#we know you mean all Jews when you say Zionist

[argumntativantitheticldreamgirl]

Anti Zionism ≠ Antisemitism. Love Jewish people, fuck Israel

Anyone who says this doesn't love Jewish people. This is just a way for antisemites to make themselves feel better about what they're doing. Jews are TELLING you what you're doing is antisemitic and you asshats stick your fingers in your ears. You have the audacity to claim you love Jewish people. HA! You don't love Jewish people. You don't even respect Jewish people. Stay the fuck out of my inbox.

[arabian-batboy]

I really find it interesting how Zionists have no issues constantly using words like "Islamic" or "Islamist" or "jihadist" to describe the people they're killing without any fear of being accused of Islamophobia or that they're being bigots.

Because they know that we live in a world where anything or anyone remotely "Muslim" are automatically portrayed as inherently evil and deserving of death, especially in the US and other Western countries where Israel gets most of its support from them. So therefore, no one can be mad at them for killing all of these people, right? After all, they're only killing scary radical "Islamists" and "jihadists," NOT innocent people.

Meanwhile you would never hear any pro-Palestine people calling IDF soldiers "Jewists" or "Jewish extremists," even when they're literally branding the star of David onto Palestinians' faces and houses, instead we have to be very careful to not associate Judaism with Israel's crimes and are obligated to write a long essay about how we in fact do NOT want to kill every Jew in the world before we're allowed to show a shred of sympathy toward the thousands of Palestinian civilians being murdered as we are speaking.

Yet somehow that's not enough and they still hit us with the "when you say Zionists you actually mean Jews!" all while ignoring how they themselves aren't putting any effort into not demonizing Islam and Muslims with their words, because demonizing Islam and Muslims isn't an issue to them and the only way they can justify all the killing they're doing.

[avi-on-jumblr]

awful tweet warning:

Before I describe everything that's wrong with this tweet, let me transcribe Stephen Fry's words:

I am Stephen Fry, and I am a Jew. The great Irish thinker and writer Conor Cruise O'Brien once said that antisemitism is a light sleeper. Well, it seems to have woken up of late. The horrendous events of October 7th, and the Israeli response, seem to have stirred up this ancient hatred. It's agonizing to see all violence and destruction that is unfolding, and the terrible loss of life on both sides brings me an overwhelming sadness and heartache. But whatever our opinions on what is happening, there can be no excuse for the behaviour of some of our citizens. Since October the 7th, there have been 50 separate reported incidents of antisemitism every single day in London alone, an increase of 1350%, according to the Metropolitan police. Shop windows smashed, stars of David and swastikas daubed on walls of Jewish properties, synagogues, and cemeteries. Jewish schools have been forced to close. There is real fear stalking the Jewish neighbourhoods of Britain. Jewish people here are becoming fearful of showing themselves, in Britain, in 2023.

(Then it cuts off.)

For those who still don't know why this tweet was ignorant and inane, let me explain.

"To hear him conflate antiZionism with antisemitism has shocked me."

Guess how many times Stephen Fry mentions zionism? Zero! Guess how many times he mentions the country of Israel? Zero! (Unless you count "the Israeli response" which is unrelated to the existence of the country, or Zionism at all.) What this person is saying, is that they consider the smashing of shop windows, and the vandalism and marking of Jewish property, to be anti-Zionism. Considering they are an anti-Zionist, by following their logic, we can conclude that they not only believe this destruction and harassment is acceptable, but they believe it is ethical.

Further, they accuse him of showing no care for the Palestinians, even though he explicitly states that the loss of life on both sides brings him overwhelming sadness.

Finally, they accuse him of "[Centring] people in this country". It is disturbing that this person believes one cannot be concerned over two issues at a time. It perpetuates the idea that we can only talk about the "worst oppression" and talking about anything else means you are complicit in "silencing" someone else. If this were true, we would not be allowed to talk about Gaza either, or Ukraine, or police brutality, racism, islamophobia, homophobia, transphobia, and so on and so on, because clearly there are other issues with hundreds of thousands more deaths, and millions more displacements, so why bring attention to it ever?

Unfortunately, people are not talking about those countries, like Syria, Yemen, Ethiopia, Congo, and more, and anyone who does is spammed with "free Palestine" comments. In fact, the most I've heard people talking about Sudan is when these TikTok geopolitical experts attempt to spam the Palestinian flag and get it wrong.

This is not new. This is obviously not new. I have seen tweets like these every single day in the hundreds for the last 80 days. It is not surprising that people think smashing windows is "anti-zionism", nor that they think it good. It is not surprising that they hear a Jew speak, and experience shock and disgust, regardless of what we say.

I do wonder if they would regard anything short of a second Holocaust as antisemitism.

[jewishvitya]

[This post was originally written in response to someone tagging me and claiming that a free Palestine would mean all Israeli Jews will be kicked out and where will I go, and how they can't understand why I'm so against Israel being our ethnostate. OP blocked me, so I'm reposting with a few edits, because I already wrote this and I might as well.]

