#antisemitism dressed as anti zionism

[kick-a-long]

Some people deny antisemitism the way some adults refuse to acknowledge that Santa Claus isn’t real.

Saying “anti Zionists/pro Palestine protesters aren’t antisemitic!” is a functional response rather than something they believe or or something supported by logic/their personal experience. It’s the same way some parents refuse to acknowledge Santa isn’t real for their children’s benefit even if their children aren’t with them.

The reason to keep up the fiction that Santa is real is 1. Their relationship with their children is affected by it 2. Their nostalgia for childhood Christmas 3. They like Santa and want him to be real 4. The magic of Christmas isn’t magic unless there is a Santa 5. Christmas is a religious holiday without Santa rather than an inclusive holiday so people can opt out of the fiction.

The reason to keep the fantasy “PAnon and anti Zionists aren’t antisemitic,” (contrary to what is obvious from the words and actions of the people involved) is 1. Their relationship to antisemitic leftists is affected 2. Their nostalgia for past leftist movements 3. They like hating a socially acceptable target and want it to be real and justified 4. If anti Zionism is antisemitic the magic of leftism automatically making them a good person doesn’t work 5. That anti Zionism and leftism is a racial and religiously exclusive movement that isn’t actually considerate of oppressed minorities and is largely controlled by Christian tropes, morality, bigotry and practices.

But unlike infantilizing your children during a holiday (an appropriate and delightfully loving way to engage with a child’s emotional and mental development as they grow up,)

infantilizing yourself to spread hateful and destructive propaganda about Jewish people is GROSS, embarrassing, and makes you a hypocrite. It’s dressing up in a red suit and beard so you can say,

“I’m not a bad person who likes hating people based on their identity and likes being friends with people who hate minorities!…

“We’re all just Santa Claus! Merry Christmas!”

[matan4il]

Hi!

Ah, how do you argue with a rabid antisemite who won't even consider for a second that they're wrong? 🙃

Someone I followed posted something about Israel being a "settle colonialist project", so I tried to give them the benefit of the doubt that maybe they're just ignorant and don't know the history of the land and/or Judaism. I sent them a message basically saying that considering Israel a settler colony is super problematic and antisemitic as it entirely erased the deep link between Jewish people and their ancestral homeland.

Well this person then went OFF the rails, spouting some of the most awful rhetoric I've ever read. You know, like 95% of Israelis are just white Americans playing dress up as middle easterners and have no historic claim to the land, Jews aren't the only Semites so she couldn't possibly be antisemitic (🙄🙄), Jews and Israel are the new Nazis and white supremacists, evil murderous baby killers etc.

She insisted that she was incredibly educated on the subject (!!!) and that I was the ignorant one, and I just don't understand how we're supposed to handle people like this, who are so full of hate that they can't be reasoned with. I guarantee that if any other minority told them that they were doing something offensive or racist they'd stop immediately and be incredibly apologetic. What makes us Jewish people so different?

😔

I just really needed to vent and for someone to confirm that I'm not the crazy one.

Thank you! 💞

Hi, lovely!

Let me start by assuring you that you are absolutely NOT crazy. And I am so sorry that you, and so many of us, have had to go through this experience, of encountering someone being that awful. I'm sending you lots of hugs, I know it's not much of a comfort, but you are not crazy, and you are NOT alone.

"She insisted that she was incredibly educated"

I've seen that happening so much. I wish they'd realize this is so false and condescending. No, reading lots of anti-Israel propaganda does NOT make them educated on this. No, using the propaganda to de-legitimize and silence the people most affected by the conflict, way more than these people are, is not okay, it is NOT the sign of an educated person (those truly educated can carry a debate about it, they don't need to silence others. In fact, many times they want to have a debate, because they're secure enough in their knowledge and information, that it does not threaten them. They don't need to block out challenges in order to be sure that their narrative won't fall apart) and it is INCREDIBLY patronizing. It's like a straight person lecturing me on what it's like to be gay, except only presenting the most homophobic idea one can picture of it. It's condescending on top of being hateful.

And I say this as someone who has lived this conflict her entire life, but also works at a Holocaust museum, which researches the Holocaust in particular, genocide in general, and Jewish history, including this specific chapter. You think any of these Israel haters care that they're lecturing someone with way more knowledge and experiences of this conflict than them? With more real life Israeli AND Palestinian friends than they have? Who has probably done more in her line of work to combat hate and the path to genocide than their keyboard fighting ever will? Do they stop and listen when we talk about the actual definition of Zionism, genocide, or even just some basic facts about the current war, like how many Palestinian terrorist organizations Israel is fighting? Nothing gets through.

So the most important thing I wanna tell you is to PLEASE not feel bad if you don't get through to this person. I think it is noble and brave to try. I have with some people who I mistakenly thought there was a chance they'd listen. And I never do it from a place of hate for Palestinians, because I do not hate them. I know enough of them who are great people, and I sincerely want the good people on both sides to have a better life. I always speak from a place of looking at the facts, current and historic. I believe it matters. We can't solve a conflict that we don't understand, and we aren't promoting any understanding (we're not helping in solving it) by spreading intentional lies about the essence of the cnflict. I've been translating the docu about Amin al-Husseini, because he's someone who infused the conflict with religious hate and antisemitic thinking. If we don't understand that, if we pretend this is just about land and liberation, we will never be able to address the true core issues of the conflict, and we won't be able to solve it, and provide the good people on both sides with this better life they deserve.

