#Rise above the antisemitic people

[jewish-vigilante]

I saw another blog change their name in solidarity of being half aboriginal and half Jewish

I BREATHE TO SPITE THOSE WHO TRIED TO WIPE OUT MY ANCESTORS BECAUSE I AM HERE AND I WILL FIGHT THIS HATE UNTIL WE WIN OR I DIE

LOOK WHERE YOU STAND AS YOU PROTEST

LOOK AROUND YOUR UNIVERSITIES, HOW MANY ABORIGINAL STUDENTS DO YOU SEE?

Do you even realize you are protesting about stolen land ON STOLEN LAND, we did not give you our land.

Your shitty ass ancestors killed us, slaughtered us like pigs, you called us savages. You stole our language and culture.

Fuck you, YOU GO HOME PROHAMASSHOLE

[sparkmender]

spiritually I am laying on the floor

[strangesmallbard]

hey so. i’ve seen many people reblogging some variation of “israel spent millions on a superbowl ad to distract everyone from the airstrikes on rafah” and decided to do some fact-checking. the ad was produced by the kraft foundation to stop jewish hate, founded by robert kraft, who owns the patriots. kraft also partnered with dr. clarence b. jones—who advised dr. martin king luther jr and helped him write the i have a dream speech—to create this ad. according to tara levine, the fcas president, this ad was made in response to rising antisemitism on social media platforms, which her team tracks.

here’s a link to the foundation’s about page on their website. their mission statement solely focuses on combatting antisemitism and does not mention i/p or the ongoing war. the ad itself does not mention i/p or the ongoing war. it’s pretty ironic, and yet not surprising, that an ad created to stop antisemitism is currently the eye of the antisemitic storm on social media. if you sincerely believe netanyahu secretly funded this ad campaign to “distract everyone” from the idf’s airstrike attack in rafa, then you have bought into two different antisemitic conspiracy theories: that jews control the media and that diasporic jews have dual loyalty to israel. while political zionists have used accusations of antisemitism to invalidate pro-palestinian efforts, that’s not what’s happening here. all this information is obtainable via google. please learn to fact check yourselves before posting. thanks!

(bonus: here’s a 20-minute video where kraft and dr. jones discuss the civil rights movement, anti-black racism, antisemitism, and the history of solidarity between black and jewish activists during the civil rights movement.)

EDIT 2/23/24:

after publishing this post, i researched robert kraft and fcas' funding source and pro-israel efforts more deeply, then analyzed my findings in a reblog, which you can read here. tl;dr version - in 2019, kraft was given the genesis prize, a $1 million dollar award. the awarding foundation has direct ties to the israeli government. kraft used part of these funds to finance fcas. this additional information does not negate my original post, however; i can't find any conclusive evidence that the israeli government directly funded kraft's superbowl ad. there is also no evidence that kraft is targeting anti-israel sentiment in the ad rather than antisemitism overall. assuming this connection is still evidence of antisemitic conspiratorial thought, as i detail above.

i'm including this information because i believe it's important to acknolwedge wider context. i don't share kraft's politics re: israel and believe his stance compromises his foundation's overall messaging. i also condemn any efforts to silence pro-palestinian efforts with accusations of antisemitism, but that is still not what's happening here. i also want to clarify that i'm only discussing responses i've seen to kraft's ad, not the ads produced by the israeli government. thanks again!

[the-ind1gen0us-jude4n]

Since the antisemitic antizionist "people" have effectively declared a cyber war on all Jewish people who refuse to comply with their genocidal Jew hatred and disguise it as mere "social justice", it is about time we Zionists live up to what the Zionist ideology is about, protecting Jewish people.

I want all Jewish people who stand with their existence, their ancestors and their descendants to defend themselves in this rising wave of antisemitism. Fight for it.

Remember Psalms 137:

"How can we sing the lords song on foreign soil? If I forget you, O Yerushalayim, may my right hand forget its skill. May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth if I do not remember you, if I do not set Yerushalayim above my highest joy!"

עם ישראל חי

[a-s-fischer]

Antisemitism and the Nazi Worldview: a Guide for the Perplexed

While most people know the Nazis hated Jews, few people understand just how integral Jew-hate was to the Nazi philosophy. This leads into many of the misconceptions about Nazis and the holocaust that regularly pop up, so it bears discussing what Nazis believed about racism and the Jews.