Look. I understand your mentality. We're traumatized by a history of violence against us. We were shown that so many in the world want us dead, and so many others won't stop them. I get it. But I refuse to let myself silently become the face of similar oppression for other people.

Israel benefits from antisemitism and maintains myths that got Jewish people killed in the past, like double loyalty. It weaponizes it for propaganda reasons. It's supported by antisemitic Christian zionist organizations with terrifying motivations. It started out with violence not only against Palestinians but against Jews too. Israel isn't motivated by our safety, it abuses that idea. It manipulates and weaponizes our trauma to make us feel justified in causing so much suffering to innocent people.

You're right that I'll have nowhere to go if I'm kicked out of here. This is where I was born. My parents come from other countries that I won't feel safe in. But all of this is hypothetical. The ethnic cleansing and genocide of Palestinians is not hypothetical, it's REALITY. It's happening RIGHT NOW. And I don't understand how, as a Jewish person who knows what this kind of suffering and loss of life means, you seem unable to prioritize that. I tell you I'm witnessing a genocide happening right next to me and you keep telling me "but what if they hurt you instead."

The assumption that Palestinians will pull some sort of reverse ethnic cleansing against us is racist. This assumption is the reason Israel feels comfortable calling the carpet bombing of a civilian population "self defense." Killing them based on a this is not self defense, it's a racially motivated crime against humanity.

And I'm calling it an assumption because I'm not willing to pull from the Hamas charter that they've since replaced. Hamas isn't Palestinians. The only reason they became this powerful is Israeli funding, and Israeli violence giving Hamas free PR as the only ones who will stand up to the state that will keep them trapped and dying.

We control every aspect of their lives. Israel created a place that breeds radicalization. No group of people, living under the conditions forced on Palestinians, would be peaceful. They would fight back. Because peaceful attempts to have the human rights that Israel denies them got nothing. We stomped on every single one. We blocked all other routes and left them with only violence, which Israeli politicians have been using as an excuse for over 15 years to make a show of force with military campaigns whenever they wanted a boost in popularity. We created living conditions with such low life expectancy that half of the population is children because so few adults survive. They don't deserve this. No one deserves this.

Palestine was a land with people living in it. One plot of land can create multiple groups of people, especially when we've been separated for 2000 years. Our connection to this land does not cancel out theirs. Removing them to create our own country could never be right. It's not an argument saying that our connection to Israel gives us the right to move here to live ALONGSIDE Palestinians. That's not what we wanted. We wanted a country that enforces Jewish majority and legally prioritizes Jews. You're justifying this when I repeatedly state that the only way for it to exist is through ethnic cleansing and genocide. There's no way to make this concept into a reality without killing, displacing, and oppressing whoever's left in various different ways, from apartheid to other kinds of discrimination.

I'm not against safety for us. I want to be safe. I want my children to grow in a safe world where we can be openly and joyfully Jewish. I'm not willing to pay for that with the lives and freedoms of other people.

So I will be loud about this: Palestinians deserve to be free in every part of their homeland, even if it's our ancestral homeland too.

If safety for us means we're the ones committing the genocide, maybe we should rethink what safety looks like.

I'm terrified for the lives of millions of people in Gaza. Right now, all I can think about is this, and it baffles me to see people so willing to transfer the horrors of our history to other people.

I had a lovely conversation in DMs in response to the first post, about how zionism encourages us to isolate rather than build bridges in the places where we live all over the world. We can't ignore the way antisemitism saturates culture, but we should also remember the places where Jewish communities thrived for centuries, the places where our neighbors protected us. We're hated, and we're loved. Each form of oppression is unique, so no other group experiences what Jewish people do exactly, but we're not alone. We have a long and rich history of solidarity with other marginalized communities and involvement in liberation movements. We're actively working to make the world safer, and we have people fighting with us. I'm just participating in this fight where I am. The struggle for liberation is a human struggle. You can't use the trauma of antisemitism to silence me about other kinds of bigotry.

Never again. To ANYONE.

[odinsblog]

“I'm observing such a huge gap between different social groups that I didn't even realize were different. I, you know, most of my friends are in the media. A lot of my journalist friends are just much better informed.

A lot of them have had experience reporting in Israel, Palestine, and are quite critical of both Israel and the antisemitism narrative. Then, like, my wife is a lawyer, and her circle is a little bit different, right? It's not dominated by media people, like people in the law or in other professions seem to be broadly much more kind of taken by the sense of profound insecurity and shift in the American Jewish experience.

I think we sort of see different things, for example, when we watch the hearings in Congress on antisemitism on campus.

The university presidents, of which there have now been two hearings, one with three presidents, one with the president of Colombia, and there will be many, many more. And what I see is a right-wing campaign against higher education that is weaponizing antisemitism as an idea, right? Not antisemitism as a practice.

