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.

With regards to the question of what life is like in the West Bank my Google search found this article about East Jerusalem (it’s a couple of years old though)

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/22/world/middleeast/israel-gaza-conflict.html

@MeganSupervision

"That Lemony poster..."

That's truly pathetic. Why not call her by her username? It would take less effort to @ her than type what you did.

So childish in your attempt to diminish her. Grow up.

Oh really.....quite an accusation to throw around.

When people were antisemitic on these threads, I was able to highlight exactly what they said and then show it in relation to the definitions of antisemitism so they'd learn how to be more sensitive in future.

I am very happy to be educated on my racism. Below is the APPG working definition of Islamophobia - can you please point out the occasions where I have breached it?

• Calling for, aiding, instigating or justifying the killing or harming of Muslims

• Making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about Muslims as a collective group.

• Accusing Muslims as a group of being responsible for real or imagined wrongdoing committed by a single Muslim person or group of Muslim individuals

• Accusing Muslims as a group, or Muslim majority states, of inventing or exaggerating Islamophobia

• Accusing Muslim citizens of being more loyal to Islam or to their countries of origin than to the interests of their own nations.

• Denying Muslim populations the right to self-determination e.g., by claiming that the existence of an independent Palestine or Kashmir is a terrorist endeavour

• Applying double standards by requiring of Muslims behaviours that are not expected or demanded of any other groups in society.

• Using the symbols and images associated with classic Islamophobia (e.g. Muhammed being a paedophile)

• Holding Muslims collectively responsible for the actions of any Muslim majority state, whether secular or constitutionally Islamic.

If I have done anything of these things, please let me know, but I am fairly sure I have never done any of those things in my entire life :)

You have done plenty of this just in the one post of yours that I read (and found appalling)

• Making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about Muslims as a collective group.

• Accusing Muslims as a group of being responsible for real or imagined wrongdoing committed by a single Muslim person or group of Muslim individuals

eg reference to “Islamic dominance “ and constant use of “they”- flattening of behaviour and attitudes of an entire region of Muslim people and accusing of wrongdoing (eg not able to live with others).

Also you justified and excused the illegal ceasing/ claiming of Palestinian land , and the apartheid inflicted on the palestinian people, so I would say that falls under the first bullet.

Yeah, Jesus was from Dusseldorf and Herod was from Chippenham.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deir_Yassin_massacre

I’ve reported this for calling me a troll.

“Islamic” dominance:

someone has dared to say "no" to Islamic dominance. And there is no justifiable reason why Islam has to dominate this entire region and insist on rule over every inch of it.

repeated use of “they” (and opposition to “us”)

It is not solely theirs. And they must accept that. And the international community must call on them to accept that

justifying of the illegal seizure of land and the regime inflicted on Palestinians:

That principle is far more important that "this is my land and you took it" - particularly as a Jew….To us the concept of arguing about it for 100 years is so alien. It is not important to fight over where your grandparents lived 75 years ago. This is not an important moral principle.

Also Repeated statements that Jews have the right to live in the place they came from.
Perhaps I should have the right to live in Africa on someone else’s land because apparently that’s where I came from 2 million years ago?

Sorry I meant to add in repeated use of they and flattening of attitudes across a region.

”The Yazidi people have lived through 74 genocides. This is a testament to the attitude to minorities in this region…If people cannot live together multiculturally and respect those of different cultures as equals with equal rights and freedoms then they can't live together at all.”

Anyway I have zero interest in engaging with you since you have called me a “troll” and a “shit poster” and referenced “other threads” without specifying what you mean, so I shan’t be engaging further.

Erm the Arabs were there first.
Israel was only established in 1948.

“We were there first” is almost as daft “you want us to leave? but where will we GO?”

I’m sure there are actual arguments to be made so why say such daft things?

Ahh ok so because this happened to jews (which is horrendous!) then let’s do it to the Palestinians. Honestly, vile. Two wrongs don’t make a right! Have some humanity.