The Nazi conception of "race" was much narrower and "scientific" than we think of it today. The Nazi conception of race was that humans were split into subgroups with distinct traits, that set them apart from each other and gave them advantages in a great and bloody contest of the races. These races pattern on better to ethnicities, nationalities, or even language groups, than race as we think of it today, which is why it would make sense in a Nazi framework to talk about an Irish race, or a Polish race, for example. And of course in the Nazi mind, these races were a real biological reality, and not a social and cultural construct, and the strength and purity of a fit race might be lost through race mixing.

And of course races were differently fit or unfit, superior or inferior, and through the races warring against each other in a battle of the fittest, the superior race would rise above the rest, and subjugate the earth. Hitler came of age in a time of scarcity, war, and famine, and he believed there was no way to feed the entirety of the human race, so eliminating the lesser races through this perpetual struggle of races against each other was the only way for humanity to survive. It was all very Darwinian except that it completely misunderstood how the Darwinian model of evolution actually works, since the unit of selection was the nonexistent race, not the individual.

This struggle of the races was in Hitler and the Nazis' conception not only natural and necessary, but good. Conquest and the slaughter of inferior races was good. The state of the world with nation states and silly notions like laws, and morals, this was bad and unnatural. Humanity, or the strongest race, needed to do away with this system, or humans would all perish of starvation in a degenerate race-mixed scrum. The Nazis were heros, looking to save humanity from this foul unnatural state it had been tricked into adopting.

Tricked by the machinations of one race. One race had broken away from the others, and learned how to hack the system, to survive over under the rule of other races, when it should have been destroyed as a weaker lesser race. This race figured out how to lie and cheat, and live off other races as a parasite, while controlling them from within with fake, unnatural, vile concepts of laws, ethics, notions of justice and compassion, human rights, and international cooperation. And also with money. That race was the Jews.

In the Nazi mind, other races might be lesser, weaker, worthy only of a slow starvation under Nazi rule, but Jews, Jews were unique, special. Weak but cunning, only the Jews had figured out how to subvert and pervert the noble struggle of the races. The Jews were not only especially hated in the Nazi mind but they also served an explanatory purpose. The Jews were the reason humans were not in what the Nazis viewed as a state of nature, and the reason that the areas hadn't eliminated all the other races and taken over the world already. And anything that went wrong for the Nazis was of course caused by Jewish manipulation. The Jews had to be stripped of their unnatural power and control, and eliminated quickly, to keep them from continuing to undermine the strongest race, the Aryan Germans.

Early on, there was some discussion about how this was to be done. The mass slaughter of Jews under this philosophy might have been inevitable but it wasn't obviously inevitable to all Nazis. The important thing was to reduce the Jews to a state of nature, to take away their unnatural control, and leave them in the position of any other lesser race. This is where ideas, like sending all the Jews to Madagascar, to "build their own state" but really to inevidably die in the wilderness, came from. If Jews were separated from their stronger hosts, the logic went, they would just be one more weaker race and they would die just the same. This was also why so many Nazis took a special delight in simply denying captive Jews the means of survival, leaving them to starve, freeze, and die of disease in a state of nature, without the resources they had parasitically leached out of their host races.

But that process took too long. There were simply too many Jews, and too many (to the Nazi mind) Jewish controlled enemies. As Germany and the Axis' began to lose the war, and then as that loss became increasingly only a matter of time, the Nazis ramped up their efforts to kill Jews, by bullet and by gas, because if they could kill enough Jews, surely that Jewish control over their enemies would break and the Aryans among those enemies what recognize their racial interest, and join with the Germans, giving them victory. Instead the resources poured into the wholesale murder of Jews were resources stripped from the Nazi war machine, hastening the Allied victory.

Antisemitism wasn't simply one more bigotry for the Nazis to tack onto their general racism. It was foundational to the Nazi conception of how the world functioned. It was the explanitory mechanism in the Nazis' conspiratorial framework. And with this philosophy at the core of Nazism, the Holocaust became not only inevitable, but the highest calling of the Nazis, their sacrifice for humanity, or at least what was left of humanity after the strongest race had triumphed over all the others. Very little about Nazism is unique. Their militarism, their glorification of violence and struggle, their racial pseudo-Darwinianism, certainly their conspiratorial antisemitism, all had plenty of precident long before they came on the scene. It was their particularly potent combination of these existing elements that made them Nazis. And in this combination, it was the Jew-hate which held everything together and which provided the energizing force.

[matan4il]

IDK where the following image is from originally, I know I've seen it before Oct 7, so it's not recent, but there's no link to the source of the figures, so while I trust the percentages are right, IDK which date the image is referring to when it says "now."

