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while we're at it, tearing down the hostage posters was always evil and fucked up.

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The degree to which American-centric goggles color everything is astonishingly irritating, but I guess it's not that surprising; for all that American Leftists like to claim they're against US Imperialism, they're really quite ready to impose their limited worldview on other people's geopolitics.

So.

Having finally hit my limit on this, a list of things I've personally witnessed American Leftists claim Israeli geopolitics are "like", presented as rebuttals.

No, Palestinians are not like Native Americans.

No, Palestinians are not like African-Americans.

No, Israelis are not like American Settlers.

No, Gaza and the West Bank are not like Native Reservations.

No, the situation in Israel is not like the Western Settlement.

No, Israeli aid to Gaza is not like smallpox blankets.

No, Zionism is not like Manifest Destiny.

No, there is no plan for "Greater Israel" like there was for "sea to shining sea".

No, there are no "Indian Schools" for Palestinians run by Israel.

No, the Nakba was not like the Trail of Tears.

No, the Gaza Border Fence is not like the Texas Border Fence.

No, Palestinians coming in to Israel to work is not like Latinos coming into America to work.

No, fearmongering about Latinos by Republicans is not like the well-substantiated fears about Hamas terrorists crossing the border.

No, the border checkpoints are not like ICE.

No, Palestinians do not, generally speaking, want to become Israelis.

No, Palestinians are not being "blocked from Israeli citizenship".

No, Palestinians are not being "prevented from voting in Israel", because they're not Israeli citizens.

No, the conflict with Iran is not like Trump threatening to invade Mexico to attack the Cartels.

No, the conflict with Iran is not like Bush invading Iraq to deal with nonexistent WMDs.

No, Israel's attack on Gaza is not like America's post-9/11 attack on Iraq.

No, Israel is not attacking either Gaza or Iran for oil.

No, the "states" in a "two-state solution" are not like American states.

No, the medical care Israel gives to Palestinians is not like the Tuskegee Airmen.

No, Arab Israelis are not living under anything like Jim Crow.

No, the Israeli prime minister is not like the American President.

No, the Knesset is not like the US Congress--they have more than two parties, for starters.

No, "Al-Quds" is not like Mount Rushmore... at least, not in the way you think it is.

I'm done for the moment, but if anyone else has any to add to the list, feel free to toss them in.

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The text says: "The vaunted fight against Anti Semitism is a thinly disguised celebration of White Power."

There is so much to unpack there. No. Just no. White supremacists see us as non-white and now apparently "leftists" see as The Epitome Of White.

Now let's see what the notes say!

We, Jews, did not come up with the word. We often used Jew-hatred to refer to those who despise us. It was Wilhelm Marr who popularized, if not coined the word, to make his hatred sound scientific. So "antisemitism" was created BY antisemites to justify their hatred of us.

In Germany, Wilhelm Marr, if not the coiner of the word then certainly one of its major early popularizers, thought of himself as a modern man, a student of history and science. Anti-Semitism allowed him to distinguish the party he launched in late 1879 — the Antisemites’ League — from the religious bigotry of medieval Jew-hatred. Like many (but not all) who shared his goals, Marr defined the Jewish Question as one of race, not religious deviance. In the past, persecution had been episodic; outbursts of terrible violence alternated with long periods of quiet relations between Jews and their neighbors. In Marr’s view, such lackadaisical Jew-hatred had allowed Jews to grow stronger and, in fact, launch plans for conquest of the non-Jewish world. Mere religious prejudice had failed to halt their rise. The Jews had become too powerful, too entrenched in society, to be beaten back by the occasional pogrom.

Source:

So we "get a special word for racism" because those who wanted to genocide us decided one was needed in order to justify our genocide. Hope this helps!

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I…??? they tore up holy books, but it wasn’t antisemitic?…it was just for funsies?

The torah scrolls of a north London synagogue were desecrated and the building vandalized after unknown parties broke in during the early hours of Friday morning, according to British media reports and the Metropolitan police.

Vandals smashed the cabinets containing the religious texts of Gur Synagogue, and tore the books, scattering the pages across the floor.

(…) Police told Jewish News that there was no indication that the vandalism was antisemitic.

(…) The Jewish Community Council of Stamford Hill condemned the incident in a statement posted to social media: “This is a devastating attack on a synagogue in our community. Any attack on a place of worship, of any kind, must be condemned in the strongest possible terms. We are pleased to hear that suspects have been arrested, thanks to the swift actions of Shomrim and Hackney Police.”