That's what I can offer to you, to speak about your experiences, the experiences of those you know or have heard of, who are affected, to speak from a place of care, and to insist on truth and facts.

That said, as you can understand, it doesn't always work. Some people I've tried with, they were just not willing to listen. When they stated something wrong, and I gave them a correction linked to a fact checked source, and they still ignored it and repeated their ignorant claims, that means they don't want to listen.

Which means that this false narrative serves some sort of need they have. Otherwise, if the facts that someone is presented with undermine their narrative, that should make them stop and question it. Stop and reevaluate why, if their narrative is true, do they get so many facts wrong? I'm not talking here about something like was this specific tweet or that particular vid true. I'm talking about basic facts, like denying that Jews are from Israel, are native here, and therefore have native rights here, that can't be erased with it being antisemitic.

What's the need that it serves? There are different motivations, one person can have more than one reason to choose to ignore the suffering of Israelis and Jews, but at the end of the day, what they all have in common, is that they're enabled by a certain degree of either antisemitism, or ignorance, or both. Antisemitism can be a sense of indifference regarding Jews, our well being, our safety, our rights, and it can also be based in a certain distorted view of Jews. And I just have to say that a certain lack of knowledge can lead to the latter even among Jewish people, even when it doesn't lead to antisemitism and hatefulness. It's just... Jews are so misrepresented, so... under-discussed. You will not believe how many times I've asked American Jewish visitors to our Holocaust museum how many Jews there are in the world, and they greatly overestimated the number. It doesn't point to anything bad about them, but it does reflect that they're a product of American society, where Jews are (even culturally) misrepresented as being far more omnipresent than we are (while also barely giving us our own voice).

Sorry, I know this got long. I guess because my answer to your first question, regarding arguing with a rabid antisemite is... you try you best, with care, and with facts. But you also mustn't feel bad if it doesn't work. If people have a vested interest in not listening to you, they won't. And it is not your fault. And also, you have to take care of yourself, too. So it's okay to stop and ask yourself every once in a while, whether a specific fight is one worth fighting. If it's someone that matters to you, and that you wanna stay in touch with, it may be even when things don't look hopeful. If it's a public argument, and there's a chance that this person won't listen to you, but a third party might read your replies and get something from them, then it may also be worth keeping up the debate then. But there are also times when, if you tried, and the person is insistent on not listening, and the odds of anything positive coming out of it are slim to none, it's also okay to take care of yourself, to disengage, and stay the hell away from someone that antisemitic.

IDK if this helps, but I really hope so, and I am sending you a lot of hugs, love, support and encouragement! And if you ever wanna ask me anything in order to have that as help in confronting antisemites, I will do my best for you. Take good care, lovely! xoxox

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[wewebaggit]

All these idiots yapping about Palestine like they're the saviours of mankind and Palestine and patting themselves for hating Noah. (Go ahead. Hate him actually. I hate people for how they wear their hair. Fair enough. And I'm not here nor there on my guess on him being an actual Zionist) But can y'all just not pretend this oooh disappointment is deep? Like please? Can y'all like maybe not reduce it to a teen actor visiting a place and posting about it. Like that's absolutely the worst thing to have happened to Palestine. Whether he posts or not, Jewish people are gonna be visiting Israel. Cuz their holy land is in Israel. Which is why this outcry is fucking stupid and THE BIGGEST EXAMPLE of dumb hoes virtue signaling. Y'all stupid for putting this energy into hating a Jewish guy visiting Israel. They aren't even the largest contributors to its tourism. Y'all dumb bitches need to look at the followers of Christ for that. More than half of the total visitors in some years. But y'all wont. Cuz I see your ass. It's just waiting to shit on Jews and Jews alone. Especially to that one self righteous bitch who is screenshotting other's people's post and calling them dumb. Check yourself. N then check Google for other places EXACTLY in the situation of Palestine. But not glamorous enough for your shiny bleeding heart to post about. Also they have celebs you can shit on for visiting those places. Just so you'd maybe wanna talk about it. Fucking a-holes sermonising about brown people rights when it fucking suits their own skin tone.

"He needs to tell people he's not a Zionist." Ya well everyone going to Saudi needs to scream and shout that they do not support Saudi terror funding and their treatment of migrants. Everyone going to Kashmir must scream and shout that hey we're here for the Kashmiris and not for the occupier forces. Anyone visiting China must also wear a Free Tibet and Free Turkestan shirts. And the whole of the descendants of white colonisers need to tell people you're not a racist, supporter of eco-terrorism, exceptional, bigot, islamophobe, antisemite (funny how both apply), pro-life, anti-black people everytime you visit the corner cafe and post about it on insta. Ya that app owned by that bugger who wanted to take away free internet from brown countries. ("bUt iT's nOt OngOiNg tHo....." bro we're still reeling from that shit and it hasn't even been 100 years so please don't. Neither did that dumb dead hoe Lizzie nor her older than jesus son Charlie who loves to fancy dress has so much as even apologised. Refused to apologise in fact).

Pat yourselves on the back. You fought Zionism with antisemitism and homophobia.