It IS an important image, because THIS is what genocide and ethnic cleansing looks like, even decades later. However, I wanted to add a few comments regarding the green on the map. Because the green countries make the image look more optimistic than the state of Jews in Europe today is. Just please note that this post is not meant to vilify any country. No nation is a monolith, and in every country in the world, there were people who helped to save Jews, and people who persecuted Jews. This post is about general effects, not demonizing entire nations.

Sweden: Denmark and Norway's Jewish communities were partly destroyed in the Holocaust, but for those who survived, it was thanks to being smuggled to Sweden by the undergrounds in those two countries. The "green" in Sweden is therefore still a direct result of the genocide and ethnic cleansing employed against Jews in Denmark and Norway.

Denmark: Maybe the only truly bright spot on the map, as the increase in the Jewish population is solely thanks to the Danish underground having made a mark by saving most of their Jewish community during the Holocaust.

Switzerland: Despite the Swiss government closing its borders to Jews under a policy known as "the ship is full" (in fact, it was the Swiss who asked the Nazis in 1938 to stamp the passports of Jews with a "J" to make Jews officially identifiable), despite the theft of Jewish money from the bank accounts of Jews murdered in the Holocaust, and despite the Swiss government unofficially aiding the Nazis (for example, by allowing Wermacht tanks to pass through the country), Switzerland was never occupied by the Nazis, and therefore Jews who managed to make it there illegally were saved (sometimes with the help of unique Swiss individuals, like Paul Grueninger, a border police commander who saved Jews by allowing them in against orders and falsifying their registration. He was caught and put on trial and punished by his own government for his actions, but also honored by Yad Vashem as a Righteous Among the Nations). So again, the increase in the Swiss Jewish population is a result of genocide and ethnic cleansing of Jews, and this rise in the Swiss Jewish demographic happened despite the Swiss government's attempts to prevent it.

France: Most of the increase there is a result of France pulling out of Morocco and Algeria. Local Jews, who saw local Arabs accusing the Jews for French colonialism, and experienced a rise in anti-Jewish Arab violence in these countries even before the French retreated, feared for their safety and lives, and chose to leave for France as well. Since at least the kidnapping and murder of Ilan Halimi in 2006, there has been a constant surge of antisemitism in France, and a following decrease in the size of its Jewish population. The increase in Jewish demographic that the above image shows is therefore a combination of anti-Jewish violence and ethnic cleansing in northern Africa, and the fact that so many Jews fled that persecution, that even the murder of roughly 22% of France's Jews in the Holocaust coupled with a current decrease, leaves the country appearing "green" in that map in comparison with 1938. France is currently one of the leading countries in Europe in terms of antisemitic incidents.

Spain: This country had already begun its ethnic cleansing of Jews in 1492. The great expulsion of Jews refusing to convert to Christianity was followed by the Spanish Inquisition, which hunted down any converts from Judaism suspected of secretly still practicing the Jewish faith. This campaign included inhumane torture and murders. In 1938, the Jewish population in Spain was still so low (4,000 people, who made up 0.02% of the Spanish population), that any increase in the numbers, no matter how small, would appear substantial in terms of percents. During WWII, Spain was ruled by the tyrant Franco, who officially remained neutral, but did consider becoming aligned with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy after the fall of Spain. He was also an antisemite. He did nothing to protect Spanish Jews, prohibited Jewish religious services, and even initiated his own marking of Jews in their passports. Despite that, he allowed fleeing French Jews to pass through Spain (meaning as long as they were headed elsewhere), but some ended up staying there, a fact he would use after the war to cultivate a myth that Spain protected Jews from the Nazis, which he believed would help him with the victorious Allies. This accounts for a part of the increase in the Spanish Jewish population. Another part is a 2015 law allowing Jews descendant from the families expelled from Spain in 1492 to re-claim a Spanish citizenship. The process cost a lot of money, there was a deadline for how long applications could be submitted, and only a small number of the Jews who should have been, were actually recognized thanks to it. Still, this also contributed to the "green" that you can see for Spain in the image. In conclusion, this is another increase that's mostly caused by the ethnic cleansing and persecution of Jews. Spain is one of the current leading countries in Europe in terms of antisemitic incidents.

