheid ethnostate committing genocide with impunity.
It’s right up there with the Alex Jones “globalist” conspiracy theories.
And it’s pretty straightforwardly so: for example claiming that somebody demonstrating against the killing of children by Israel is an anti-semite is implying that killing children is a Jewish thing to do, which is incredibly close to the “Jews eat babies” kind of propaganda from the Nazis: even the worst actual antisemites in the present day weren’t going around claiming that murdering children is a Jewish thing to do.
That’s just how out of control the Israeli ultra-violent and extremelly racist Fascists and their racist Fascist supporters in places like the US are.
Well, in the tribalist kind of thinking everybody must always be pro-some-faction or against-some-faction and the far-right (including Fascists tribes such as Zionists) are seldom deep thinkers and skeptics, so are almost without exception tribalists.
So it makes absolute sense that Zionists (and members of other political tribes whose “chiefs” have decided to support Zionism) claim that people who are demonstrating because of their Principles (in this case Humanist ones, like “though shall not kill innocent civilians”) are doing so because of being pro-some-faction. Further, I would even say that the Zionists absolutelly believe that claim they’re making and are speaking the truth as they see it: they simply cannot conceive of people being anything but tribalists who will put tribalism above all else (even any leftover Principles they might have) so people must be pro-some-faction or anti-some-faction to be demonstrating.
(PS: Whilst this is not evidence, it does match what I’ve observed first hand in situations like the Brexit Referendum in the UK. It also matches my observations as member of a political party in my homeland, since most political party members tend to be tribalist, even in leftwing parties, which as somebody who returned from abroad with no pre-existing “love for the team’s shirt” and chose a party to join and help based on the principles they seemed to support, made me quite an atypical member and gave a wonderful chance to observe political tribalists in their “natural environment”)
This is also why I believe a lot of the propaganda techniques being deployed by the Biden Campaign to try and get votes from people who are against the current actions of the Zionists because it goes against their Principles are incredibly misguided - Principled people aren’t pro-Biden or even anti-Trump, they’re pro or against some kinds of action no matter who does it, and things like “aversion to the murder of children” tend to be some of the stronguest principles around so likely to be much stronger for a non-tribalist that the “uuh, those other guys are bad” tribalist-heavy arguments.
I wouldn’t be surprised if many people don’t end up in the voting booth, intellectually ready to swallow their Principles and vote Biden purelly to stop Trump, and can’t actually bring themselves to cast a vote.
Anyways, all this are theories and if Biden keeps on supporting the Zionists and their Genocide, we shall see.
It is deliberate. Zionists love antisemitism. They love it when Jews are attacked outside Israel so they can claim to be the only safe place for them in the world. They love to use antisemitism to attack Jews, who do not want to be associated with Israel or are even critical of Israels practices or worst “questioning their “right to existence””.
I am Jewish and yes, it is antisemitic to consider all Jews as Israelis. I do not support Israel, I have no affiliation with Israel, I have no interest in going to Israel apart from the archaeology. I’m from Indiana and I have a hell of a lot more in common with a Christian from Fort Wayne than an Israeli from Haifa.
Also, I know this is totally anecdotal, but every Israeli I have met in my life has been an asshole, which doesn’t exactly endear me to their country.
Netanyahu is the one who benefits most from people thinking all Jews are Israeli. I sure as hell haven’t benefited from it considering how many times I’ve had to justify myself just for who my ancestors were.
It’s crazy how the media portrays the ‘critisizing Israel is critizing the jewish’ position. Even politicians, at least in the west, lean in to it, but this could be due to the geopolitical position of Israel as an ally I suppose.
I have met a few cool Israelis, but I still wouldn’t want to visit that country. Kinda like Iran, I played video games with a group from Iran for a long time and they are good and kind people, but I wouldn’t ever want to visit them because I wouldn’t feel safe in their country.
I’m sure not all Israelis are assholes, it’s just amazing that I’ve met a good two dozen Israelis and all of them have been assholes. Just arrogant as fuck.
Israel’s foreign minister Israel Katz said in a public statement that the move to recognize Palestine was a “distorted step” by the countries
Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir also condemned the move Wednesday and said the response from Israel would be to intensify its operations in Gaza—where the ICC chief prosecutor this week alleged war crimes by Israeli forces have taken place—even further. In his remarks, Ben-Gvir called for a “root treatment” for the city of Rafah, where hundreds of thousands of civilians have fled but many still remain with nowhere go.
That old right-wing refrain: “Look what you made me do!”
As an aside, an ethnostate’s foreign minister’s first name being the name of the country is too on the nose for most farcical fiction, let alone reality 🤦
Technically the US is sending lots of weapons to Russia. Ukraine are even being real Bros about it and trying to deliver the munitions first cuz Russia keeps misplacing their stuff. Not their fault Russia is doing a very poor job of accepting their deliveries.
I’m a bit surprised Russia is even on the “Supports Palestine” list, given that they’ve been increasingly hostile towards Arab people and cozy towards Israel.
Add comment