[hellsbellschime]

I just wanted to thank you so, so much for standing up for Jews right now. I can't express how much it means to me and the rest of the Jewish community that you're one of the few people who've actually gone to bat for us when everyone else went mask off ❤️

<3 honestly you shouldn't be thanking me because it's just the right thing to do, but the amount of antisemitism I have seen since 10/7 has been APPALLING and it's extremely scary. The people who went mask off REALLY went mask off, but there has also been so much stealth antisemitism in so much of the reaction and reporting that I've seen about the situation that it really threw me off and made me realize that I vastly underestimated how popular antisemitism still is.

Clearly, discussing Zionism in the past has REALLY not gone well for me, but the reaction toward it for me specifically and in general has always set off alarm bells that there was antisemitism baked in there which was trying to be passed off as anti-Zionism or anti-Israeli sentiment. But I feel like 10/7 was such a horrific revelation for Jewish people and allies because, at least for me, it was a revelation that for certain people, basically there is no limit to what you could do to an Israeli. There is no limit to what crimes or atrocities could be committed against someone because of where they lived or where they were born, and there is a really scary number of people who would paint that kind of atrocity as some kind of rebellious act of freedom. If you are calling literal babies colonizers and you are saying that the gang rape and mutilation of people's genitals is somehow an act of decolonization, you are trying to dress up your genocidal antisemitic POV with the veneer of some kind of social justice or moral righteousness.

But there are bigger fish to fry here that I think a lot of people are missing, which again further disturbs and upsets me. Because Jewish people should be able to just exist in the world, but the ebb and flow of antisemitism is also an exceptionally good indicator of when social and political upheaval is about to REALLY start fucking everyone's lives up. So again, people should be concerned about this because it's morally wrong, but they should also be concerned about it because Jewish people are also almost always just the first up to bat. Once we pass that critical point where antisemitism becomes socially acceptable again, it's almost always because we are at the beginning of a really hard downturn that is going to destroy a TON of people's lives. So the fact that so many people on the left and right are now united in the whole "oh wouldn't our lives be so much better if we could just take power away from the Jews" is a REALLY REALLY REALLY scary sign that should not be ignored.

And of course, the fact that the Israeli government actually does horrible shit makes this a much easier sell. There are a ton of very legitimate problems that need to be fixed and should absolutely be called out. But again, it's a very scary mindset to get drawn into, because yes you think you're a leftist and completely unaffected by the antisemitism that has been baked into our culture for literally thousands of years and you're on the right side because WELL THE JEWS ARE ACTUALLY BAD NOW. But what the hell do you think people thought in 1930s Europe? Do you think that they hated Jewish people just to hate them? Or do you think that they also genuinely believed that Jewish people were actually the problem then too?

It's heinous because 10/7 and the invasion of Gaza afterward is a perfect vector to hide antisemitism in, and it really seems to be working well. The overt antisemitism I've seen as well as the way more covert that I've seen has shocked me, and even though I'm not Jewish, I considered myself to be more aware than most that antisemitism is not even remotely a problem that's been relegated to the past.

But I'm sorry that you've had to deal with this because I am just a person who is capable of empathy and understands how fucked up it must be to experience this, while Jewish people actually have to experience it. The lack of pushback against pretty obvious antisemitism is really frightening, and again, the whole progression of what has happened is exceptionally cruel and offensive. You can support a free and democratic Palestine while condemning 10/7 (in fact I'd argue given that Hamas hasn't held elections in decades, it's a REQUIREMENT to condemn 10/7 if you genuinely support a free Palestine). You can acknowledge that Hamas is an outwardly stated and admitted antisemitic terrorist organization and 10/7 was an expressly antisemitic attack and fight for an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

But the amount of pressure I've seen put on Jewish people specifically to go along with the complete reframing and minimization of 10/7, because actually if you live in Israel then you had it coming, and because the Palestinians have it worse you can't even take a moment to react emotionally to something truly horrific and traumatizing, and if you don't think exactly what we think you're one of the "bad ones," has been disturbing to watch. Your pain is incredibly valid and I know everything that has happened must be so difficult and isolating, but just know that you do have supporters out there, even if you deserve to have a lot more.

[jewish-privilege]

I want to talk about yesterday [June 27, 2020]. Yesterday a British newspaper (The Independent) printed an interview with an actor (Maxine Peake) that contained harmful conspiracy equating to modern day blood libel (the claim that Israel is inadvertently responsible for the murder of George Floyd) against a minority group (Jews). The segment in this interview was considered so irresponsible and dangerous that the leader of the Labour opposition in government (Keir Starmer) sacked one of his shadow cabinet ministers (Rebecca Long Bailey) for praising the article, while thankfully employing a zero tolerance stance. Yet many anti-racist social media warriors continued to promote, defend and post about this interview. Unimaginable, right? Sadly not. If you were to imagine any other oppressed group in this situation, the liberal left would not have carried on in their ignorance. Imagine them sharing, eg, a homophobic article after the fact? I don’t think so.