And what they see is, with the possible exception of the president of Colombia, is people who represent institutions or lead institutions that they feel an affinity with, often institutions that they graduated from, who are not standing up for them. Which I find that viewing of those hearings somewhat shocking because people seem to be turning off their critical faculties. But people, intelligent, educated, politically astute people don't turn off their critical faculties unless they're scared.

So I think the underlying fear is real. But just because it's real, it doesn't mean it's justified.

I think a factual account of what we're seeing on campuses now is that this generation of Americans is far more critical of Israel than their parents' generation. And this is true of both Jews and non-Jews. I think that they look at information available to them and they see a 57-year brutal illegal occupation.

And they don't understand how it's possible that their parents and the politicians that their parents support and the politicians who come and give commencement addresses and all that other stuff that I can say about politicians, how it is possible that these people support that state? I think that is an entirely understandable view. It also reflects a huge generation gap.

I think some of those young people are assholes, and some of them are antisemites. I think it's a small minority of the protesters, and it is not actually part of the critique. The protesters' demands, the protesters' organizing beliefs are not in any way or shape antisemitic.

And then there are Jewish students who were brought up Zionist, who were brought up to identify strongly with the state of Israel, who are, I think, a little bit like my cousin in the settlements again. They see these protests, and even probably the participation of their fellow Jewish students in these protests, as threatening their core identity, as threatening their ties to their families, as threatening everything that they were taught for the first 18 years of their lives is true. And of course they feel rattled, of course they feel unsettled, of course they feel threatened.

Like, wouldn't you, if you felt that everything you had believed in was being turned on its head, and if you, by apparently reasonable people? And so you have a couple of options. One is to look at what the protestors are saying, to engage with the facts, to engage with the critique of everything you've ever believed.

There was a terrific, George Curran's podcast a couple of weeks ago with three Columbia students, one of whom sort of narrated that kind of trajectory, getting to university and finding this stuff out and having their mind blown. That's a very difficult path, and it's a very difficult path, especially if you are, say, a first year student in 23, 24.

And then there's the easier path of staying integrated in your community, in your beliefs, and saying this is antisemitic.

Because unfortunately the things that the protestors are talking about are so horrible that you can't say, okay, let's agree to disagree, that you can't hold both of these things in your mind at the same time.

You can't continue to hold your family's uncritical, long-standing support of Israel, and an understanding of what is happening in Gaza and the occupation that has preceded the war in Gaza.

So yeah, of course they feel rattled. That doesn't mean that they're being surrounded by antisemitism.”

—Masha Gessen, the descendant of Holocaust survivors, discusses campus protests (part 3 of 3)

[fromgoy2joy]

I have been… biting my tongue from saying things. 

Partially because I’m not “really Jewish” (on the way to it via conversion), and because I didn’t want this blog to be political. 

But I realize I want this page to be a safe space. If anyone takes issue with what I’m about to say, I don’t want them on this page. 

I joined the college jewish community very shortly after 10/7 and was immediately welcomed in. There was no separation between me and the girl who had gone to orthodox shul all her life and was the head of the state youth group. I was told explicitly  “you are one of us. And together, we are mourning. We have lost our people and so have you.” 

Still I felt no authority to speak on things as insidious as antisemitism until recently. But how many times do you have to experience an antisemitic incident until you get to stand up? 

Six. The answer is six. 

Since explicitly aligning myself with Jewishness, I have lost friends who told me I have “dual loyalties” in so many words. I’ve been ostracized in events because we were singled out . I’ve been followed back to my dorm room from events by people hurling genocide accusations at me- white girls wearing keffiyahs who don't know anything about the Nakba when I try to connect with them about how awful it was.

My face was used in a local “fight jew hate” campaign” where I’m in a group of people with clearly middle eastern descent. But what circulated around my campus was my blonde hair and blue eyes, with people using laughing emojis.

“This is who we’re supposed to be defending!? Bitch please! 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣” 

(Which is perfectly ironic because they singled out the person who wasn't ethnically Jewish and focused on her. )

Campus security and the disciplinary office knows me quite well from all the reports I've filed whether for me or other people.

I leave campus for breaks. Even though I’m returning to my highly Catholic conservative family, I breathe a sigh of relief. I don't have to look over my shoulder constantly or check myself in the surroundings I'm in. I already feel the dread about returning in January.

What hurts is the blindness- the lack of nuance- that is being given. Every single Jewish person at my school is not a self described zionist, other than that they acknowledge Jewish indignity to the land, and that there was a reason for the creation of Israel- not even justification in the current state or the matter it came about.