[jedi-enthusiast]

Genuine question as to why you feel so passionate about being pro-jedi? I definitely wouldn't say I'm anti-jedi, but I think there are some decent criticisms that can be made about them. But overall I'm just interested to understand the dedication to being pro-jedi, cause it is a fictional organisation at the end of the day. Isn't it more fulfilling to look at them from different perspectives so we can get the most out of the story as possible?

Before I answer, I'm going to ask you a question in turn, would you ever ask this question to someone who was anti-Jedi? Would you ever imply that they need to change their view on the Jedi because they're "not getting the most out of the story?"

Now, I'm going to preface this answer by saying that I'm not angry with you, I'm just very passionate about this topic---so don't take any of this personally. You seem like you're genuinely asking, and I appreciate that.

----------

Personally, for me, there aren't really any criticisms that can be made about the Jedi- (keep in mind, I primarily adhere to Lucas Canon, everything else is just an add on depending whether I like it or not). Everything that people criticize the Jedi for or accuse them of falls into one of three categories:

Not true- (the Jedi are a cult, the Jedi repress their emotions, the Jedi were mean to Anakin, etc.)

Done for a reason because the other option would be worse/it was their only real option in a bad situation- (the Jedi shouldn't have fought in the war, the Jedi should've defended Ahsoka, the Jedi are slavers because of the clones, etc.)

Or it's something that's an Eastern concept/practice but people refuse to look at it as such and instead project their Western viewpoint/religious trauma onto them- (literally the entire thing about attachment)

I've never seen any criticism of the Jedi that doesn't fall into one of these categories, so why should I be inclined to "hear people out" or "look at the Jedi from other perspectives" when there's...really nothing else to look at?

----------

Another thing to consider is that, while the Jedi are fictional characters, George Lucas based them heavily on very real religions and groups---particularly Jews and Buddhists.

So when people say things like- "the Jedi weren't allowed to care/love/have emotions because of Attachment™️" -they're spreading harmful misinformation and basically saying that Buddhists can't love/care/have emotions because of their rule against attachment, since the philosophy of non-attachment is literally taken verbatim from Buddhism.

And when people usually pair the above rhetoric with- "-and that's why the Jedi deserved what they got/caused their own downfall" -it's...a very concerning mindset for people to perpetuate---especially when George Lucas based the genocide of the Jedi and the rise of the Empire off of the Holocaust and Nazi Germany.

When you strip away the fictional aspects of it, a lot of what people say about the Jedi is literally Nazi/antisemitic/Holocaust denial rhetoric. To take an example of something that has actually been said on one of my posts:

"The destruction of the Jedi Order was less a genocide and more of a religious conflict that the Jedi lost. The Jedi Order is a sect of the collective religious culture of 'Force Users,' and their destruction cannot really be considered genocide as the cultural group of 'Force Users' still exists albeit heavily restricted and controlled by the Sith during the Empire Era." - @/ironwoodarl01

And, as @zarohk pointed out:

It’s depressing how so many “Jedi critical” talking points are pretty much antisemitism and Holocaust denial/justification: The destruction of the Jedi Order was less a genocide and more of a religious conflict that the Jedi lost. "The Jedi Order religion of Judaism is a sect of the collective religious culture of 'Force Users Abrahamic faiths, and their destruction cannot really be considered genocide as the cultural group of Force Users Abrahamic faiths still exists…" Similar thinly-veiled antisemitism in the Star Wars fandom also frequently includes supersessionism, the Christian idea that during the (Roman) Republic era, the Jedi Jews had become corrupt and lost their way, and and so finally a divinely created person was sent to show them new path. This is why attempts to read Star Wars where Anakin is a Christ figure or correct where the Jedi have failed (ignoring the fact that he wrecked the lives of most people he was involved with, including himself, and the Darth Vader was never happy) are not just incorrect, but generally have a thick underlayer of antisemitism.

So, while Star Wars is fictional, it's important for people to analyze why they feel the way they do about the Jedi and be critical of the ways in which they talk about/criticize the Jedi---because, like it or not, the Jedi and their genocide are based on real people/things and so your reaction to them/what happened to them can be very telling.

----------

Finally, being critical of the good guys or trying to view everything through a morally grey lens doesn't make the story inherently more interesting, nor does it inherently add anything to the story---so I'm not "missing" anything.

If believing that no one can actually just be good, and everyone has to have some agenda, and "the good guys were the REAL bad guys all along" adds something to Star Wars for you...by all means, go ahead and believe what you want.

But my view of Star Wars isn't "lesser" or "missing something" just because I don't share that view and actually like the good guys and believe in what they taught/did.