...Antisemitism is more painful to me on the Left, because I can demonise the Right. I almost expect it from the Right. It’s so visible on the Right. That doesn’t make it non-threatening but, you know, at least it’s clear as day. The Left, on the other hand, does a good job at masking it because of its overarching aim to satiate the community of the good. The Left is a place where I don’t feel scared of my many multitudes. On the Left I don’t feel as scared to be a woman. I don’t feel as scared to be queer. But there is one identity that gives me pause. I brace myself when I tell people that I’m Jewish because most of the antisemitism I have experienced in educational institutions, in work environments, in my peer groups has been on the Left. And so to tell people I’m also a Zionist? I don’t. That is the hardest ‘coming out’ of all.

The Left is a place where I don’t feel like I’m being asked to compromise my queerness to show allyship, or my feminism. But I do feel like I’m being asked to compromise my Jewish pride, and to turn a blind eye to the antisemitism I recognise because (I know this might sound like a shock) I have experienced it my whole life. This is not a new feeling. It’s been with me forever sadly, but it has become more insidious in the last few years and due to social media I have felt violated by having to witness the true colours of so many I work with or consider friends.

It’s harder for me to keep the lid on the box and just move cautiously past it. In the last month I’ve been told by friends that I am demi-cancelled; that I’m centering my own oppression at a tone deaf time because it’s less valid; that I should ignore the physical and verbal attacks towards Jewish symbols and physical bodies at this time because it’s not as harmful as the attacks on black bodies; that I’m plain wrong about what constitutes my own experience of prejudice and that this other jew over here (who may not usually even present as Jewish) shares their own view as a non-jew of what constitutes antisemitism, therefore it’s more correct than mine (how convenient, and also erroneous).

All of these things are entirely false. It’s an isolating time, sure. It always has been. In the past few weeks, it wasn’t reported by mainstream media that a Jewish man was stabbed in the head in Nevada as his attacker screamed Heil Hitler; a Rabbi was stabbed in a busy London high street and the BBC skirted reporting it as a hate crime; a crowd of protestors in France shouted “Sales juifs” (“dirty jews”) at the police; swastikas have been graffiti’d on elementary school buildings in America and at bus stops in places like Oregon (“Hitler did nothing wrong” was one tag)… and that’s just off the top of my head. The Hanukkah stabbings at a Rabbi’s house in New York City were just last year, and the Pittsburgh shooting at the Tree of Life synangogue just the year before.

I think I should make it clear that a lot of what I wanted to address here is for the attention of white allies, and also of Jewish people on the Left who don’t know how to engage. Whether you choose to read this or not (and I get it, you have a lot to catch up on right now learning wise), I have written this to try and let you understand that this hurt is real. It’s not my ego or a “distraction”. It’s also not just mine. It’s shared by many of us Jews committed to the Left. All of our commitment to anti-racism and allyship unfortunately is not short-hand work. It is not I who is distracting you from your work in Black Lives Matter. I am reacting to violations made by antisemites who create procrastinating rhetoric that is completely irrelevant to the cause. It is a web of lies that dates back through our historic oppression that has nothing to do with justice for the murders, and nothing to do with defunding state apparatus in America.

Anti-racism and allyship involves listening to intersectional conflict without dismissing it violently because it doesn’t fit the binary of right versus wrong, black versus white, or because it renders your leader flawed at best and bigoted at worst. If it were as simple as a binary we wouldn’t be struggling. My commitment to social justice is unwavering not because I’m a jew (though that’s part of it) but because I’m a human being. I must be accepted as both...

[eretzyisrael]

The student pointed out that for things to change, people would need to confront biases that are uncomfortable to them.

“A lot of people on the left unfortunately are happy to do it when it comes to other groups, but not about Jews,” she pointed out. “I think many who have no ties to either side of the conflict should ask themselves why their reaction is so visceral and they hold Israel to a different standard than China, Iran and states where human rights are severely abused,” she said.

“I believe that they don’t want to come to the uncomfortable truth is that it is because it involves Jews,” she added.

Gunz described antisemitism as “the hammer that forges the horse-shoe theory.”

“The political spectrum is not a line, it is shaped like a horseshoe where the far-right and the far-left are a lot closer than they think. Antisemitism proves it,” she concluded. “You can dress it up as anti-Zionism all you want, but when you try so hard to demonize the one tiny little country the size of New Jersey which is home to half the world's Jews, you have to think about how you feel about Jews.”

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

I’m no stranger to antisemitism.

Like pretty much every other Jew who has grown up in a non Jewish environment, I’ve heard my fair share of insults and accusations. Many of the antisemites I have dealt with have attempted to hide their prejudice behind the guise of “anti-Zionism”, but there was nothing hidden about the racism I had to experience last Shabbos, and none of the insults I’ve had flung at me over the years prepared me for it.

Picture this. You’re walking back from shul on a Shabbos afternoon, talking to your friend about this and that, when you start to hear chanting getting louder and louder. You’re in an orthodox Jewish neighbourhood, namely Stamford Hill, and you feel safe surrounded by hundreds of other Jews.

At least, you feel safe until you turn the corner and come face to face with a 20 strong group of protestors, shouting through a loudspeaker, spewing the most vile hatred you’ve ever heard.

“Your money won’t save you from the hell fire!” “You’re gonna go back to the gas chambers!”, “We will smash your heads in!”

I couldn’t believe my ears. Every time an orthodox Jew walked past, this violent group began shouting antisemitic insults through their loudspeaker, calling Jews devils, and money worshippers, screaming about their “long noses” and saying their tzitzis would send them to hell.