But they- and we- shouldn't have to prove ourselves. We shouldn't be debating if we should fundraise for Gazans (we are) in case someone accuses us of "lying about our intentions" or if we'd be pointed out as "the good jews!" They shouldn't have to have a tab open on their computer for Israeli passports, even though they desperately don't want to leave the United States. I shouldn't have to wonder whenever I'm at a synagogue "If I get killed here in a terrorist attack before being immersed in the mikvah, will I get a Catholic or Jewish funeral?"

But that never mattered. Our voices never did. Unless the antisemitism came from a high school dropout neo-nazi with a shaved head and swastika jacket, it's never going to matter.

I will never forget- even as I advocate for Palestinians, call for a ceasefire, and donate. Or any other cause where I'll be marching besides these activists I can never call well meaning.

I could go on and on about it. But I won't be able to write it out in this post.

All I know is when the counsel of rabbis ask me if I'm ready to be apart of an unpopular group, I'm going to have to fight myself from laughing at the question

[germiyahu]

Antisemites are desperate to assert that Judaism is a religion and nothing else (calling them ignorant is too generous) because that means that being a Jew is an ideology one ascribes to. And when pushed against the wall Jews can and should give up this ideology. This gives the antisemite plausible deniability when they continue to hate and persecute Jews as a people anyway.

And, they're desperate to assert that Zionism is either a fringe offshoot of Christian doomsday theology or Jewish racial supremacy (but I thought Jewishness was just a religion?) so that, logically, the answer to the (ahem) Zionist Question is just for Israelis to... stop. Move to Brooklyn, or just stop being Islamophobic and accept their new Hamas government in stride.

Zionism is not an extension of Jewish culture, it's not an extremely diverse oft debated political and social philosophy that is by Jews and for Jews. It's whatever non Jews say it is. Much like Jewishness/Judaism is whatever non Jews say it is. The goal is for the non Jew to justify their own beliefs about Jews and their own actions against them. Nobody will listen to what Jews define for themselves about themselves.

The real goal is to confound any discussion of antisemitism as a concrete real form of bigotry. "But I don't understand why calling the Israeli government a cabal of bloodthirsty fascist babykillers has anything to do with hating Jewish people as a religion," is exactly what you think it is. It's playing dumb. It's gaslighting.

And when antisemites want to strip Jews of their Jewishness and assimilate/fade into the background, to renounce everything unique about their culture and religious practices... well we already know that won't help because there are no Good Jews... but it also gives the antisemites permission in their own brains to blame Jews for antisemitism. If you don't unsubscribe from Judaism as a sterile cold ideology or disconnect from the concept of Israel as a fulfillment of a 2,000 year dream of a People, then you brought it on yourself. Because like in my mind it's so easy, I don't understand why you can't bring yourself to do it if you hate people calling you fascists so much? There must be a reason you can't do it. Hmm... I guess you actually secretly are a megazionist genocide apologist?

And all you did in this conversation was complain that people were harassing you for being visibly Jewish.

[im-not-your-nice-jewish-boy]

we've got long memories

I am not the least bit surprised by any of the tidal wave of antisemitism the left has spewed since October 7th. Every single post saying Hamas did nothing wrong; every single targeted attack on my fellow Jewish people on this site; the number of people who proudly paraded misinformation and disinformation to the extent of funding organizations actual Palestinians have said outright don't help them in any way just because it's against Israel which means that it must be good. None of this is surprising to me.

Now, maybe you could say that I'm a cynical bastard, and you'd be right. But you'd also completely be missing why I'm a cynical bastard. I learned this from my mother, who was beaten up just for being Jewish as a child. I learned this from family who disappeared between my ancestors fleeing the countries they came from and looking to see who made it with them. I learned this from the story of one of my grandfathers picking a new birthday because his birth certificate had been burned when the Shul was destroyed so he had no idea when it was. I learned this from people using "Jewish" as an insult in school and watching a girl I knew break down in tears because people were calling her a Jew when she wasn't. I learned this from holiday after holiday that repeated the same verse of people trying to destroy us and us celebrating our survival.

We remember these things because the rest of the world is very good at deliberately forgetting them.

"It's not that bad because it happened to the Jews. It's not an actual problem because Jews are white anyway. Was the Holocaust really even so terrible? Why do you want to be oppressed so badly if not to use it as a weapon against people who you're oppressing yourselves?"

Some variety of every single one of those is something I've seen in recent memory.

So, dear Passionate Goy Internet Leftists who have spent the last few months attacking and accosting every single Jewish person who dares to speak on the issue in any way that doesn't make them a Good Jew?

My dear friend, just know that we will remember you. You can try to go back to normal. You can try to just sweep it under the rug. You can try to act like it was all just business as usual and there was no harm done to any "Good Jews" and just to the "Evil Zionists" (both of which deserve their own rant post and have multiple of them from people a lot smarter than I am).