----------

I'm passionate about being pro-Jedi because of everything I outlined above and because they were truly good people who tried their best to help the galaxy---they were brought down, not because of anything they did, but because of one man's selfish stupid actions.

There might've been a time when I was willing to hear people out when they criticized the Jedi---because hey! maybe I was wrong---but that time has long passed because nothing anyone has ever criticized the Jedi for has held up to scrutiny, and anti-Jedi people won't just keep the fuck off my page and leave me alone.

So, frankly, this is my blog and I'm allowed to be as passionate as I want to be---and I'm not gonna stop, or start viewing the Jedi as "wrong" or "bad" or whatever, just because you- (and other people, I'm sure) -think I'm missing something by being strictly pro-Jedi

[thisgingerhasnosoul]

What’s pretty clear to me now, after interacting with a lot of goyische anti-Zionists, is that they believe their goal is so morally righteous that they must achieve it by whatever means they deem necessary. This then forces them into the belief that anti-Zionism cannot, in action or intent, ever be antisemitic—or, at the very least, not in a way that’s harmful to Jewish communities—and therefore, if their motives are purely anti-Zionist, they don’t need to worry about checking themselves and others for antisemitic rhetoric or behavior. Indeed, questioning whether there’s antisemitic behavior/rhetoric in their movement is an inherently bad thing, because it would imply that their righteous cause isn’t above reproach, and can, in fact, have negative consequences for the Jewish community as a whole. And this is how we get to people defending the antisemitism within the anti-Zionist movement, while also denying that it exists—while also believing they’re not antisemitic. Because if they actually put in that effort and self-reflected, they would have to either decide that they’re okay with their complicity in rising antisemitism, or they would have to change their views in some form. But they don’t want to do either, so they just bury their heads in the sand, instead.

[girlactionfigure]

Antisemitism only grows stronger when people are silent. So after October 7, I decided to open this account and scream as loud as I could to fight Jew Hate on social media. 

They leave these comments to hurt us. To scare us. To intimidate us and break us until we are too weak and disheartened to keep fighting to spread the truth. But Am Yisrael is not that easily broken. And they have no idea what warrior queen they woke up when they came for my people. 

Let them spew their Jew hate. I’ll keep screaming my truth. 

💙🇮🇱💙

I stand with Jewish youth against all forms of antisemitism. Antisemitic comments have no place in a healthy and free society.

I nominate @drsheilanazarian@eitanchitayat_words@or_mash and @mihaelaradulescuschwartzenberg to join this campaign and show unity with all those who have been affected by the rise in Antisemitism worldwide, especially on college campuses in recent weeks. 

Post a photo of yourself holding a sign with recent examples of some of the devastating messages of hate you may have faced in the past, and tag two friends to spread the word. 

Never forget. Always remember. And importantly, we must continue to educate and rise above in the face of hate together and through positive initiative. 

@jewstalkjustice @jewishjournal @zushagoldin

thepersianjewess

[liminalweirdo]

The lack of coverage of this issue in the media “plays into the larger minimization of the pandemic and ongoing impacts of Covid,” Tran added. “Mask bans stigmatize mask wearing.” Health exemptions are very vague and narrow, and “they put too much power into authorities who are likely to abuse that,” he added. It will “lead to criminalization and further marginalization of impacted communities.”

Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, echoed Tran’s concerns. In terms of immunocompromised people, she said (via email), “As we continue to grapple with COVID-19, a mask ban might well make subways more dangerous, exile people at high risk from public spaces, and open up people trying to protect themselves to harassment.”

Finally, there is a thoughtful, open letter from Jews for Mask Rights, in response to Hochul claiming the bans are being “demanded” by Jewish leaders in response to rising antisemitism, signed by more than 1,030 Jews, of whom 140+ are leaders. They summarize:

"Jewish tradition prioritizes the sanctity and protection of life, above all else. Jews are not permitted to endanger our own or others’ lives or behave in ways likely to spread illness or cause death. We have an obligation to protect the life and health of others. The principle of pikuach nefesh – ‘saving a life’ – prioritizes preserving human life over virtually all else. ...Wearing a mask is a mitzvah [good deed]. Forbidding it puts Jews at odds with our tradition, violating both our religious freedom and physical safety."

[headspace-hotel]

One of the most disturbing things I encountered in my journey of converting to Judaism was this podcast where Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks made the case that what originally set Judaism apart from “pagan” belief systems at the time of its development was that it “de-sacralized nature”. Monotheism killed animism, in his view, so rather than being something alive and divine, “nature” became an essentially lifeless thing that humans can use. We have a responsibility to care for nature, but only because G-d gave it to us, not because of any intrinsic value in it.

