Hezbollah and Iran 'poised to attack Israel this week'

Sure. If only the language were challenged, so many anti-Israel campaigners would stop being fixated on Israel to the exclusion of every other place of tension and conflict in the world. And would stop being antisemites. Just like that.

Great, that genuinely isn't how I interpreted your comment at first so I'm glad it's been clarified as at least to me, that completely changes the tone of everything you said (for the better).

Who did you think I meant?

if you control the language around something, you control the conversation

Cool. Can someone let the anti-Zionists know?

And those people should be challenged about it, and asked what they actually mean.

@Humdingerydoo well, yeah.

Ok. No doubt there are such people.

But I’ve seen and heard many fervent and apparently clued-up anti-Israel campaigners use ‘Zionist’ as a term they know perfectly well they’re using to refer to Jews, whether Jewish Israelis or Jews outside Israel. ‘Zios’ is a term that’s crept in too.

It’s a code among antisemites.

Yes @Scirocco if that's not what you meant, who are you talking about?

I think there is confusion over which 'fringe elements' you're saying are responsible for misappropriating the word. Are you saying it's the extremist anti-Zionists who are responsible? That's not how I personally originally interpreted your comment but I can see how you might have meant that and I misunderstood.

What I've described is literally what people have been describing as their thought processes when I've asked them why they were wanting to carry anti-Zionist signs or say anti-Zionist slogans. They thought that Zionism meant extreme, far-right, pro-genocide, pro-violence, etc beliefs. They believed that because fringe elements, which have become more prominent over time, were presenting that as being the meaning of the word. That's not a new thing, it's been going on for decades - if you control the language around something, you control the conversation. Usually, when I explained to people what Zionism actually meant, they were surprised, said that wasn't what they had meant at all, and went on to not hold that sign or say that slogan.

It hasn't.

How has what I said done that?

Zionism isn't extremist as a word, a concept or a belief. Some people can't even bring themselves to acknowledge what it actually means but choose to keep justifying the perception of it that's been created and amplified by anti-Zionists (the clue is in the name) to invalidate and reject Zionism. Doing this whilst also ignoring the racism inherent in harmfully misappropriating and redefining a term specific to a minority-especially in a way that has serious consequences for that minority-isn't doing anything to contribute to positive change.

So, because my understanding is that, as has happened with many different words and names over centuries, the influence of extreme elements has coloured how many people understand a word, that means I'm reinforcing that definition?

Yes 😣

I do think it is. As tho who ‘ordinary people’ are, and what they think ‘Zionism’ is, which I saw another poster had questioned, of course that phrase I used is difficult to define.

This excerpt from a Haaretz article seems to ask the same question.

^“Haaretz Today” April 24
What the Hell Is a Zionist?^
The word 'Zionist' now pervades posts and comment sections across the Internet. Here's what happened when I asked people on the social media site X what it means

The Internet has discovered a new word. While it's been in use for generations in certain corners, it's really taken off among new and diverse communities over the past six months. Like students in a foreign exchange program with new vocabulary, people seem to be working the word into each sentence and context, whether it fits or not. It now pervades posts and comments sections on TikTok, the home of Gen Z; Instagram, the home of millennials; and X, the home of people who fall for crypto scams.

”The word is "Zionist," a flexible term that can refer to a wide range of people, behaviors and beliefs. It has been applied to fanatical Jewish supremacists, people who endorse a two-state solution, conscientious objectors to the IDF – who nonetheless condemn Hamas – and a K-pop star who held a Starbucks cup, among others. There are those who declare themselves staunch anti-Zionists because they oppose the policies of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu<a class="break-all" href="https://archive.ph/o/bwCYV/www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-04-10/ty-article-magazine/.premium/numbers-that-stagger-the-imagination-theres-no-way-to-quantify-the-suffering-in-gaza/0000018e-c1db-d480-a99e-cfdf01240000" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> and the carnage in Gaza, but still might meet someone else's definition of Zionism if they don't believe that Israelis should be expelled from the Levant.

To clear up this confusion, I asked people on X to put a moratorium on the word for clarity's sake: When they say Zionist, are they talking about National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.ph/o/bwCYV/www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2022-11-10/ty-article/.premium/he-was-about-love-israels-ben-gvir-to-take-part-in-kahanes-memorial/00000184-6192-da1f-afd5-efd677e00000" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">and his Kahanist ilk? Are they talking about anyone who advocates for anything but the dismantling of Israel? Are they talking about Jewish people in general, who they don't like for reasons unrelated <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.ph/o/bwCYV/www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2022-05-26/ty-article/zionist-arabs-trains-from-berlin-what-herzl-got-wrong-about-israel/00000181-000f-d55c-a189-b5bfa9bb0000" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">to Theodor Herzl?

The responses were mixed to negative, with some agreeing, a few people saying that they meant "all of the above," people saying that Zionists are Nazis and those who told me that I'm actually worse than Ben-Gvir (I did not take a political or philosophical stance). People also called me a white supremacist European settler colonizer, which stung, because it meant I failed at my duty to remind everyone that I am Syrian every 15 minutes. I also got called a Zionist a lot, though my accusers did not clarify what they meant by it.