We will remember what you did

You will never be able to make us forget you calling for our deaths

And most of all, we will outlive you, just like everyone else who ever bayed for our blood

[spacelazarwolf]

i was going to put this on my other blog but this is important.

so someone posted this:

and not even getting into the fact it was not a “park for families”, the replies look like this:

these are all horrific. but the most disturbing one is this:

i wear a magen david every day. many jews do. it’s on my ritual items, it’s on my art, it’s on the rainbow flag i plan on putting on my front porch in my new apartment. i would ask if you knew that you are inviting violence against jews, but i think you know that’s what you’re doing and i think that’s the point.

this is genuinely terrifying, and i cannot believe people are still reblogging from the people saying these things. i’m sure this is going to get screenshotted, as most of my posts do by this crowd, as more “proof” i’m a (((zionist))) but i have made my stance incredibly clear so it’s obvious anything i say will be twisted. but these tags, especially the last one, are beyond unacceptable. it is blatant, violent antisemitism.

when we say you can advocate for palestine without being antisemitic, this is what we mean. you literally can just not say any of these things. you can say “wow it’s horrible that they did that” you can even say “it’s fucked up that they’re using a jewish symbol like that.” but engaging in holocaust revisionism and explicitly stating that the magen david, the globally recognized jewish symbol, should be considered a hate symbol during a time where jews in the diaspora are being targeted and attacked, shows me you don’t give a fuck about palestinians. you just hate jews.

[a-very-tired-jew]

Conversations with a younger colleague about I/P conflict

In my department there is a grad student who is friendly with myself and a few others of the openly nerdy ecologists. We actively talk about anime, video games, TTRPGs, etc... We've also all collaborated on research together because we generally study the same thing, and being a grad student we are also letting them helm their own research to carve their own path. The research topic that links all of us is decomposition ecology.

Meaning, we study death, how it effects the environment, and all the things having to do with it. Often we have our own terms that we define and use, but we also work within the framework of various medical and legal definitions nationally and internationally. Recently this student has been talking to me about the I/P conflict because it has dominated their social media feed. Like many young adults, this is their first I/P conflict and their first exposure to anything regarding that region. As such, they have come to me to talk about things knowing that I am Jewish. Not out of maliciousness, but because I am the only person they talk to that has any sort of connection to it. Over these past months they have repeated the "genocide/Holocaust" rhetoric that we have seen Western Activists use to make the conflict the Worst Thing Ever. Our conversation went as follows: GS: I can't believe they're committing a Holocaust on them after what they went through. Me: How is it a Holocaust? GS: They're committing a genocide against the Palestinians. Me: They're not doing either one, but let's touch upon the first thing you said. How? GS: They're killing them in large numbers! Me: Oh...oh...that's not what made the Holocaust the Holocaust, you know that right? It was years of systematic dehumanization that culminated in what we know. There were death camps, torture, experimentation, and so much more than simple "killing in large numbers". GS: Damn public school education... Me: You didn't really go over it too much did you? GS: WWII was, like, a week I want to say. Me: *sigh* yeah, not surprised at all. GS: Okay, so a genocide then? Me: GS, what do we study? GS: Decomp Me: and that involves? GS: Death Me: One avenue of which is mass casualty events which a number of our friends have published on. GS: Yeah! I read those papers, they were really good. Me: They were, but do you remember conversations we had about them and what differentiates mass casualty events from one another? GS: Cause? Me: And...? GS: Shit. Intent. Me: Exactly. Has their been an official stated intent to commit any genocide? I mean, you've got the bigots in the government like Ben Givir and the shit they say, I'll give you that. But has the official stance been genocidal? GS: No. I don't think so. Me: What has it been? GS: To get the hostages back and get rid of Hamas. Me: Uh huh, and what has been Hamas's stated intent? GS: To kill Zionists. Me: And before 2017 when they changed the wording in their charter? GS: ah fuck...it's Jews isn't it? Me: Ding ding ding. GS: So that's why no one in the group has said it's a genocide... Me: Correct. Humanitarian crisis brought about by war? Yes. Mass casualty event? Certainly. But genocide? Well, there's a reason no one in our circle has endorsed the term. And remember, we're considered experts on death. GS: I got puppeted didn't I? Me: Yep. GS: Shit. The only reason this went so well is due to our friendship and mentor/mentee dynamic. They already trust me to not lead them astray, be informed, and address the holes in their knowledge. Hell, they help me be a better scientist as well with how they bring in new and novel techniques that I didn't know. But they're still getting a lot of their info from TikTok and IG, and they've talked about a lot of BS from those two particular apps these past few years. This is just the latest (they had a TikTok induced anti-GMO trend for a while, it was bad).