The Community Security Trust also shared on X: “We are aware of the appalling act of vandalism which has caused significant damage to a synagogue in Stamford Hill. We are in touch with the location and are providing support. We urge anyone with information to contact CST and the police as a matter of urgency

“Thank you to @MPSHackney for their swift action in arresting two individuals. At this stage, the incident is not being treated as a hate crime.”

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I was called a genocide denier for *checks notes* telling some fans to stop being bigoted towards Jews.

"Hey it's really important to not target a minority with dehumanization and bigotry-"

"GENOCIDE DENIER!"

It's the exact same silencing tactic the Right has used for decades now. Be loud and obnoxious in the face of facts and when you're confronted on your shitty behavior. Yell some buzzword, make wild accusations, beat your chest.

You're right - that is the exact same silencing  tactic. 

This has a name.

It's called Moral Bludgeoning.

It's using a false binary morality as a tool to gain an advantage in a disagreement, rather than engaging in reasoned discourse.

The goal of the tactic isn't truth, understanding, or justice. It's enforcing obedience. Control through social punishment.

You said something they found threatening - that people in a supposedly righteous movement were behaving in a way that was, in fact, bigoted.

Grappling with that would require introspection, accountability, and nuance...and their movement punishes those things. 

You were pointing out information which doesn't fit into their binary, the binary which assures them they're good people. They needed to shut you up fast before they risked feeling less than utterly righteous. 

The people doing this often aren't stupid , but they're always frightened.

They're terrified of complexity which kiddies the narrative.

Terrified of being cast out of their peer group for failing to adhere to the narrative.

Terrified of losing control of the narrative, because most of them derive their sense of personal legitimacy from the narrative.

So they flatten. Nuance becomes complicity. Dissent becomes betrayal. Complexity or moral ambiguity become denial.

You're also right that Moral Bludgeoning is used by both the right and the left. 

Both extremes use it to keep the middle silent. 

On the far Right, you see this play out in culture war accusations:

Criticize police abuse? You must be a Marxist anarchist terrorist!

Question US military spending? You hate America!

Say trans people should have rights? You're grooming children.

On the far Left, it’s the same energy, but different buzzwords:

Ask for civility toward Jewish people? You're a genocide apologist.

Note that Hamas isn't progressive? You’re a racist colonialist.

Point out antisemitism in "anti-Zionist" spaces? You're weaponizing your trauma to silence Palestinians.

It's never about the truth, it's about making the social cost of nuance unbearable. 

Tactics like Moral Bludgeoning are enforcement mechanisms of rigid ideologies. 

Healthy movements can tolerate disagreement, but ideologically rigid movements (right or left!) treat any deviation as a threat.

That's why you'll hear the same people screaming about "freedom of speech" one minute, then shrieking “DENIER” the next.

It's not even really hypocrisy in their minds, because they believe their cause grants them moral supremacy which entitles them to do almost anything. And that includes the entitlement to silence you in the name of righteous justice...and be as antisemtic as they like.

The real power of this tactic is in how it bypasses reasoning entirely and goes straight to two of our most powerful emotions: shame and fear. 

You nailed this too:

"Be loud and obnoxious in the face of facts..." 

That's exactly the tactic. The louder and more confident the accusation, the more it floods the emotional bandwidth of the conversation, making any reasoned dialogue impossible.

It works because people fear social isolation more than factual errors. No one wants to be the next target, so the mob roars together to drown you out.

The tragedy is that you were trying to do what they claim to care about. 

You didn't defend war crimes or deny suffering. 

You were doing the thing that movements need in order to remain sane: holding your own side accountable to its stated values.

Movements sometimes die from internal intolerance and ideological purity tests.

I think this is part of why the SDS movement of the 60s and 70s fizzled out. I think Occupy Wall Street fell victim to endless internal policing around privilege, language, and ideological orthodoxy and meetings devolved into ritual purity checks instead of coming up with and promoting actual policy ideas. I think this is a good explanation for what brought about the Reign of Terror in France.

The inability to tolerate nuance is where intellectual rot begins.

The people who did this to you aren't fighting oppression. They're just enforcing ideological purity at the expense of reality. It's an old and stupid game.

Can I tell you, though, how much I appreciate this Ask?