I take the view that it's essential we criticise the Israeli government precisely because it IS NOT representative of all Jewish people.

The idea that you can't criticise Israel because it's anti-Semitic is deeply problematic because it doesn't just work in one direction.

The idea has been pushed by the Israeli state for years and that sucks in anyone Jewish who doesn't agree with the Israeli government and has no legal influence on who the Israeli government is.

The current Israeli government is extreme right wing and that would be a problem for many in other countries. There is a massive divide within Israel over the future, orthodoxy and international relations.

The fact the west has bought into this idea that all criticism of the Israeli state in various ways has three effects: firstly it sells their Jewish citizen down river and allows them to be effectively force-teamed into a political bloc where you can not distinguish them from the Israeli State, secondly it effectively gives carte blanche to Israel without any level of accountability or moderation of their policy and finally it legitimatises this idea of bloc politics along the lines of religion and that in turn is sucking in Muslims because it's being made into a Muslim v Jewish thing around the world not just in Israel and Gaza.

It's a mess and the best way to start unpicking this is to start putting distance between the two and that's to say it's not anti-Semitic to be critical of Israel.

I don't believe in hard-line conservative religious policy or hardline domestic security policy in the UK, or Europe or US, so why am I being force teamed into supporting Israel as a default position because if I don't I'm anti-Semitic. It's bullshit.

That also doesn't mean I support Hamas either though.

It is perfectly possible to see that Hamas is abhorrent but it's easy to see why they are doing it due to the oppression by Israel, whilst also understanding the Israeli desire for safety and security.

The issue is they are all bone heads who have lost all reason and just want to kill each other. And that helps precisely no one and it means mass violence is inevitable.

There is a massive failure of international policy here too. The West has given support to Israel at times when it shouldnt and that leaves the west in a position where they may be left with their dicks swinging after flying Israeli flags this week only to commit an atrocity that no amount of pr can justify or sanitise.

Israel going into Gaza and killing thousands and thousands of Palestinian civilians will only serve to effectively legitimise Hamas and legitimise the idea that civilians are fair targets this undermining any sense of the 'rules of war'. We need to all understand the implications of that.

So yeah I think now is the time to be firmly separating criticism of the Israeli state from anti-Semitism to protect Jewish people. They will be targeted anyway but let's give them space to separate from the Israeli government rather than throwing them under the bus by continuing to say anti-israel government criticism is anti-Semitic.

It is not.

I am also ethnically Jewish, although I am not religious. I know the situation is more complex than lay people can understand. But basically I agree with @MooseBreath . Netanyahu and his supporters have undone a lot of progress.

@RedToothBrush You haven’t even read what I wrote. You can speak about Israel if you choose to, or when you feel it’s necessary, but it’s antisemitism when someone demands it of you, especially when a random stranger walks up to you in a public place. It’s antisemitism when it’s done with convenient context and timing - which you would know if you read what I actually said. It’s absolutely not essential for anyone to criticise the Israeli government when they’re sitting in a pub waiting for a friend, or going to the supermarket or whatever, and it’s not okay for random people to demand it of anyone. Which you’d know if you actually read what I wrote. I feel like you’ve quoted the wrong person.

. MYou can speak about Israel if you choose to, or when you feel it’s necessary, but it’s antisemitism when someone demands it of you, especially when a random stranger walks up to you in a public place. It’s antisemitism when it’s done with convenient context and timing - which you would know if you read what I actually said. It’s absolutely not essential for anyone to criticise the Israeli government when they’re sitting in a pub waiting for a friend, or going to the supermarket or whatever, and it’s not okay for random people to demand it of anyone.

It would be extremely odd behaviour to demand on opinion from a total stranger on any subject and even if you know them you would be careful with such a potentially loaded subject.
These things happen online though. You know you’re interacting with a real person but you can’t see them so your disinhibitions are lowered (a bit like your drunk lol) (I’m not drunk btw).
I think the opinions you get on threads like this are a bit..unfiltered shall we say. Buts it’s badmouthing Israel at the end of the day. You may think that’s a bad thing but it does not mean that person hates Jewish people or wants another holocaust. I can understand how that may be a very real fear though.