[historicity-was-already-taken]

pixeljade: #it IS very much a complex issue and I feel like saying that has been pissing off a lot of folks on both sides #one fact i would add to the table is that the current actions against palestine DO constitute a genocide by definition #its a word i hear pro-Israel people get very upset by because they think it is inherently comparing this to the holocaust #but its not. some people DO and thats its own discussion. but calling it a “genocide” is simply accurate and undeniable

Speaking as someone who was that pro-Israel person in her teens and very early 20s, the reactions you're describing are 800% cognitive dissonance freak outs. Most of these people, like me, received either directly or indirectly from their Elders in the Jewish community a very trauma-induced and deeply emotional information about the history of this situation, which boils down to: "They tried to kill us all once and they didn't now we finally have returned to the Promised Land, the only place we have to shield ourselves against It Happening Again. Israel's detractors hate that Jews can defend themselves now, and if any of them, including the Palestinians, were to have their way, they'd see us all dead. We must defend ourselves at all costs, and not let anyone ever put us in existential danger as a people ever again."

And then to have some rando 19 year old who knows jack shit about your or your community or your community's trauma to get up in your face and start screaming at you about genocide? It's only going to trigger that intergenerational trauma, and cause the party being screamed at to dig deeper into their defensive, cognitive-dissonance fueled response. Which, if we were to boil that response down to a thought process, looks like "This person hates me and all Jews. They think we're a hive mind who don't deserve to live. Thank G-d for Israel."

What's complex, is that not everything in that trauma response is wrong, and not everything the dumbass 19 yo who has no interest in unpacking their own learned anti-Semitism was wrong.

Israel's actions towards Palestinian Arabs since 1948 does fit several definitions of genocide and/or ethnic cleansing. And many of the Westerners who scream about it the loudest are fairly openly anti-Semitic.

Now, as someone with big Holocaust intergenerational trauma in her family, I am sympathetic to the Jewish kid in this scenario. But cognitive dissonance is just that: the domain of a child. Adults understand that cognitive dissonance is a little voice in our head telling us "Hey comrade our discomfort with this is a little much. Maybe this is a learning opportunity?"

I mean, that's what I did. But it's difficult. Its uncomfortable, and that scares people. It's much easier to believe that "They call it the Naqba because they hate us and think our survival and access to national self-determination is a disaster,"* than it is to understand that "They call it the Naqba because it was the near total dispossession and ethnic cleansing of Palestinian Arab populations from their generational homes and properties."

And again, everything I'm saying here is a result of my journey from a hardcore Zionist-in-the-contemporary-sense child (though always left in terms of domestic US Politics), to a grown Holocaust historian who understands that Israel is no better and no worse than all the other nation states (for new readers, I understand the nation-state as a political entity, the logical end point of which is genocide and/or ethnic cleansing), and openly criticizes it on those grounds.

*A rabbi in a youth group I belonged to told me this almost verbatim when I was 15. And when you're 15 and somebody tells you they love you you're gonna believe them.

[fairuzfan]

I think it’s deeply silly how some of the people on this website who say “you can’t redefine antisemitism, it means only the hatred of jewish people and thus cannot include goyim” which is absolutely true, etymology=/=meaning and antisemitism refers exclusively to Jew-hatred and changing that meaning is making it impossible for jews to name their oppressors and the ideology that is oppressing them. Yet are the same people who gleefully say shit like “zionism can mean infinitely many different things so you can’t call it colonial or white supremacist or anti-Palestinian“ as if that changes its material manifestation. As if the zionism that exists in their head or in theophilosophical discussions changes what the zionism that exists in Palestine is doing. As if Palestinians uniquely don’t have the right to recognize Palestinian-hatred and the right to name their oppressors and the ideology and movement that is driving them.

A liberal zionist’s blog is where Ideological consistency goes to die in darkness.

i completely agree. and like i actively let people know of the harm when they say "palestinians are semitic" type statements because it does redefine antisemitism and that disenfranchises jews first and foremost who experience it so when people are like "actually zionism is a discussion for jews only" im like no the fuck it is not?????? im the one who is affected by your zionism??? palestinians are the ones who are affected by your zionism????? i think we have the most say in what zionism means and how we get to call out our oppressors???????????

like how insulting it is to be told "actually *some* zionists are not genocidal" no actually all of them are. i don't care if you think zionism is one thing or the other. zionism is the reason my family was exiled and a genocide is currently happening in gaza. if you in any capacity ally yourself with zionism, then yeah, you're a racist.

something that i do want to point out though is that a few years ago these sorts of conversations would never have been happening so i'm glad at least that zionists are getting called out. so i guess slowly but surely we are seeing a change.

[morganas-simp]

You know what? Fuck it.

I tried to be silent and move on, I tried to ignore all of you messed up antisemitic fucks but I can’t. I just fucking can’t.

You think you’re helping people by hating on Jews, sorry I mean Zionists. You think being horrible is helping anyone?

Taking out your anger on Jews for building a home in their homeland after 2000 years of persecution is so wrong then there’s something wrong with you.

But I don’t think that’s what most of you are mad at, I think you want to be heroes. I think you want to punch nazis so badly that you’re making up this villain to hate instead of hating the actual nazi.