Sacks wasn’t the first person to argue this idea— it’s popular enough among a certain crowd of antisemites— but what was so disturbing for me was Sacks’ unalloyed enthusiasm about this. “De-sacralizing nature” was a good thing in his view, because it made the modern world possible and allowed humanity to “rise above mere animal existence” or some shit. It still bothers me that he drew such a radically different conclusion from our tradition. My experience with Judaism has made me infinitely more sensitive to the rhythms of the natural world and my place in it. The idea that all of nature is alive and joins us in praising G-d is everywhere in our liturgy. The sacredness of the world used to be an abstraction to me, and Judaism taught me to feel it like my own pulse.

as someone raised Christian i'm probably highly ignorant to the differences between Christianity and Judaism apart from, yknow, the Jesus thing, but "monotheism= nature is a created Thing" seems to lead people to a variety of wildly different takes.

like, American Evangelicals are mostly the far extreme of this where the earth is a temporary and ultimately disposable thing, and ultimately doesn't matter because it's Heaven that matters, and "environmentalism" is equivalent to denying the faith. It's Bad.

I just wonder, where does the difference come in? between "God created this creature and therefore we should treat it as sacred because it's his thoughtful handiwork" and "God created this creature so we can do what we want with it"? What other ideas make people go down one path or another?

[piraytoro]

I think a huge part of rising antisemitism in the left is because people see what’s happening in Palestine as an israel-only problem when they literally got their whole playbook from the us of a. And we got our whole playbook from england, who got it from the romans, etc. This is an imperialism problem and the usa is no better than israel, and we as individuals living here contribute to and benefit from that whether we want to or not; the only thing we can do is try like hell to minimize it and offer whatever reparations we can for it. To call for the dissolution of israel and NOT the dissolution of the usa is incredibly hypocritical.

We, too, are living on stolen land that was taken by means of genocide. That’s not some relic of the past; it’s happening now. We are an imperialist state and we profit off of imperialism and we aid others in their imperialism because the survival of the imperialist structure is integral to the survival of the usa and, more crucially, its position of power. I absolutely think that trump being elected is the worst case scenario for the coming election, and not just for americans, but don't forget that NO ONE who is in that position will ever be able to change any of the facts above, because it's a function of the system rather than a flaw.

It’s deeply troubling how israel is being treated as some kind of anomaly instead of just one part in a much larger system of imperialist terror. As if stopping israel is the end goal, let’s not look any deeper than that! We wouldn’t want to have to actually reckon with our own place in the imperialist structure! It’s paving the way for israel to be blamed for imperialism at large, and for Jewish people to be used as a scapegoat yet again. All while fascism continues to run rampant across the west.

[contemplatingoutlander]

Trump’s fascist talk is what’s ‘poisoning the blood of our country’

No, Trump isn’t Hitler. But his copycat words lead nowhere good.

Dana Milbank does a great job of explaining why the use of fascist language and symbols in Trump's communications (often followed by denials) is really a way of "dog whistling" to his fascist followers, as well as giving clues to the rest of us about what he plans to do if he has a chance in a second administration. This is a gift🎁link, so you can read the entire article, even if you don't subscribe to The Washington Post. Below are some excerpts from the column:

As you’ve probably heard, Donald Trump has once again raised a führer. The former president’s Truth Social account posted a video posing the question “What happens after Donald Trump wins?” and providing a possible answer: In the background was the phrase “unified Reich.” This follows Trump’s echoing Adolf Hitler in campaign speeches, saying that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country” and calling his opponents “vermin.” And that, in turn, followed Trump’s dining at Mar-a-Lago with high-profile antisemite Ye (Kanye West) and white supremacist leader Nick Fuentes, who likened incinerating Jews to baking cookies. Under the three-Reichs-and-you’re-out rule, Trump should be on the bench. Yet he keeps swinging — and this week provided a sobering measure of how numb we have become to his undeniably fascist rhetoric.

Milbank goes on to talk about how Trump will famously post something outrageous and then claim it was an accident.