The group were later identified as the Israelite Church of God in Jesus Christ, an offshoot of the Black Hebrew Israelites: a racist and black supremacist fringe group who believe that white Jews are destined for hell.

Never before in my life have I felt so terrified by a group of people, but my friend and I stood our ground, refusing to cross the road and leave them to target other Jews. We convinced a non Jewish passerby to call the police, explaining that we could not use the telephone on Shabbos, and thought that the nightmare would come to an end.

But it only got worse. As time passed, they became more and more virulent in the minutes leading up to the arrival of the police, claiming that our attempts to stop them would send us straight to hell. When the police arrived, they stated that they were understaffed, and that the two available officers could do nothing to prevent the much larger group from spewing hatred. While they negotiated with the leader of the demonstration, my friend and I found ourselves surrounded by a sea of people – ordinary looking, well dressed citizens, who turned to us and said, “You hear them?! They’re right. You put him up on the cross and still you think you’re better than everyone else!”

A blood libel in the 21st century? I should have been more surprised, but by this point I felt I had seen everything. If violent, racist demonstrators and seemingly normal shoppers can spread hatred so freely on the streets of Stamford Hill, while policemen stood by complacently, perhaps I am no longer safe as a Jew in London.

After statements were taken by the police, and a few more curses were thrown in my direction by the Israelite Church of God in Jesus Christ (“Your synagogue is a home to the devil and it will burn!”), we walked home, trying desperately to make sense of what had just happened. I wasn’t sure why it had happened to me, or why the police thought it was okay. But I was sure of one thing: if the police wouldn’t fight antisemitism, then I would fight it myself, by being a prouder and more open Jew than I have ever been before.

Save

[schraubd]

When The Mask Comes Off ... What's Beneath Doesn't Look All That Different

The Prime Minister of Malaysia, Mahathir Mohamad, explains why he is "glad" to be called an antisemite.

“There is one race that cannot be criticized. If you are anti-Semitic, it seems almost as if you are a criminal,” Mohamad said in an interview with the Associated Press on Monday, denying that he disliked Jews, as such. “Anti-Semitic is a term that is invented to prevent people from criticizing the Jews for doing wrong things.”

“When somebody does wrong, I don’t care how big they are. They may be powerful countries but if they do something wrong, I exercise my right of free speech. They criticize me, why can’t I criticize them?”

Mohamad, an avowed anti-Semite, was sworn in as prime minister in May, nearly two decades after he last held office. He is well known for his anti-Semitic rhetoric, writing on his personal blog in 2012 that “Jews rule this world by proxy.”

He has also said, “I am glad to be labeled anti-Semitic […] How can I be otherwise, when the Jews who so often talk of the horrors they suffered during the Holocaust show the same Nazi cruelty and hard-heartedness towards not just their enemies but even towards their allies should any try to stop the senseless killing of their Palestinian enemies.”

This, of course, is rather naked. It speaks of Jews (although the de rigueur conflation with Israel is present), and it does not shy away from (indeed it actively embraces) the idea of antisemitism. In that sense, it is almost too easy of a case. And this is not remotely out of character for Mohamad either. But where these passages may be of some use is in highlighting how certain antisemitic tropes work in a context where they are freely and openly attached to an antisemitic ideology, the better to spot them when they appear without such an overt gloss. Basically everything Mohamad is saying is something that, dressed up (a little) more nicely, is a common feature of discourse about Jews in global society today. First, there is the claim that the real victims of antisemitism are those accused of it -- antisemitism is not (or is not primarily) a genuine form of oppression for Jews, but rather is a perk Jews enjoy to shield ourselves from critical review. Compare here Bruce Robbins "The real issue here is anti-Semitism; that is, accusing people of it" or Naomi Klein suggesting that some Jews "think we get one get-away-with-genocide-free-card." Second, there is the argument that in taking on the Jews, he is taking on someone or something "big". Here he really dips between referring to "Jews" generally and "Israel" specifically (For the record, Malaysia has four times the population of Israel across a territory almost sixteen times its size). Of course, the perception of Jews as inherently "big" -- domineering, cabalistic, pulling the strings -- has deep pride of place in antisemitic rhetoric. Mohamad is appealing to a notion whereby antisemitism always is a form of "punching up", "a movement of the little people against an intangible, global form of domination".  This perspective has come to occupy a critical role in the narrative Corbyn supporters tell of Jewish outrage -- both in the view that Corbyn, in antagonizing the Jews, is tackling the powerful, and in the view that the Jewish backlash is itself attributable to some nefarious conspiracy Next, there is the invocation of "free speech". Of course, this particular ploy should by now be familiar to anyone forced to endure alt-right trolling of college campuses -- when they choose to be racist, it's just free speech! And if you call it racist, you're suppressing their free speech! But this device makes its appearance regarding antisemitism too, and has done so for a very long time. Jewish Voice for Peace's old blog was titled "MuzzleWatch", and one of the major fringe groups backing the Corbynistas and opposing Jewish efforts to raise awareness of antisemitism in the UK is named "Free Speech on Israel". Glenn Greenwald has likewise dismissed the widespread adoption of the IHRA antisemitism definition as part of a "global campaign to outlaw criticisms of Israel as bigotry". Then there's the comparison of "Jews" (represented through Israel) to Nazis -- we're all familiar with that play, and I'm glad to see it here if only for completion's sake. But we'll conclude with the most striking bit, and the one that perhaps seems least applicable to more workaday antisemitic cases: where Mohamad says he is "glad" to be called antisemitic. Here one might say I'm actually being a touch unfair to Mohamad, for what I suspect he means is something more like "while antisemitism -- appropriately (and narrowly) defined -- is terrible; what is called antisemitic in public discourse are actually good, noble, and virtuous positions that one should be proud to hold." This is buttressed by the caveat Mohamad gave at the beginning, where he denies that he "dislikes Jews, as such." Once again, this has parallels. Steve Bannon notoriously said that being called racist is a "badge of honor"; Steven Salaita's contention that antisemitism has become "honorable" thanks to Zionism plays on the same turf. In all cases, the claim actually isn't "it is good to hate outgroups"; it's something more like "what outgroups claim is hateful, actually is good". Now, to be clear -- that's still a BS response, partially because it is too clever by half, partially because it depends on an epistemic injustice directed against the outgroups whereby their assessments of their own experience of inequality is so unreliable that one should be "honored" if they feel threatened by you. But at least formally, it reduces down to a claim that "one can and should dislike X group insofar as they act in A B C bad ways, or support D E F bad policies." Which actually circles back, strangely enough, to my Tablet Magazine article on Open Hillel's intervention in the SFSU antisemitism debate. In that article, I cited Bernard Williams for the proposition that virtually no form of racism holds itself out as being a product of raw, unadorned antipathy. It always comes attached to claims that are at least on-face about something that qualifies as a candidate for a reasonable position. Wrote Williams:

Few can be found who will explain their practice merely by saying, 'But they're black: and it is my moral principle to treat black men differently from others'. If any reasons are given at all, they will be reasons that seek to correlate the fact of blackness with certain other considerations which are at least candidates for relevance to the question of how a man should be treated: such as insensitivity, brute stupidity, ineducable irresponsibility, etc. Now these reasons are very often rationalizations, and the correlations claimed are either not really believed, or quite irrationally believed, by those who claim them. But this is a different point; the argument concerns what counts as a moral reason, and the rationalizer broadly agrees with others about what counts as such -- the trouble with him is that his reasons are dictated by his politics, and not conversely. The Nazis' 'anthropologists' who tried to construct theories of Aryanism were paying, in very poor coin, the homage of irrationality to reason.

So too here. I quoted Mohamad's words extensively because to my mind they represent an unquestionable case of antisemitism. But his caveat that he does not dislike Jews "as such" is one that Open Hillel's standard of antisemitism has great trouble grappling with. If Mohamad's point is that he doesn't dislike Jews-qua-Jews, only the bloodthirsty ones, the Zionist ones, the Nazi-like ones, the ones who are "big" and the ones who censor his free speech -- is that antisemitism? Cast in that light, Mohamad isn't actually all that different from the peers I've been comparing him to; perhaps just a little rougher around the edges. And that, ultimately, is the real point here. One might think that Mahathir Mohamad represents what happens when the screen of respectability comes down and an antisemite simply says what he thinks. But it turns out that, when that happens, what one sees doesn't look all that different from what one sees when the mask stays on. Mohamad uses tropes and claims and devices that are common in discourse about Jews by people who have far more claim to respectability than Mohamad does. One would like to think that's an indictment of the respectable. But it just as easily can become a defense of what we otherwise would think of as undeniable antisemitism. via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/2L1o6Gj

[antisemitism-eu]

German party condemns BDS, compares movement to pre-WWII antisemitism

Via The Jerusalem Post (by Benjamin Weinthal):

German politicians from the Christian Democratic Union Party (CDU) in Hamburg submitted a resolution in early February calling on the state senate to take decisive action against the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement, deeming it as antisemitic. The CDU is the opposition party in the government, while the Social Democrats and the Green Party make up the governing coalition in Hamburg. The CDU politicians condemned “BDS initiatives and activities as antisemitic,” adding that the senate, as well as government agencies, should assess all activities as hostile to Israel and take actions against BDS. The resolution appears to the be first state government legislative act seeking to blunt BDS. The CDU sponsors of the resolution are Carsten Ovens, Karin Prien, André Trepoll, Dennis Thering, Birgit Stöver, Dennis Gladiator, and Jörg Hamann. The resolution urged Hamburg to support further initiatives to strengthen German-Israel bilateral relations. According to the resolution, “In previous months, many different countries have shown a clear resistance against the BDS movement. National and local parliaments and administrations – for example, in the United Kingdom, Canada, and Paris – decided to reject these boycott activities.” The northern port city of Hamburg is both a city and a federal German state. The resolution stated: “Who today under the flag of the BDS movement calls to boycott Israeli goods and services speaks the same language in which people were called to not buy from Jews. That is nothing other than coarse antisemitism.