It's more evidence that there are many in the large middle who are repulsed by both ends of the Horseshoe. There are many who still care about evidence, reason, pragmatism, and avoiding ideological groupthink. 

There are still people who know that justice requires complexity. There are still people who don't think standing up against antisemitism is something to be ashamed of. 

Thinking critically and voicing those thoughts makes you feel like a threat to people on either far end of the political spectrum, all who rely on false binaries and performative loyalty.

So keep doing it.

Let them rage. Let them shriek their buzzwords. Just hold the line. 

You saw clearly and quickly that this was not about justice, it was about obedience...and you didn't bend the knee.

Do you have any idea how much that pisses them off?

Well done, Anon.

------

Edited to add this great example I got within hours of posting this:

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It's the joy with which some pro-Palestine activists hurl terms like "genocide" and "Nazi" and "Holocaust" that gets me.

There is such a smugness to it. Like they couldn't wait to hit Israelis with those particular accusations. They couldn't wait to start drawing swastikas on their placards.

They absolutely know what they are doing by using those specific terms/words/symbols and applying them to Israel. They know and they enjoy doing it.

I've never seen that kind of behavior by activists with any other issue. The gleeful sadism of it.

I try to imagine left wing activists using the worst atrocities of another race or people's history against them like that and I just cannot. They would NEVER call black people (or black people of a particular nation) the "new slavemasters" to underscore their point, no matter what was going on in Sudan or Haiti or Zimbabwe. No white activist would ever dare put that on a sign. They'd understand that it would be abhorrent and racist. But when it's Jews and Israel, they seemingly could not wait to grab those terms from Jews and throw them back at them like grenades.

And these activists really consider themselves righteous.

It's the joy with which some pro-Palestine activists hurl terms like 'genocide' and 'Nazi' and 'Holocaust' that gets me. There is such a smugness to it. Like they couldn't wait to hit Israelis with those particular accusations. They couldn't wait to start drawing swastikas on their placards.

Anon isn't just describing slander. They're describing the gleeful and specific pleasure some activists take in throwing the worst Jewish trauma...at Jews.

Anon's right, it's not normal. We don't see this kind of behavior anywhere else.

Imagine going to a Rwandan genocide memorial with a sign calling Tutsis the new Hutus.

But with Jews? With Israel? They can't wait.

They act like they've been holding this in for years.

They treat Jewish trauma like a Halloween costume. They strip it of context, put it on for shock value, and dare anyone to call them out.

And they think it makes them righteous.

This phenomenon is called Moral Sadism: Deriving pleasure from the suffering of others when that suffering is inflicted under the guise of moral righteousness or judgment.

It uses morality as a justification for inflicting pain or punishment on others by judging others' actions/character as morally deficient. This can manifest as enjoying the downfall of those perceived as immoral or directly applying moral condemnation as a weapon to cause harm.

It's the weaponization of empathy for one group...in order to justify hatred against another.

When they accuse Jews of being the new Nazis...and they do it with a smile, a selfie, and a smug sense of moral superiority?

They're not just "criticizing a government." They're deliberately reaching into a cultural wound and twisting the knife.

They know what it means to Jews. That's why they say it. It's emotional warfare and they enjoy it.

Why Would Anyone Do That?

As Dara Horn writes, "people love dead Jews."

They love the morality tales, the museum exhibits, the tidy slogans like Never Again. They love Jews as symbols of abstract suffering as long as we stay in the past tense.

Once Jews become real people with a present, a country, moral agency and difficult decisions to make, Jews are too messy to play the role of sacred victims anymore. Our having a country, sovereignty, and national self-determination...breaks their image of us.

The Shoah gave Jews, for a time, a kind of moral capital. This wasn't because anyone envied the suffering, but because it branded Jews, for a while, as the ultimate victims in a global morality fable.

Never Again may have started as a Jewish cry, but it got universalized. Flattened. Marketed. Turned into a script where Jews became side characters in someone else's morality play.

And now, many activists resent that. They look at Jews and say: "You had your genocide. You had your sympathy. Now you're the problem."

They flip the script. They point to Israel and say "You're the Nazis now." They take the very language, symbols, and traumas of Jewish history and gleefully throw them at us.

This isn’t just distortion and/or inversion. It's usurpation.

They want the emotional power of the Holocaust. They want the symbolism, the drama, the righteous victimhood, but without the unpleasant pain, history, moral complexity, or Jewishness.

To them, it's just a costume. A meme. A weapon.

