The Antisemitism Thread

Saying that calling for a one-state solution is antisemitism is relitigating the conflict, and in a very intellectually dishonest way. None of the links stated goals that are inconsistent with the aim of support for Palestinian rights.

The entire point of the BDS movement is to peacefully secure Palestinian civil and human rights that are currently violated by being under military occupation from Israel. If peaceful international pressure is antisemitism, and violent resistance is antisemitism, then it basically boils down to saying that any defence whatsoever of the Palestinians, by themselves or the international community, against being driven from their homes, having land they own expropriated, being shot just for walking around, having their children thrown in prison without trial, being forbidden freedom of movement, having their children violently attacked by radical settlers when they walk to school, should all be dismissed as antisemitism.

BDS is the mildest, most peaceful form of resistance to occupation possible. It does not become antisemitism or illegitimate simply because there are differing opinions on what an ideal end to the conflict would look like, with regards to a one-state or two-state solution or the right to return.

Edited by Galadriel on Nov 4th 2023 at 1:53:37 AM

Except that the people behind BDS explicitly have the goal to end Israel as a state and as a result turn Jews into a minority on their own territory. In a region which has an extensive history with antisemitism and attempting to exterminate Jews.

The phase “their own territory” is the sticking point. The claim of two difference peoples to the same territory is, fundamentally, the heart of the conflict and why it is so hard to resolve.

The belief that Israel does not have right to violate other peoples’ human rights in order to maintain an ethnic majority, or to deny other people their own civic and human rights for that end, is not anti-semitism, especially when Israel has actively worked against the viability of a two-state solution for the past half-century! At present, thanks to Israel’s own deliberate policies, a one-state solution is pretty much the only option remaining that allows Palestinian freedom, so I will not demand that a movement for Palestinian rights uphold a fiction as a requirement for its legitimacy.

It is simply not reasonable to say that in order to be treated as having basic humanity or any rights at all, Palestinians and any of their supporters are required to pre-emptively cede things like “the right to live in homes where their families lived for generations, and from which they were driven by force”. Any peace process is going to be complicated and both sides are going to need to make concessions, but the current situation is that Israel is an occupying power in the Palestinian Territories amd international pressure is needed to end the occupation and enable negotiations on something resembling equal terms. If a two-state solution is achieved where Palestinians have the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in their entirety, and full independence and full control over their borders and military and foreign policy like any other nation, and BDS continues, at that point I will stop supporting it. But I really don’t see any likelihood of it continuing as a sustained movement with any influence if that is achieved. (And moreover - that two-state solution is a COMPROMISE. I do not think the right to return, which is recognized in international law, is antisemitic simply because Israel finds the existence of people whom it ethnically cleansed inconvenient.)

Edited by Galadriel on Nov 4th 2023 at 2:50:44 AM

Edit: Sorry was a dumb conservative site.

This is more accurate

[[per Haaertz: Jewish Students in the U.K. Face ‘Over a Year’s Worth of Antisemitic Incidents’ in a Month

Edited by miraculous on Nov 9th 2023 at 1:24:59 AM

Meanwhile in Canada: "throw the kikes out" being shouted inside an university.

Yeah, for the surprise of no one, it doesn't take much to reach full Antisemitism in protests.

British Student Union culture is basically where all the terminally-online political rage posters gathered before social media emerged. It’s where they meet in person and I’m not surprised that it’s become a space for people to hate on Jewish people.

Combine that with how instructional racism, laziness and lack of resourcing means British police are unlikely to crack down on this stuff and it’s only going to get worse.

I could write what I would want to do with these assholes, but it would probably be against the rules.

According to my Twitter feed they may have been saying “cunts”, not “kikes”.

That's still offensive and it doesn't change the hateful, bigoted intent.

Then don't say anything.

What does this add to discussion, to imply wanting to commit violent retribution that violates site rules? That's not clever or helpful, that's just crass and kind of uncomfortable.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/jewish-schools-doors-shot-1.7023759

SPVM (Montreal Police Service) is checking into 911 calls made due to shots fired at two Jewish schools.

One is the Talmud Torah Elementary School and the other is the Yeshiva Gedola of Montreal. No one was inside when the shots fired call was made.

