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.

Isn't it interesting how pro Hamas posters are now positively likening ordinary Palestinians with ordinary Nazi Germans? @AUserNameIsNot
They really are not helping their cause. I suppose I don't expect better from someone who aligns themselves with a death cult.

If someone plots to shoot at us from his family home, we will rise up to defend ourselves. And that is the right and moral thing to do. It's sad that these children have such shocking parents, and we will not apologise for not going like sheep to the slaughter. We are proud to live.

No they didn't. They were being systematically slaughtered in most of Europe. The UK, the US, south American countries closed their borders to fleeing Jews. Most middle Eastern countries were with Hitler in wanting to exterminate Jews. The British didn't actually want them in Palestine either but turned a blind eye. There certainly weren't loads of options at that time, or ever really.

Absolutely!

There's also a big difference between disagreeing with the creation of Israel, and thinking it should be destroyed now.

I don't think it was the right thing to create the State in the first place, but the passage of time since it's creation means I don't think it's right or fair for that to be "undone". I don't give a monkeys whose land it was in the bronze age, but for the children born in Israel it's their home now too. It's a right old mess.

In reality, the only way you can attempt to justify removing someone else's rights for your own benefit is to shift responsibility. No decent human feels comfortable in their own self knowing that their advantage is to another's irreparable loss. It's much easier to remain in a state of cognitive dissonance than to accept partial blame or compliance at the very least.

Ultra orthodox Jews are against the existence of Israel because they believe that Israel will only be recreated when the Messiah comes. It's nothing to do with the rights of Palestinians.

The antisemitism is because for most non Jews who are anti-israel, they "care about Palestinians" without bothering to find out any of the reasons for the current situation or caring about other people around the world in similar situations. It's literally an excuse to have a pop at the only Jewish country in the world

Satmar / Neturei Karta went to the Holocaust denial conference in Tehran. To be fair, their position was that the Holocaust did happen but it was the fault if the Zionists. What makes this do unconscionable is that Joel Teitelbaum, the prior head honcho of Satmar, used his privilege to take the 'Zionist' Kastner train to escape the Holocaust, just a few days after he publicly urged his followers not to do so. Some leader.

They are welcome to their views on Zionism, perhaps slightly less welcome to their views on women (they should shave their heads AND wear a wig AND wear a hat; they should not drive), secular education (they don't believe in it), and sexual abuse (the Satmar Rebbe's chauffeur is a convicted child rapist, who enjoyed the Rebbe's public and full throated support; the victim was threatened and ostracised).

How do you break a cycle of violence when one side has explicitly and repeatedly declared (and shown) they are fully committed to the obliteration of the other and, under no circumstances, will they entertain peace with that side?

Genuinely what's your solution here?

There's also a big difference between disagreeing with the creation of Israel, and thinking it should be destroyed now.

Yes, it’s done now and Israel exists. Due to the way it came about and the conditions in the Palestinian Territories is also inflicted with terrorism. Obviously they are going to fight the terrorists.
What irks me is attitudes like that of a pp who seem to feel their enemies are “evil” and they are, and always will be, the victims. It’s not a very nuanced view is it?

I don't accept this cycle of violence rhetoric as it seems to deprive human beings of the choice not to respond to provocation with murder, rape, kidnap, execution by immolation, and torture.

The occupation of the West Bank is not justified by our caused by these atrocities.

These atrocities are not justified by or caused by the occupation.

There are a lot of obvious similarities between palestians now and Germany after ww1. Are you saying that Germans in the nazi era were uniquely evil? That is not true (although Hitler himself was an extreme case). The conditions that created Nazi Germany could happen in any country.

One major similarity is feeling oppressed and hard done by, giving the opportunity for leaders who promise nationalist glory.

Of course, since its creation Israel has been under threat from its neighbours on all sides which has also led to a strongly nationalist government there too.

Interference from the US and Iran is a complicating feature that didn't apply to Germany.

But humans are humans, underneath our skin we are all the same and given the same conditions will behave very similarly.

No, but then burning people to death in the streets and cutting their heads off live on telegram with a spade wasn't very nuanced either. I don't think it's a situation which demands much nuance.

They could live in Israel, 1.6m already do as full Israeli citizens.

If they're serious about have a complete separate country of their own they could get back round the table and negotiate a two-state solution, but they've been very vocal about it being all or nothing.

Out of interest can you name this entire nation that has been displaced and define it's boundaries?

MNHQ is not "Big Brother."

This kind of hyperbole does not contribute towards debate; pretending that you're being censored and oppressed just because minorities give an opinion that you dislike, or word their opinions in ways you consider abrasive, is not a good faith argument.

This is a webforum. It has rules, which we are all bound by equally. No one forced you to sign up to a privately owned webforum which has openly stated rules.

The comparison with 1984 is ludicrous because the entire point of 1984 is a) the public had no choice, the oppression was forced on them without consent and b) they aren't told what the rules are, only punished when they accidentally break one.

To compare that to making a completely voluntary choice to sign up to a message board, then claim you're being censored by the fact that message board has rules, does not strengthen whatever argument you're trying to make. (I'm not sure what argument you are trying to make, other than that pesky Jews are trying to silence and oppress you, using what you apparently perceive as the fascist dictatorship that is Mumsnet moderators as a weapon.)

And actually in practice I don't think we are all bound equally by MN Talk Guidelines, because MN is pretty white, and this forum has a pretty poor history of things like dog whistle racism (especially against black posters) going unchallenged because not everyone is educated enough on issues around unconscious bias and racial stereotypes to be able to recognise anti-black dog whistles. In my experience minorities who complain about racism are more likely to be deleted and banned than posters posting racist stuff that's subtle/coded enough that the mods don't recognise it as such.