You can tell from the absurd things they say that they don't actually want to learn from Jewish suffering. They want to replace it.

They know what they are doing… and they enjoy doing it.

You're right. Maybe it was once clumsy and ignorant, but it isn't anymore. This is intentional, weaponized humiliation disguised as moral clarity.

That's what makes it feel different than other protest rhetoric.

It's not just hyperbole. It's not even just antisemitism. It's a kind of ritual shaming. Its a public exercise in stripping Jews of our moral legitimacy by using our own trauma against us.

They don't do this to other groups because they know it would be racist, grotesque, unthinkable. But they do it to Jews because they've decided we don't count as a vulnerable minority anymore.

We're "white adjacent." We have a state. We have the wrong kind of power. That makes us, in their eyes, fair game. They believe that when they attack Jews, they're punching up.

Since we're Jews (and not, for instance, Tibetans or Armenians or Rohingya), no one flinches when activists draw swastikas and yell "genocide" at us.

They get applause, likes, and invited to panel discussions.

Why It’s So Hard to Talk About

Many Jews struggle to explain this feeling. The revulsion, the shock, and the the moral dissonance. We've mostly been trained to see our trauma as historical, not current.

But this is happening now.

It's not just about being called names. It's about being ritually degraded in the public square...with the symbols of our greatest suffering...by people who think they're doing it for justice.

That's what's new. That’s what's different. That's what hurts.

It isn't any kind of political discourse, it's emotional cruelty masquerading as moral courage.

You can call it moral sadism, Holocaust inversion, weaponized empathy, or performative righteousness through humiliation.

What you can't call it is "activism."

If your activism requires the deliberate psychological violation of a minority's deepest trauma, it's not activism. It's just another kind of abuse.

We've been watching something dark unfold, and we're right to feel horrified by it.

Large, loud segments of the Western left have built a whole theater of virtue around righteous cruelty to Jews. It's grotesque, and we should be talking about it.

Thanks for the Ask, Anon.

ETA:

So I wrote this post and queued it, but before it went up, I got a great example of this I need to add.

Thank you, @scarrshell, for the excellent illustration and volunteering yourself as an example!

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no like fr the way that a lot of people look at israelis -- there's no group of people on earth i look at that way. literally no group of people where i'd look at posters of hostages from that group and go "that's obviously genocide propaganda i'm tearing it down." certainly not any group of people where i'd watch a video of their house blowing up and hear a woman crying for her dog in the rubble and point and laugh.

i can't even imagine having that response honestly. i can imagine apathy sure but glee? over people suffering? looking at a whole nationality that way? there's no way

i think that has to corrode your soul. i mean how can't it?

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Pro-tip: your resistance movement might have an antisemitism problem if the Jews in your city are afraid to go out tomorrow.

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people love to find progressive ways to say we should all be arranged into separate groups and try our hardest to not relate to one another

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no like fr the way that a lot of people look at israelis -- there's no group of people on earth i look at that way. literally no group of people where i'd look at posters of hostages from that group and go "that's obviously genocide propaganda i'm tearing it down." certainly not any group of people where i'd watch a video of their house blowing up and hear a woman crying for her dog in the rubble and point and laugh.

i can't even imagine having that response honestly. i can imagine apathy sure but glee? over people suffering? looking at a whole nationality that way? there's no way

i think that has to corrode your soul. i mean how can't it?

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idk man I just think that “holding people hostage is bad and torturing and raping and murdering them is ghoulishly evil” is like. a very easy thing to agree with. and yet. it goes out the window when even one of those hostages is a jew.

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2% levantine 98% steppe wolf heyooooo

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So is the left finally ready to have a conversation about why Cuomo is winning the woman/Black/Jewish/Latino/senior vote while Zohran is getting the white male/youth vote and why they're blowing what should've been the easiest blowout election in a sapphire city for the left, or are they just going to stick their heads in the sand and blame this on The Establishment Democrats (TM) again?

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“intifada just means uprising! Endorsing an intifada doesn’t mean I endorse violent terrorism!”

Look dude there’s a reason why people today will look at you funny if you use the word “ holocaust” to mean a burnt offering or a big fire

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It’s so funny that nonvoters are always going on about mutual funds and community organizing because that’s just reinventing local government but worse lol

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Pro-tip: your resistance movement might have an antisemitism problem if the Jews in your city are afraid to go out tomorrow.