This trend is pretty frightening to the general Jewish community for several reasons. There is the obvious one, that <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.ph/o/bwCYV/www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-07-28/ty-article-magazine/.highlight/why-israel-should-stick-to-the-original-version-of-zionism/00000189-9e0b-d00f-a7db-bf9ba2490000" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">the word "Zionist" sometimes, if not often, provides cover for antisemites who have realized that there may be consequences to using the word "Jew." But there is also the fact that this divergent terminology forms a growing wedge between the majority of Jews, who consider themselves Zionists (meaning, to them, that they support the self-determination of the Jewish people in all or part of the biblical Land of Israel) and a growing group who consider themselves anti-Zionist (meaning, to them, that they don't support a system that uplifts Jews by oppressing Palestinians).

This divide empowers extremists who want to see Israelis or Palestinians removed from the land and marginalizes would-be peacemakers, who believe in and work toward a future in which both nations can thrive. It's all but certain to deepen.

No, it's the misappropriation and misuse by primarily non-Jewish anti-Zionists/anti-Israelists to dominate and associate it first and foremost with extremist fringe elements, who don't represent the majority of Jews and their Zionist beliefs, rather than listening to or amplifying more rational, insightful voices.

People end up expressing their own views towards "Zionists" with hostility because it's a conveniently veiled way for them to express their racism and enmity towards Jews and invalidate the belief that Jews are equally as worthy of human rights and a homeland as everybody else. We didn't ask to be forced into an eternal diaspora and a worrying number of people seem to be over-invested in returning Jews to that state of vulnerability.

Comments like this also reinforce the corrupted redefinition of Zionism in an attempt to bond a key tenet of Jewish identity with the extremism practised by the fringe, rather than acknowledging that extremists would act this way because they're terrible people-regardless of their ethnicity, beliefs or religion, not because of them. It does nothing to challenge the way in which it's been misappropriated to harm Jews.

If you oppose extremism, then just say that. If a depressing number of people see Zionism as first and foremost representing extremist views it's because they're predisposed to taking that option to justify their own prejudice and I haven't seen a lot of effort being made to disabuse them of that notion, versus the efforts to justify why this is the narrative so willingly taken up and amplified by those who claim to be on the side of peace, justice and co-operation.

Agree with this.
I see lots of demonstrations calling for elections in Israel but how does it work? Is there set times when elections are held or can they be called earlier on? Although I doubt Netanyahu would call on early elections.
It's pretty crap all around at the moment, depressing would be an understatement 😭

Bibi could not give a fig what the US thinks. There's speculation he wants to keep this going past the election in order to affect it by depressing Democratic turnout.

Remember, he's facing indictment, is vastly unpopular in Israel, and is propped up by far right fringe parties. Changing tack would be the end of his political career.

What? It's interesting that I didn't think you were talking about pro Israel posters when you spoke about posters on this board saying 'I hope Israel get what they deserve'? Like I said in a previous post I have seen pro Palestinian posters hoping that Palestinians get justice and that Israel are held to account in court. I haven't seen any pro Israel posters looking for independent investigations into Israels behaviour, being in favour of the ICJ or ICC, so yeah I would presume you were talking about pro Palestinian posters not the Pro Israel posters who don't seem to have any interest at all in finding out the truth of what is happening nevermind prosecutions of those involved.

My issue is with your leap that posters hoping Israel are held to account via lawful methods means that they are wishing death and destruction on Jews. A leap you seem completely unable to explain.

I don't think Netanyahu, his allies, Sinwar et al, Hezbollah or Iran are very interested in stopping bloodshed. At this point I think the best hope is external pressure from the US (none of the major parties in this conflict care that much about things like the UN, but the US facilitating this is helping keep it going).

And meanwhile, innocent people suffer and die.

It's a real shame, and an example of the power language can have - similar to the Islamic/Islamist misunderstandings.

Zionism as a word isn't extremist, but its misappropriation and misuse by fringe elements now mean a depressing number of people see it as first and foremost representing extremist views. Then, people end up expressing their own views opposing that extremism, in language that actually expresses hostility towards a much larger and diverse group, causing more harm and distress.

And let's be clear: There absolutely are people, and this includes the anti-Zionist Jews I know, who believe that the state of Israel should not exist and that the two state solution is racist. Their response is a single state of Palestine or a binational state.

We have a real problem where people argue past each other because they do not even understand the underlying arguments and assume "Zionist = war supporter" and meanwhile other people are using the same language to assail anyone who has the vaguest belief in the existence of a country. Given the history involved and Britain's key role in it, I think it;s arrogant of me to turn around and demand Israel stop existing altogether.

This is the problem. People redefine Zionism. Some people mean the broad, proper definition, which is anyone who supports the existence of Israel.

No thanks.