During the 2016 campaign, Trump tweeted an image that had been used by white supremacists of a Star of David atop a pile of cash. The campaign removed the offending post and Trump said it had been posted by a staffer. He later told a crowd that his aides “shouldn’t have taken it down.” During that same campaign, Trump also tweeted an image of an American flag containing an image of what appeared to be Nazi Waffen-SS soldiers. The campaign removed this post, too, and blamed an intern. The disavowal is part of the game, says Jason Stanley, a Yale philosophy professor who specializes in the rhetoric of fascism. “You do it and then you deny it and it’s just systematic, over and over and over again,” he told me in a phone call. “The people who want to hear it hear it, and it signals the direction you want to go in.” And for those uncomfortable with the extremism, the denial provides “a way of lying to themselves and telling themselves this is not what’s really going on.” But it is. From Nazi Germany to Viktor Orban’s Hungary, Stanley says, people invariably thought the rhetoric of the rising authoritarian was exaggerated and just for dramatic effect. “Historically, people always, always don’t take it seriously,” he said. Perhaps they don’t realize that Trump is deploying the exact same tropes — against migrants, judges, gender nonconforming people, universities, the media, “Marxists” — now being used by autocrats in Russia, India and Hungary. “If you look at what Trump is saying … everywhere in the world the authoritarians are saying that.” And yet we drift, placidly, into autocracy. Okay, Trump is unifying the Reich. But Biden is so old!

I recommend you use the above gift link to read the entire column, which goes on to talk about how Trump and those who are planning his administration have a slew of policies that fit right in with the fascist/ authoritarian playbook.

[evilwickedme]

So I did just block the anon who told me to get help bc of my magneto was right title which, more than anything else, tells me they're not familiar with the comics

But also. Trying to tell me, a Jewish comics fan who specifically specializes in the Jewish history of comic books, that Magneto is antisemitic, actually, because he was made into a Jew by a "gentle" in 1975 (which isn't even true), is so wildly a misrepresentation of what his character means in fucking 2023 that it baffled me. Like I considered answering the ask because it was like, ok this is a teachable moment. But like also fuck that guy so.

But here's the thing about magneto is that obviously he's wrong, in that killing people is wrong and in some cases he's basically represented as a terrorist. But he's also obviously right, in that it's literally been proven in the house of x storyline that mutants will never be accepted, will always be hunted and hated, and mutants can and should defend themselves against that. I'll remind you that, although genosha was far from a success, the basic idea of mutants having their own island country is essentially the exact fucking same as krakoa, which is the current wildly successful x men storyline!!!!

And that's ignoring the fact that the magneto was right slogan was born when magneto was dead, and wasn't meant to support any particular action he made, but rather general ideas as I presented them above, and then beyond that, the fact that many Jews in particular identify with the slogan because we've been persecuted and hated for being different for three thousand fucking years, and that in 2023 in particular, after seven years of an increasing rise of antisemitism, having that as the title of my blog is just pointing out the fucking obvious

(this also leaves out the context of when I, in particular, started using the title, and the content of my blog at the time, and the fact that I've had this particular pfp for about as long, and the way all three of those tie in together, but I have no doubt that the person who sent me this ask is not a long time follower of this blog. About two thirds of my followers either already followed me or followed me because of that phase in my life though, and the rest have most likely seen me refer to it multiple times, so that context is not lost on most of them)

Basically. Magneto is a character who, at first, was not very complex. But no character can stick around for sixty years without becoming complex and taking on meaning that was not necessarily intended by the original creator. At this point magneto has been a Jewish Holocaust survivor for nearly five decades, as this anon themself pointed out. He's been handled by Jewish and goyische authors alike. And pretending he's purely an antisemitic character rather than one that many Jews actively cherish and identify with and show in so many ways that you, yourself, are not Jewish, and don't have any idea what you're talking about just so you can send anonymous hate my way...

Well. Point is. Magneto was right.

[koheletgirl]

israel as a state has no reason to exist and there is no resolution except one where settlers return every single iota of land and power to the people they stole it from.

this being said, the idea that mass Israeli death will happen if the above comes to pass is literally just pathetic settler anxiety and projection.

israel as a state has no right to exist – i agree. i wish it had never been founded.

you need to define what you're talking about when you say "settlers". if you mean settlers from the west bank, those who are stealing palestinian land right now as we're speaking, those who are currently represented in the knesset by smotrich and ben gvir and their friends – you're absolutely right. this is a black and white situation, there is no nuance here. they need to be stopped and they need to get the fuck out of palestine and those among them who came from the us for the sole purpose of stealing palestinian land need to get the fuck back to the us (this is a phenomenon that does very much exist. it doesn't mean every settler is american).