So if anything, minorities are more likely to have a hard time on this forum. So to claim that minorities are the oppressive censors and you're being uniquely censored and oppressed is just... a bad take.

The only reason posts are deleted is because the mods found that they broke talk guidelines. And for that to happen the posts have to be really pretty bad, since the mods are hardly experts on race relations. There aren't loads of Jews "demanding" that MNHQ censor non-Jews, that feels perilously close to pushing the stereotype that Jews secretly control the media.

There are a lot of obvious similarities between palestians now and Germany after ww1.

Which similarities?

"but in every generation they stand up against us to wipe us out, and God saves us from their hands"

Passover Haggadah

I didn't mean to imply they were.

I was asking how you stop violence when one side refuses to do so?

If Israel adopted a passivist stance tomorrow, returned land, and recognised Palestine as a nation state would that stop the violence?

I don't think it would because elements of the other side see the entirity of that region as theirs alone and feel duty bound to wage war until every inch is under their control.

To me that element has to be removed before any hope of progress.

Thanks, that really interesting context. My point was not concerning Orthodox groups, it was specifically that if you were speaking to a (any) Jewish person currently, and they personally took your views as being anti-Semitic, would you still be entirely comfortable, both from the point that you aren't Jewish, and a Jewish person considers those views anti-Semitic? It has parallels with people who have opinions on black/Asian/Muslim issues, but cannot see those issues from the side of the affected person.

I feel like there is a certain amount of gaslighting involved in this way of thinking tbh.
Isreal: We deserve to exist(in your homes and on your land).
Palestinian: But that's my home you can't just take it.
Israel: Calm down, why are you always so angry, jeez, we just want to exist.
Palestinian: But those are illegal settlements, you can't just take what you want.
Israel: Ffs, it's no wonder we lock you up, you are so unreasonable. Look what we have to live with when we just want the right to exist 🙄

A lot of Islamic extremists don't think Jews should be allowed to exist anywhere, though, not just in Israel.

If it was just about Israel then we wouldn't see regular attacks and high level security on synagogues and Jewish cultural centres in Britain, America, France, Germany, Sweden, etc. etc.

I think what's missing from the debate is that Islam and Judaism are fundamentally structurally very different religions. Islam is a religion of conquest and proselytization; they actively want the whole world to be Muslim. Jews actively discourage non-Jews from becoming Jewish, if you're not born Jewish then you can't become Jewish unless you're very very dedicated and willing to put in a ton of study and effort. So Islam will always grow, and Judaism will always shrink. Islam wants to grow, convert, colonise, because that's what the religion is based on: to spread and convert as much as possible. It's why Sharia Law enforcement exists, it's why Iran has military forces brutalising women to force them into observing Fundamentalist Islamic practices against their consent. That would never ever happen in Judaism, no non-Jew would ever be forced into being Jewish because that actively contradicts the basic tenet of Judaism, which is that it is a non-missionary religion.

That's why more than a quarter of the world's population is Muslim, while Jews make up just 0.2% of the world's population.

No, but then burning people to death in the streets and cutting their heads off live on telegram with a spade wasn't very nuanced either. I don't think it's a situation which demands much nuance

Easy for me to say since I’m not involved, I know I’m being a bit of a keyboard warrior, but the violence is mutual isn’t it?
Also if the Palestinians are stonewalled at every turn (politically) then extremist loons are going to end up in charge.

Before this thread gets any weirder I would like to thank the more informative posters as I have learnt some things.

I particularly would like to thank @CoughingMajoress for the paragraph below. I never understood why it was so bad, but you have truely provided a lightbulb moment.

For example, one of the most dangerous stereotypes about Jews is that we're money grubbing and I've had a lot of people not understand why that's a bad thing, because "surely being good with money is a good thing?" But to understand why this trope exists and why it's so dangerous, requires understanding literally centuries of Jewish history. This stereotype IS very very dangerous and it's literally been used to justify multiple genocides. After the Treaty of Versailles, the German government weaponised this stereotype via massive propaganda campaigns to blame Germany's poverty on Jews hoarding the money, rather than acknowledge their own responsibility for the huge financial penalties forced upon Germany after WWI; that propaganda campaign (which would not have existed if not for centuries of Jews being cast as money grubbing, a stereotype that goes back to the era when Jews were forced into jobs as money lenders, then penalised by Medieval Christians for the jobs they'd forced Jews into) very directly led to the Holocaust.

To those posters with extensive knowledge of the history, as a person more interested in understanding rather than debating on the terminology of words, could I ask you to educate me (others) on the Oslo accord and decision of divide the West Bank in 3 areas.

As an uneducated person, I just can't fathom the logic behind the division of areas in such small fragments. I assume it has to do with socio-geographical location of villages/town but it makes for such an odd arrangement. I'd love to also understand better what life in in area B. Does it mean Jews and Palestinians are managing to live in agreement in those regions? Why did that come about?

There seem so little explained about the West Bank as it stands now with all the focus- understandbly- being on Gaza.

We've made peace with Jordan and Egypt, and please God we will make peace with the Palestinians.

We did not make peace by turning the other cheek and by pacifism. If we did that now they will rape and burn our girls in Tel Aviv.

We cannot make peace with the Islamic State of Hamas. Sometimes war is the right answer, and this is such a time. There will need to be a political settlement later, and I do hope the Palestinian Authority, Egypt and Qatar will engage productively after the war has achieved its aim.