The CDU compared BDS to the National Socialists who boycotted Jews in the 1930s. BDS dresses up antisemitism in the “new clothes of the 21st century” as anti-Zionism, the party said. The anti-BDS resolution was in response to the University of Hamburg’s appointment of Farid Esack, a pro-BDS Islamic theologian from South Africa. The advisory board of the Academy of World Religions at Hamburg University, where Esack served as a guest professor from October to mid-February, distanced itself from Esack. In a statement to Die Welt reporter Jakob Koch, the academy said it is “totally unacceptable from the view of the advisory council when a comprehensive boycott of Israel is called for and thereby a break in every form of cooperation with Israeli universities, cultural institutions and other institutions.” 

read more The New Antisemite: http://ift.tt/2m3AMRt

[grootpoepjeplasjehoofd]

A lot of people on the left have a massive hard on for groups like Neturei Karta because they love the idea of stereotypical looking Jews speaking out against Zionism, it feels very much like tokenism. Neturei Karta and similar ultra-Orthodox organizations have a really nasty streak to them, they are anti-Zionist only as far as they believe that there shouldn’t be a Jewish state until the return of the Messiah. Okay, that part’s weird, but whatever. What I really take issue with is the fact that all in all, these people are straight up reactionaries. They spout vile misogyny, racism, and antisemitism against Jews they deem not religious enough. They will literally spit on elementary school girls for “dressing like whores.” It’s so morally objectionable to treat them as a paragon of virtue because they’re ostensibly on the same side as you when it comes to this one issue.

[motlorg]

Famed French Philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy: Anti-Zionism Is the New Dressing for the Old Passion of Antisemitism

If you are #antiZionist, that means you wish for a huge disaster for the #Jewish people

“Anti-Zionism is the new dressing for the old passion of antisemitism,” famed French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy told a New York City gathering on Wednesday. In a conversation at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan moderated by Charlie Rose, Lévy — author of the new book The Genius of Judaism — said, “If you are anti-Zionist, that means you wish for a huge disaster for the Jewish people.” Lévy — an…

[jewish-privilege]

...When the conference began Thursday morning, I was warned that protesters from the Bard chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine planned to interrupt my panel with [Ruth Wisse, a Harvard professor of Yiddish literature and scholar of Jewish history and culture, and Shany Mor, an Israeli thinker who is affiliated with the Hannah Arendt Center]. I was surprised they were not targeting the one on Zionism, but the one on anti-Semitism, the only panel of about 20 over the course of the two-day program where three Jews would be discussing the topic.

“But we’re not even talking about Israel,” I said to the conference organizers. “How does that make sense?”

My concern was met with an explanation of the College’s policy towards protesters. The center’s leadership, and the two Bard College deans attending the conference, seemed to have no particular plan to handle what was fixing to become an ugly disruption of Jews trying to discuss anti-Semitism. [Roger Berkowitz, the founder and director of Bard College’s Hannah Arendt Center] told us that there would be added security, but the security officers were not allowed to remove the students.

As the protesters started to gather in the lobby, I approached them. I told them that I respected their passion and commitment to what they thought was right, but asked why they had picked this panel.

“Come to my panel tomorrow,” I said. “Come protest my comments on Zionism. I’ll be talking about the occupation. Bring your signs.”

I told them I’d reserve the first and second audience-questions for members of their group, but that protesting the all-Jewish anti-Semitism panel was undercutting their work.

“Don’t you see that?” I asked. Didn’t they see that protesting Jews over Israel when they are not even talking about Israel is racist? Didn’t they understand that saying we were responsible for the behavior of the Israeli Jews just because we shared their ethnicity was racist? That making every conversation with Jews about Israel is racist?”

“The conversation about anti-Semitism is already inherently about Israel,” one of the students archly explained, repeating a deeply anti-Semitic trope that has been voiced across the spectrum from David Duke to Louis Farrakhan to Jeremy Corbyn’s supporters. Right-wing anti-Semites see any accusation of anti-Semitism as a Jewish conspiracy to take away the rights of whites, while left-wing anti-Semites sees the same accusation as an attempt to silence Palestinians.

Apparently, so do some Bard students.

...When the protesters proceeded to interrupt Wisse, they were applauded by several of our fellow conference speakers in the audience. These vaunted intellectuals, flown in from across the country to discuss racism, were commending a display of racism against Jews.

This was much more horrifying than the students’ chanting and leafletting, which failed to stop the indomitable Wisse from having her say, defining anti-Semitism as any political organizing against Jews (I have been told since that two students were removed, something I didn’t see from the stage, but the rest stayed). Not one of our fellow conference speakers got up and exercised their free speech rights to call the protest what it was. Not one came over to us after to express shock and horror that three Jews would be denounced for Israel’s actions while attempting to discuss anti-Semitism in America.

...But not one of my fellow speakers said a word. Two days later, I have not received a single note acknowledging what happened, which leaves me thinking they condone it.

And some were explicit about it. At a party for conference speakers at Berkowitz’s house right after the panel, Etienne Balibar, a French philosopher currently teaching at Columbia University, told me he thought the protest was wonderful.

“Why are you silencing Palestinians?” he demanded. “There should have been a Palestinian discussing anti-Semitism. They have many thoughts about it!”

I left the party. How could I drink with people like that? And back at my hotel, I realized that it would be pointless to participate in Friday’s program. There is no debate possible when people think anti-Semitism is not only acceptable, but commendable.

So when I was introduced the next morning, I pulled out a new set of remarks. I directly addressed these academics and writers and intellectuals who were brought to Bard to speak about how to fight racism and anti-Semitism. I told them I was appalled that not one of them had called out this blatantly racist act, the way they surely would have if it had been three Muslims on the dais, or three black speakers — or at least, the way I would have in that scenario.