if you're referring to every single jew in what's currently known as israel as a settler, it's more complicated than that and i encourage you to read about it. it doesn't mean we're not still on stolen palestinian land, that is absolutely the case. but a lot of jews came to israel as refugees, because they didn't feel like they had another choice (and sometimes they really didn't). no, me or my family can't go back to iraq. i dont think that's what you were suggesting, but a lot of other people seem to think that's the case.

again, this doesn't mean we're not living on stolen land. the right of return to palestinians is a necessity. reparations are a necessity. the land should be given back. you're absolutely right. i don't know what that would look like in practicality, i don't think you do either. but we agree on this.

i agree with everything you said. i am not going to ask you where you think all israelis should go in that case, because that would be a bad faith question. i dont know if you meant to argue with me, but there's not much for us to argue about.

israel shouldn't exist. the fact is, though, that it does. the right of return is a necessity, and there has to be a solution here that doesn't include the notion of israeli jews going "back to where they came from". when people say "from the river to the sea", that is what i choose to hear. i choose to believe no one wants me to disappear. this is what i believe, this is what i actively work for. the situation is what it is. the only way forward is to live together.

i do know, however, that on tumblr.com this isn't always true. people on here do want me to disappear. they do want me to die. and those people aren't palestinians, they're usually americans with a fandomized perception of justice. and i'm allowed to call it out. i'm allowed to say that i don't feel safe on this website as a jew. and this is nothing in the grand scheme of things, but it's still happening. and i will not talk about the rise in antisemitism in the diaspora because i'm not there. but when i ask you, the people of tumblr.com, to look at yourselves in the mirror, i fucking mean it with my whole heart. i don't need to hear "there are no civilians" and "they all have dual citizenship" and "they're all from new jersey". and i absolutely don't need to hear it from people who actually are from new jersey.

hope i managed to make myself clear.

[gveret-fic]

“Israeli flags and not gut-instinct feel anger and reactionary disgust bc of the way that is used to signal racism, bigotry and pro-genocide sentiment here.”

Yeah this is a blatant and virulently antisemitic lie, and anon should feel bad and know that they’re eating up the same propaganda as all antisemites in history. American antisemitism is up by insane multiples, and it was never low. In 2002 the overwhelming majority of religious hate crimes targeted Jews and it’s gotten horrifically worse every year. The fact that anon associated the Star of David in this way reflects their own consumption of antisemitism (they’ll claim it’s the flag but it never freaking is considering that they target schools, stores, fraternities, etc etc etc etc etc. But even if it was exclusively the flag, it’d still be unacceptable. For instance, one could make the same claim about the Palestinian flag honestly with a much higher basis in reality considering the aforementioned antisemitic violence, but anyone sane and decent wouldn’t, would fight such an association and realize that it’s not acceptable. Making such claims means you’ve taken perhaps justified fear or anger but you’ve turned it into bigotry - like all bigots everywhere. Good luck to anon in detoxing, bc their comfort in saying the above means they should be deeply concerned with how much danger and hatred they’ve been promoting this year…

I think we can all agree the same symbols can have different meanings in different contexts. Anon was clearly talking about their association of the use of Israeli flags in protests with "pro-Israel" protests in America, many of which have been (sometimes violent) counter-protests against anti-war protests.

In this regard I take issue with the term "pro-Israel" as well; it is not pro-Israel to support a pointless war that is causing the deaths of our hostages and tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians, and is only serving to keep Netanyahu in power and his deranged coalition intact. It is strictly pro-war and pro-Netanyahu. In general, this isn't a basketball game. You shouldn't pick a team. You should be on the side of humanity.

Obviously it is true that antisemitism is on the rise worldwide and it's always been high. You're not wrong to be on the lookout for it. But anon's message demonstrated they were open to self-reflection and reevaluating their biases. It's a good thing to feel comfortable admitting to your own blind spots. It's the people who will vehemently refuse to admit they exist who will never be able to fix them.

As for the Palestinian flag, again, context matters. In an Israeli context, for example, the use of the flag in protests is in the process of being criminalized. So saying everyone would fight the association of the Palestinian flag with antisemitism is, well, context-dependent, as most other things are.

I can't understand what you're going through with the current wave of antisemitism, so I'm not here to judge your vigilance. I just have a personal goal to engage with people in good faith whenever I can, unless it's clear there's no dialogue to be had. I think the anon was genuine, and I appreciate their willingness to listen and course-correct. It's a rare and admirable thing in my view.