To think people don't actually understand the difference between Anti Zionism and Anti-Semetism in the context of the current conflict?

[Fruitandclottedcream]

Every time someone criticises the Israeli State or Zionism ideology, there is always someone who comments shouting about Anti-Semitism and how anyone who questions, criticises or condemns Israel's behaviour is Anti-Semitic. And it's really annoying because it's not true.

The definition of Anti-Semitism is "Prejudice or Hostility towards Jewish people".

Anti-Zionism in the context of the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine is being opposed to Israel's decades long oppression, genocide and apartheid of Palestinians. Including but not limited to leaving people stateless, giving Palestinians less rights than Israelis and creating the open air prison that is Gaza, depriving the people there of water, electricity and food, and bombing relentlessly while not giving anyone a way to escape.

Plenty of Jewish people practice their faith, but are anti Zionist and condemn what the Israeli government are doing.

And plenty of Zionists are Anti-Semites, but support the behaviour of the Israeli government (including a decent chunk of British MPs according to Google)

Disclaimer before anyone jumps on me: I absolutely condemn and despise Hamas and their actions. I've not mentioned them as they're not relevant to my point.

@Pollyputhekettleon yes they had. And didn’t the romans drive them out? However instead of any country working to secure the safety of Jews who had settled in Europe, they ended up with no choice but to leave and find somewhere else to go to be safe. The modern movement of Zionism was borne out of fear and the need for protection. Yet they still aren’t safe.

It might help you to read the 1937 British Peel Commission report, especially in light of everything that happened since. Britain, and more accurately white colonialism, is a scapegoat for issues that they either did not create, did not exacerbate, or actually helped with. (I shouldn't need to say, although I undoubtedly do, that they also did cause plenty of real problems). Behind it is an image of non-whites as passive angels who lived in the Garden of Eden before evil whitey arrived, much like the Victorians viewed women, whose innate innocence could be corrupted by bad men.

Text of the Peel Commission Report (jewishvirtuallibrary.org)

It really is useful to learn history.

https://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/how-do-empires-work/content-section-0?intro=1

This is a very good course about empires (colonialism).

Either they didn't drive all of them out or some of them came back not too long afterwards (I'm not actually sure which it was but it doesn't matter). Certainly there were Jews living there at the time of the Muslim conquest. They continued to live there as dhimmis, second class citizens under Islamic rule, for centuries. Others lived in all of the surrounding area, which were not countries then but parts of the Ottoman empire etc. They were also dhimmis, also persecuted. So even those who did leave Judaea, as they called it, did not all go to Europe.

You've been around these threads for quite a while. Are you still genuinely unaware that there had been Jews also living there all along? Or what exactly is going on here

Well I’ve been on this thread, not the others.
No I am not genuinely unaware there were Jews living there all along. What makes you think I am?

I don't meet many men who love war and I think we have to think about why some men are like that. I'm not Jewish, I am Irish from a family where on one side they are Catholic and on the other they are protestants so I understand historical hatreds, religious hatreds and bitterness about land taken from you. You might have noticed that great progress was made with peace in Ireland during the 90s which coincidentally were good times economically. Certainly for the Catholics in my family living in Belfast with little access to jobs for much of the 20th century there was bitterness, from the Protestant side there was an attitude of not being interested in fair shares. There is some truth in the old saying of the devil makes work for idle hands.

I honestly don't think the Crusaders are terribly relevant to modern warfare and I don't think the issues in Israel/Palestine have much to do with access to women but if you have evidence of that do share it.

I agree OP. It has been frustrating to see many posters on here claiming that posters who are criticizing the Israeli actions in Palestine are antisemitic.

It has been used to shut down debate. We don't claim that individuals criticizing HAMAS are Islamophobic so why are people accused of antisemitism when they criticize Israel's actions?

Of course there are those who are antisemitic, and this should be called out and dealt with appropriately. But just saying that Israel should not be bulldozing Palestinian homes for settling in the West Bank, or should not be cutting off water supplies, flattening whole neighborhoods, or are potentially going to commit genocide through their actions in Gaza, is not antisemitic.

That's so strange. This is the exchange:

'The land of the Palestine Mandate was not the Arabs' land or the Jews' land. You understand that, right?

Not really. You could argue it belonged to the people who lived there not whoever the empire decided to give it to. I’m not saying Jewish people should have been prevented from settling there but the whole partitioning thing was a mistake.'

'The people who lived there' were both Jews and Muslims right? We're agreed on that. You seem to be arguing that it therefore (morally, I presume you mean) belonged to both the Jews and the Muslims. If I say 'It belonged to the Jews', that would therefore be false. If I said 'It belonged to the Muslims' that would also be false. Are you following?

We don't claim that individuals criticizing HAMAS are Islamophobic so why are people accused of antisemitism when they criticize Israel's actions?

Hamas is officially recognised as a terrorist group, firstly, and, secondly, people obsessively separate Hamas from Palestine to avoid precisely that Islamophobia. By contrast, no one has a problem referencing 'Jews' or 'Israel' being as one and the same as their government.

I am deeply uncomfortable with the term “shut down debate”.

I only call out anti semitism when is it there. Essentially, people like me get accusing of shutting down debate and “playing the race card” when people make actually racist comments. Why should I sit down and shut up when I see something? I would call out any -ism.

If people want anti Zionist debate to not be derailed, then they need to not be anti semitic. It is possible to debate it, a lot of people seem to find it hard not to sneak in anti Jewish comments.

Just quoting this for effect.

No one is being or has been called antisemitic for criticising the specific actions of the Israeli government.

Some of the harshest criticism of the Israeli government has come from Jewish posters.