You see this underdog and an opportunity to defend them against this big bad monstrous country that’s just like yours or your oppressors (depends on where you come from) so you either relate to the underdog or you see this as a way to escape your guilt but that’s not the actual truth.

It’s not occupation when you’re indigenous and fighting back when you’re attacked brutally isn’t genocide.

Looking at numbers and saying they’re losing so they’re the good guy isn’t right.

Saying that antisemitism isn’t antizionism isn’t true, antizionism is just all the stereotypes against Jews and switching the word.

What’s awful is that you’re erasing history 2076 years worth of. Whether it’s in the making or it’s happened everyone’s acting as if antisemitism isn’t real.

That it started and ended with the holocaust but that’s just untrue and it angers me how every other minority matters but Jews.

We fucking matter and we don’t stop to matter if you disagree with us.

I know it’s hard to hear but try and let it sink in. You are not a hero for being awful to a certain group of people to “defend” another.

And yes that includes Zionists.

[doberbutts]

just a random guy w no stake in this but yr guy also fully regurgitated israel’s/zionist lies abt the “””misfired rocket””” hitting the hospital as if there isn’t documented evidence of israel admitting to - wanting to do that - doing that - expressing joy at the fact that they did that. the israeli govt spent days saying they were gonna bomb a hospital, bombed a hospital, /said they bombed the hospital/, and then changed their story to “misfired rocket” among other things (not a single hamas rocket is capable of that kind of destruction…) when they got flack for it. and Avi has yet to retract that statement despite it being another blatant lie from the israeli govt.

& obv this is much smaller but when pointed out that what ngaiman said that was zionist (“israel has the right to exist”, which he reconfirmed was still his stance), avi doubled down on that…not being zionism. and said ppl only call gaiman a zionist bc he’s jewish (which.. sure some ppl do, but the claim that a settler colonial state (or any state, tbh) has an inherent “right” to exist, and specifically that Israel has a “right” to exist, is literally zionism. which avi seems to think is not.)

i don’t think he’s a zionist himself but he certainly repeating a lot of zionist bs uncritically

I literally just got an article this morning talking about the forensics going on regarding the hospital bombing, from CNN, citing multiple sources saying the same thing; that it was a misfired rocket originating from somewhere in Gaza and probably not intentional, with all parties with munitions denying that it was theirs despite the firing of rockets nearby from all of said parties. No shrapnel or casings have yet been recovered and until that is recovered there is no way to know for sure where the device was made or where it came from.

So unless you are leaning on the antisemitic claim that Jews control the media, either all of CNN's sources are wrong including the Palestinian ones, or he's literally just repeating what multiple sources have been saying as of this morning.

Also conveniently you're leaving out that he's also stated that it doesn't matter where the device came from, the targetting of hospitals and other civilian centers is abhorrent and an immediate ceasefire needed to be called the moment it happened. Weird how he's not praising it, he's stating what the forensic team on site is reporting, and he's stating that no matter who is at fault they shouldn't be involving peaceful civilians.

As for whether or not Israel should exist... where exactly do you want the Israelis to go? A significant number of them were born there, with ancestors that originated there, as Arabic people living alongside Palestinians. They do have just as much right to be there as Palestinians because they have common ancestry with Palestinians. Those that came from elsewhere largely were forcibly expelled as an act of genocide- "going back where (they) came from" means going back to somewhere that's made it plain they are not welcome and they'll be killed on sight. They went to Israel because they were told that was the only correct choice for them.

Also I think it is incredibly dicey to be wielding "Jews are inherent outsiders that need to go back where they came from" because that is an antisemitic statement that has echoed across history ANDDDDD I think it's uhhhh incredibly hilarious as afronative to hear fucking Americans saying this when we're on stolen land ourselves with a government that is still trying to wipe out the few indigenous people we have left and sweep its continued atrocities under the rug.

What's that saying about glass houses and stones? If you're on American soil and you're not indigenous, how about you go back where you came from? Oh? You were born here? You have a family history here? You have deep ties to the area and can't just uproot your entire life? It's a little more complicated than just getting on a plane back to Europe or Asia or Africa? Hmm. Interesting. Don't you know that makes you complicit in genocide? No no no, it doesn't matter that your family was fleeing genocide yourselves, or that your ancestors were forced to come here, or that you personally took no part in the ongoing political war being waged against the dwindling number of Natives we have left. You don't belong here. You need to be forcibly detained and expelled. Maybe even kept in a cage for a while until we figure out what to do with you.

Whoop. But that's the silent part you're not saying. You can call it Zionist if you want. But I think people need to think a little more critically about the actual logistics of what caused this problem in the first place, before firing off about it. Especially not when a lot of these talking points are at their heart incredibly antisemitic.

[mylight-png]

"We can fight against Israel's "colonization/genocide/apartheid/fascism/nazism/other ridiculous accusation" without fueling antisemitism, guys! Come on!"