“I’m horrified by your cowardice. By your self-justifications,” I read from the new set of remarks I had written the night before. “You, who I called luminaries! Whose books I’ve read! There’s nothing more I want to say to you or hear from you.

“The next time someone says, ‘What have you done to help Jews as anti-Semitism has spiked across the nation, as Jews have been murdered at their place of worship and Orthodox Jews get beaten to a pulp day after day in Brooklyn,’ you can say, ‘I sat idly by as Jews were protested for trying to talk about anti-Semitism. I allowed a Jewish woman to be held accountable — because of her ethnicity — for the actions of a country halfway around the world where she can’t even vote. I egged the protest on, in fact. And then I went to a party.’”

There is no debate possible when people think that your very humanity is up for debate, something my fellow conference goers no doubt accept as obviously true when it comes to anti-Black racism or anti-Muslim racism. And yet somehow, when it comes to anti-Jewish racism — holding one Jew accountable for the actions of another simply because they are Jewish — no one bats an eye.

No doubt the intelligentsia at the conference proceeded to debate whether Jews are a valid target of protest in my absence (Berkowitz did ask me to stay, as did a few members of the audience when I walked off the stage). No doubt others will continue to debate the question, too; perhaps they will argue that Zionists are a valid target, even when they are discussing issues that aren’t related to Israel.

Yet polls show that more than 95% of Jews in America have a favorable view of Israel. The debate over whether Zionists are human and deserving of human treatment will have to be held in the absence of Jews of conscience. In 2019, no Jew should be forced to debate their humanity, their right to exist independent of anti-Semitism.

...But as I know all too well, the most important factor in hosting the full gamut of legitimate opinion is knowing where the red lines are. And if you think allowing Jews to be protested for being Jews does not represent a red line, I have nothing more to say to you, and nothing I want to hear.

As I was getting my suitcase to leave the Bard campus on Friday morning, a student approached me. He had followed me out of the auditorium after I made my speech and left the stage. He had a big smile on his face.

“That was great,” he said. “I was at the panel last night and I didn’t really understand what was happening. I’ve never really understood what anti-Semitism is. But your remarks just now — they made it so clear.

“I get it now!” he said, his young face awash in the jubilance that intellectually curious people feel when a puzzle is solved.

I was filled with surprise and gratitude. I had convinced one person.

[Read Batya Ungar-Sargon’s full post at The Forward]

[jewish-privilege]

@justonegeek submitted: Jewish privilege is despite having gone to a Jewish k-12 school, being terrified of wearing any signs of my Judaism in public, wearing sweaters over my BBYO merch, and being terrified of speaking positively of Israel because of how others will react. Being 17 yet so exhausted of standing up when no one else will speak for us.

[jewish-privilege]

When I was walking my dog I saw some fun antisemitic graffiti in Manhattan!

I assuming whoever wrote these decided to include the second so that it would be impossible to argue that the first was only anti Zionist. Thank you to this person.

I went back to clean them off and left the first one so that it was no longer antisemitic but still accurate!

שׁבוּע טוֹב!

[jewish-privilege]

A synagogue in Los Angeles was vandalized with graffiti stating “Free Palestine” on [Wednesday] morning, September 11 [2019].

Security footage showed a hooded man spray-painting the wall of the Baba Sale Congregation before driving away, the Jewish Journal reported.

“We’re a Jewish house of worship that’s located 7,500 miles from the Middle East where this conflict is taking place, and we came under attack solely for being Jewish,” synagogue board member Zev Opos told the Journal.

...Baba Sale is a Moroccan-Jewish congregation, and Opos said the incident was painful for congregants whose ancestors were expelled from Muslim countries in the Middle East after the establishment of Israel in 1948...

[jewish-privilege]

June 2, 2019 - An Al Quds Day speaker has said that the Israeli embassy runs “workshops” around the country to concoct false antisemitism claims to “smear” pro-Palestine activists.

Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign activist Mick Napier addressed protesters in Westminster today at the annual protest.

“There’s a guy who’s just been suspended from the Labour Party for saying the Israeli embassy is behind the whole wave of false, phoney, fake, malicious antisemitism allegations,” he told the crowd – an apparent reference to Pete Willsman, the National Executive Committee member who was suspended on Friday.

“It’s obvious. They don’t hide it. The Israeli embassy does it. They have workshops around the country where all the local zios get together.

“Christians and Muslims and Jews; they all get together, the zios. Because there are some of each. They plot how to smear those of us who stand up for the Palestinian people.

“Your crime today is to stand up for the noble people of Palestine,” Napier said.

Protesters took to the streets of London on Sunday, setting off from outside the Home Office and walking to Whitehall in a procession led by the extreme Jewish fringe group Neturei Karta UK.

...Al Quds Day has attracted controversy in the past, with demonstrators flying Hizballah flags before the terrorist group became proscribed in its entirety this year. There appeared to be no such flags or emblems at the march on Sunday.

...Another sign read “Zionism = Racism Boycott Israel”, while some called for an end to the “Gaza genocide”.

Among the protesters, one demonstrator appeared to compare Zionism to Nazism. “The world stopped Nazism. The world stopped apartheid. The world must stop Zionism,” his t-shirt read.