I mean, I'm the only poster on this thread that has mentioned the Israeli government's violent systemic oppression of other minority groups such as Israeli Bedouin, which is something most people outside Israel have never even heard of because it gets no media attention (and got called a rude Jew, typical Jew trying to shut down debate of Israel, and had someone flat out say "I despise people like you" for my pains) - that's pretty obviously not someone trying to defend the Israeli government or smear those who do.

I don’t understand the situation/politics at all so reading with interest.

Please don’t have me wrong, I fully appreciate the very long history of these religious lands, the settlements and their significance. However for Jewish people who had settled in Europe over many centuries, they found themselves increasingly unsafe and this was played out horrifically for them. Instead of working to keep them safe in the places they were living in Europe, Europe has helped to resettle them in a place where they were already oppressed as well. Does this mean to be Jewish it always seems to be ‘someone else’s problem’ and not society’s problem as a whole

People absolutely do claim that criticizing Hamas is islamophobic. I've had countless debates with people who say criticizing jihadists in Europe is islamophobic. Why? Because they'll tell you that Islamism is simply a creation of white western imperialism, that it's the fault of western colonialism and intervention that desperate people become radicalized, that the west has done exactly the same things to people in other countries but isn't criticized for it. They'll tell you that the only permissible response from non-muslims is to stay in our lane. They'll also tell you that the only legitimate criticism of jihadist groups is to say they nothing to do with Islam but merely use the religion as a cloak. There's more.

In the case of Hamas specifically, they'll tell you that it has reformed, no longer seeks to genocide the Jews, and that the only possibly motive for disbelieving that is that you are Islamophobic. They'll tell you it's simply the understandable, if regrettable, lashing out of oppressed people and disagreeing with that is imposing unfair and hypocritical standards on the muslims of Gaza and is therefore islamophobic.

One of the problems with widespread censorship is that people are genuinely sheltered from reality.

@Teder

Calling out antisemitism is not the same thing at all as reporting posts and threads to Big Brother demanding they be deleted and/or the poster banned. The former is debate, the latter is shutting down debate.

@Gravityisreal you say this would not be acceptable in any other part of the world, but this is exactly what did happen. Post 1948, hundreds of thousands of Mizrahi Jews were expelled from the Arab countries they had lived in for generations (having always been denied citizenship in those countries). Some were murdered, some were imprisoned, billions of pounds worth of land and property was confiscated/stolen from them. The majority fled to Israel because there was no other place for them to go. I’m sure many of them would have preferred to stay in their rightful homes too.

Have you read the full thread - including the posts by OP who has engaged in good faith to understand what is and isn't antisemitism, because if you do you'll find out that the majority of Jews don't make accusations of antisemitism for simply being critical of the Israeli govt.

It has been used to shut down debate. But that is exactly what happens to us when we try to highlight antisemitic language and behaviour! "It's not antisemitic to criticise Israel" is hollered at us all the time to shut us down even though we're not saying it's antisemitic to criticise Israel! Most of us despise BN and current Israeli policy. Antisemitism is actually more nuanced, pernicious and widespread than perhaps you realise. So I don't see how you can say it's "frustrating" for you because we are claiming that we are not actually claiming! Have you considered that we're probably better at recognising antisemitism than you are?

Many of us are genuinely really scared at the moment! Here's one reason why

"Hamas founding member Khalid Mashal calls for global Jihad, invasion of Israel, and to attack Jews worldwide on Oct. 13"

https://twitter.com/HenMazzig/status/1712145022630387718

That's so strange. This is the exchange

Are you trying to gaslight me now?

I know that there were Jews living in Palestine. I know they started to go there long before WW2 and that there were Jews living there all along anyway.

I’m arguing that the partitioning is what has ultimately caused the current situation. Well that and the six day war. Preemptive defence? Great! Nabing large chunks of land that were not theirs under the agreement while they’re at it? Hmmm.

Most of the victims were the most humane, open minded people in all of Israel.

They were the secularists, they voted for the left, they campaigned against the occupation, and they burned in their own homes with their children.

The founding charter of Hamas includes this Hadith:

“The Day of Judgment will not come about until Muslims fight Jews and kill them. Then, the Jews will hide behind rocks and trees, and the rocks and trees will cry out: 'O Moslem, there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him.'"

Hamas does not understand the difference between anti Zionism and anti Semitism. Huw should we?

Partition (by outsiders) is ALWAYS a mistake. But both Jewish people & Palestinian people have a moral & historical right to live in the same area of land so that's the crux of the problem. Both sets of people are represented by Govts who have power for themselves as their aim rather than the best long term interests of their people. Outrages are committed by both sides, usually in the name of Religion (rather than the land/power grabs they are) which heightens the issue. I have only travelled to the Holy Land once, in 1990 as a tourist, but I found it genuinely oppressive & scary.
I don't pretend to have any answers but I am sorry for ALL those in fear today (largely as a result of historical political screw ups). Perhaps it needs a Reset /
Reconciliation process which was largely successful in South Africa & Northern Ireland? How one would get the Israeli & Palestinian leaders around a table is anyone's guess however.

No, your posts are just extremely difficult to follow. Ok, so you disagree with partition. So do you think that the entire area of the Mandate should have been turned into one state, in which the Jews would have continued to be a minority?

Why do you think the Jews living in Israel in the 1920s and 1930s didn't want to be governed by an Arab majority state?

This is apologetics for war crimes.

I don't defend the occupation. I couldn't object in moral grounds if they simply attacked military targets.

The bedroom of a 4 year old is not a military target.

There are no excuses. There is no forgiveness.

Death has come to our kitchens and now we have lost our fear of death.

We are united. We are not so much angry as implacable. We will defend our continued existence as the nation of Israel, the nation of the Jews, whatever the cost.

No, your posts are just extremely difficult to follow

Yeah, that’s it I’m sure