You calling Israel a settler colonial state is fueling antisemitism.

You denying Jewish indigeneity to the Levant is fueling antisemitism

You revising Israel's history and villifying it is fueling antisemitism

You dehumanizing Israelis and Diaspora Jews by labeling them as "Zionists" is fueling antisemitism

You saying "by any means necessary/they were resisting/75 yo oppression/from the river to the sea/free Germany of guilt/etc" is fueling antisemitism

You covering for Hamas hiding behind civilians, building military hubs under civilian infrastructure and preventing civilian evacuation by claiming Israel is committing genocide is fueling antisemitism

You calling Israel a Nazi fascist state is fueling antisemitism

You claiming Ashkenazim are European white settlers is fueling antisemitism

You tearing down kidnapped children's posters is fueling antisemitism

You attacking anyone who displays Jewish symbols that are unconnected to Israeli government is fueling antisemitism

You ignoring all the evidence from 7th of October is fueling antisemitism

You posting unverified Hamas propaganda about "9k dead" with no third party confirmation is fueling antisemitism

You not calling out Egypt and everyone else for not accepting refugees is fueling antisemitism

You wearing Hamas symbols like paraplanes/flags is fueling antisemitism

Stop complaining about the antisemites in your protests. They're your buddies and we all see it

I don't know why but I didn't get any notification when this was submitted but like.

Absolutely. Yes. All these calls for "fight colonialism without engaging in antisemitism" is so weird to me whenever I read people sharing them because the statement in itself is perpetuating antisemitic misinformation... But then is also calling for an end to antisemitism?

It's almost as if their "stop antisemitism in our movement" is performative and meant to act as a cover for any time they are accused of antisemitism. Like "nuh-uh, I can't be antisemitic, I said it's bad!" even though they spread antisemitic propaganda in the same breath.

So many people ignore that this war is Israel versus Hamas, a group dedicated to the extermination of Jews. This war will not end until one side wins, we've seen evidence of this in all of the numerous ceasefires broken and peace deals rejected by Hamas. So if you are opposing Israel, you are inherently advocating for Hamas's victory, a victory that would result in the genocide of Jews living in Israel. Seven million Jews.

The whole movement is steeped in antisemitism. It's horrifying and disturbing.

[kanelia]

I gotta say this because it's been bugging me: I feel like some Jewish bloggers on tumblr are playing oppression olympics. They talk about how they're so terrified every day because they're Jewish and I just don't buy it.

I have always been open about me being Jewish, and have not hesitated to talk about it when it comes up naturally in conversation (ex: i went to a vegan restaurant with friends who were hindu and ex muslim and we were chatting about different religious dietary restrictions). Yeah there's a stupid encampment on my campus, but I haven't even had reason to go near it and don't plan on going looking for trouble.

I am not living every day scared of antisemitism because it's unreasonable. I haven't been harassed for it at alll, and I'm not narcissistic enough to think that random people I pass in my daily life care about me.

You are from the USA, I assume? Quite a few Jewish bloggers on this site are actual Israelis or people whose relatives live in Israel. I'm sorry, but it always makes me scoff when Americans say stuff like this because it is solely from the American point of view.

You live in a big, powerful country with an ocean between it and its enemies. These people live in a small country surrounded by a lot bigger enemies that have told for decades they want to see it destroyed. About 3 million of them are Mizrahi Jews who have no other place to go. They might see a lot more antisemitism in their daily lives than you.

You have not actually engaged the anti-Israel crowd, but still, you seem to understand why it would not be a good idea? I wonder why if you are not scared or even worried about the possibility of antisemitism.

Asking for sources and reminding people about historical facts is not "looking for trouble". When I dare to do just that, I instantly start receiving accusations, violent fantasies, death wishes, and threats. I do know people are more scared of admitting they have believed lies than accidentally supporting something evil, but in their messages, this crowd clearly assumes I am Jewish, and it is what fuels their hatred. I brush these messages off, but I can not imagine how terrifying they must be for a Jewish person receiving them. Even without the overgenerational trauma.

My point is that, of course, you do not spot antisemitism if you never challenge these people or actually pay attention to what they are saying. I am not an Israeli or even Jewish and even I am disturbed by the rhetoric, disinformation, and fanaticism I have seen because I recognise it from history and understand it has led to bad things before. Even more shockingly, people sending these messages are not some far-right nutcases, but people who think they are in it for human rights.

Like i have said before, I dont think all these people actually want Jewish people hurt, but they sit there watching and listening to some fanatic say "globalise intifada" and "Zionists are behind everything" and instead of thinking they just clap their hands like trained seals because they are too stupid or uneducated to understand the meaning of the words they are endorsing. These are young people who supposedly have a higher education, who are future teachers, lawyers, and doctors. How come they are so easily manipulated and radicalised? What will the future hold with them in charge? The thought is terrifying, and not just for the Jews.