I was going to say! Baffling! You wrote a long post describing lots of antisemitic incidents and they reply saying "oh but it's my civic duty to criticise Israel"

I think a lot of people categorise almost anything as criticising Israel when what it really is, is stuff like you've described

It would be extremely odd behaviour to demand on opinion from a total stranger on any subject and even if you know them you would be careful with such a potentially loaded subject. These things happen online though. You know you’re interacting with a real person but you can’t see them so your disinhibitions are lowered

@Defiantjazz As per my original comment, these things happen in person too. Like I said, I’ve been in situations where people have walked up to me out of nowhere and literally just started talking about the awful situation in Gaza etc, apropos of nothing. They’ve literally walked up to a random Jewish person and basically said “Israel!!!” - it’s antisemitism through and through, and a lot of what happens online is just an online version of that. Would you go up to a random Muslim person in Sainsbury’s and demand that they must apologise for Hamas? Would you go and paint “Down with the Taliban” on the middle of a bridge in Finsbury Park?

There is nothing remotely Islamophobic in a single word you've quoted. Just as I expected there would not be!

And as a Jew, I am more than entitled to refer to Jews as "us". Thank you very much!

There is nothing remotely Islamophobic in a single word you've quoted. Just as I expected there would not be!

Tempted to tell you that’s not for you to say but that really would be needling I suppose

Anyone can criticise Israel without being antisemitic, provided they are not antisemitists, are well educated about the history of the Jewish people, the history of the middle east, the foundation of Israel and what happened since then; and provided they are completely aware of the inherent antisemitism in Europe and the collective blind spot to our antisemitic heritage.

Our European ancestors regarded their fellow Jewish citizens with mistrust, envy, hate and disgust. Jews were blamed for the black death, the killing of Jesus, there have been programs, abuse, humiliation and hundreds, well thousands of years of Jewish persecution all over the world have culminated in the Holocaust killing 6 million Jews. If you are aware and educated about all this, it's perfectly fine to comment on the Israeli /Palestinian situation without being antisemitic. Ideally you should also be aware that it is dodgy to love commenting on Israel but not on any other countries in the middle east, especially the ones who completely disregard any human rights.

Would you go up to a random Muslim person in Sainsbury’s and demand that they must apologise for Hamas
No. I would not expect a random Muslim person to account for the actions of a bunch of people in another country.

Would you go and paint “Down with the Taliban” on the middle of a bridge in Finsbury Park?

Possibly. It’s not a sentiment I disagree with. That is not necessarily a personal attack.

Well it is. I posted the definition of what Islamophobia is, as defined by Muslims themselves, and nothing I said was Islamophobic because it doesn't meet any of the criteria or even come anywhere close to it.

Well it is. I posted the definition of what Islamophobia is, as defined by Muslims themselves, and nothing I said was Islamophobic because it doesn't meet any of the criteria or even come anywhere close to it
So why are we not allowed to say we’re not antisemitic? Even when we’re not we’re being a PITA arguing back needling and just being nuisance

Again you're not listening. This is very frustrating. It's like an abusing relationship

ANTISEMITE: I think zionists are scum of the earth
US: That's antisemitic
ANTISEMITE: I was just criticising Israel

ANTISEMITE: You look Jewish. I've never met you and this is a supermarket but I just wanted to say isn't stuff in Gaza awful
US: This is antisemitic
ANTISEMITE: I was just criticising Israel

ANTISEMITE: Welcome to our local council meeting. First order of the day, can we all vote to officially condemn Israel
US: That's antisemitic
ANTISEMITE: I was just criticising Israel

ANTISEMITE: The Israel Lobby has its tentacles running all through British government
US: That's antisemitic
ANTISEMITE: I was just criticising Israel

ANTISEMITE: You are just going full blown zionist
US: That's antisemitic
ANTISEMITE: I was just criticising Israel

These things aren't criticising Israel