Edited by Ominae on Nov 9th 2023 at 8:27:03 AM

I must confess that as of right now, I don't know where the fine line between antisemitism and antizionism is.

I do know for sure that the latter has been used as a dogwhistle to disguise the former, along the line of globalism, though.

EDIT: Fair enough.

Edited by dRoy on Nov 10th 2023 at 1:30:25 AM

I'm gonna remind everyone again that the hyphen shouldn't be used in antisemitism.

And like I said before, there's a reason the antisemitism and anti-Zionism Venn diagram seems like a circle at times.

What is clear is that recent events (which won't be discussed here specifically as per mod warnings) have really exposed (not caused — exposed) just how much antisemitism there is in the world. It's always been there, it just needed a needle-prick to pop that balloon.

Edited by M84 on Nov 10th 2023 at 12:28:35 AM

For my part, I typically find someone invoking the specific term "Zionism" explicitly is a bit of a red flag. Though this is because most of the legitimate critics of Israel's government I've encountered personally don't use the term, and my first encounters with the term were from clear antisemites.

The page is paywalled for me.

The gist of that article is:

• Since October 8th, the Union of Jewish Students received 400 reports of antisemitism against students specifically.
• The Community Security Trust received reports of 1,124 antisemitic incidents, which is the highest-ever number of reports per 32 days they've received.
• A bunch of student unions passed resolutions supporting terrorism.
• People put up posters with niceties such as "intifadha until victory" and "kill more Jews" in university campuses in the British Isles.
• People were seen celebrating Hamas's actions.
• The last paragraph also mentions antisemitism on American university campuses.

Any resolution supporting terrorism would be in breach of the law, and the UK government has been very keen to prosecute antisemitism, as evidenced by the current front-page row about the legality of pro-Palestine marches.

The Universities UK body has also stated “Any student or staff member found to be supporting Hamas will be in breach of UK law and universities treat this with the utmost seriousness."

The one example that was widely reported in the UK was the UCL Marxist society - who immediately got suspended by the university for their slogans and posters.

It's definitely a very worrying problem at the moment, but I've not directly seen any reporting suggesting that it's tolerated by the universities or without immediate consequences. It would be good to see sources on that.

@Protagonist 506 

I just wanted to offer a quick Arab Point of view about this  Don't say Zionist part, though I did not read the previous pages and I don't know how this topic started, and I apologize if an Arab troper already addressed this.

..............

The Islamic radical movements and normal uneducated people will use the term Jews to refer to Israel, the use of the word Zionist is used by secular Arabs because it is more exact in stating the idea that the problem is not with Jews as a religion or an ethnicity, but with the political movement, occupation and apartheid.

I will dare say that Arabs, in this regard, are more considerate than Westerners were.

Now, if someone who is not a Zionist gets called that or attacked, then it is not acceptable, but saying that Arabs or people who are against Israel's actions should stop using the term is a strange argument.

One that, for me, "set a red flag" and seeme to be in "bad faith," despite hating those terms.

I mean, let's assume we stopped using the word Zionist? What next? People will still complain that using any other word (apartheid, colonizers...etc) is also a "dogwistel".

so shoild we stop criticizing Israel once and for all?

(I am talking generally, not about @Protagonist 506 here.)

Tone policing is always stupid and annoying, but engaging in it in times like these seems motivated by the sole desire to shut up legitimate criticism.

Edited by jawal on Nov 10th 2023 at 11:42:29 AM

The exact quote from the article is

"Intifada" usually means "shooting random babies" "stabbing random civilians" and "blowing up busses" (all of those happened during the First, Second and Knife Intifadas), among other things, so as far as I can tell "support for Intifada" is support for terrorism. Since the article does not say which student unions passed those resolutions I don't know what legal action, if any, was taken against those student unions.

You're implying that it's OK that someone shoots me while I'm buying pizza because I'm a Zionist. Are you sure that's what you mean here?

More to the point of the rest of your post, the reason using "Zionists" instead of the (false, in my mind, but that's off topic) Apartheid or coloniser accusations is antisemitic is that, as I said upthread,

Accusing someone of colonialism or Apartheid isn't ethnically discriminatory. Being anti-Zionist is.