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.

But this is all an idiot issue.

I don’t agree with everything the Israeli government does. (Nor the UK government, or Indian government etc). According to you, that makes me antisemitic and potentially capable of attacking innocent Jewish people?

As I have already said above, there are antisemitic ways and reasons for saying it, and non-antisemitic ways. It’s all about context. There are too many antisemitic people who’ll just say they just care about innocent Palestinian children, when there’s a whole load of motivations behind that. And of course all of those people, presumably including you, will say you’re not one of the antisemitic ones and it’s only other people who get it wrong.

The explanation to that is Islamophobia. Because there are millions of idiots out there who think all Muslims support terrorists. Every time something like that happens, there’s an associated increase in Islamophobic attacks in Western countries. And yet people will still insist there’s no link.

Exactly. And said idiots will hold anyone Jewish, never mind Israeli, responsible for the actions of Israel’s government. They care about neither side

Scare any population of Jewish people enough and they may flee to Israel. Israel will decide it needs more land because it will not turn anyone away. Problem for the Palestinians just gets worse. Do you think the haters have thought of that ? Do you think they’ve really though about it at all?

So pray tell, what’s the ‘right’ way of saying you fear for the lives of Palestinian people at the moment? Useful to know.

May I suggest that you go back and read some of the earlier bits of this thread?

What part of “there are antisemitic ways of saying it and non-antisemitic ways of saying it” do you not understand? The issue is that vast amounts of people are saying it in antisemitic ways, and with convenient timing.

There are millions of antisemitic people who deliberately latch on to the Palestinian movement because it’s a way for them to legitimise antisemitism.

There are also numerous people on this thread who have explained time and time again that it’s about context, and about people demanding explanations from Jewish people around the world.

And it’s not just an idiot issue, it’s an antisemitism and Islamophobia issue. Nobody thinks they’re an idiot and nobody wants to admit their motivations.

People have explained it numerous times throughout this thread. Go back and read it.

It’s just impossible dealing with such intransigence.

I will just carry on as I have been this week. Supporting my close Jewish friends of many years, whilst being able to feel compassion for the Palestinian people about to be killed en masse. If my friends challenge me, I will be happy to discuss further. But I think for now, they just need my kindness and support.

Belarus has very obviously had a tiny, tiny percentage of the media coverage that the invasion of Ukraine has had, ditto all the other Russian human rights violations and atrocities over the years.
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Ditto Chinese concentration camps.
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Anyone trying to claim these things have had remotely similar levels of attention as Israel is just being goady, because that's so blatantly not true

Speaking in general I’m not sure that the China or Russia being guilty of human rights violations is going to come as a shock to many. Really. They have form.

@Defiantjazz I won’t be replying to you any more as you’re being deliberately antagonistic and playing dumb

My posts are hard to follow* *

The intransigence is coming from you.

And you know what’s worse is that you’re demanding explanations from me, and when I say there are explanations throughout this thread (I joined around page 15, but there’s lots of other useful stuff before that), you suddenly can’t be bothered to read it, and you say you’ll just carry on as before. Because you don’t actually want to read any examples.

As for your close Jewish friends of many years, sure. I’m sure some of your best friends are black, too 😉

Your reply is exactly what I predicted. Especially the last bit. I am not going to dignify it with a response.

Anyway these words are all pointless internet bluster. Posters could be anybody and all of us could be lying.

Israelis and Palestinians are dying right and it all feels hopeless. Have a good evening.

If you haven't - cool. WE still do. Even if YOU don't
If I and others haven't, it can't be WE. It might be some, or many, or a majority but not WE.

Easier to stick to accounting for personal experiences because otherwise, it is offensive to make assumptions on behalf of those who have nothing to do with what you describe.

You asked: “So pray tell, what’s the ‘right’ way of saying you fear for the lives of Palestinian people at the moment? Useful to know.” But you don’t actually want to know.

You’ve literally asked me for some examples of right and wrong ways of going about it. I’ve replied that I’ve given a load of examples on page 15, and now you can’t be bothered to read them. Which makes me wonder why you asked in the first place. There are so, so many people who come along in these threads and play innocent, asking what they claim to be innocent questions, and yet they don’t even want to read the answers.

Enjoy your weekend with your imaginary close Jewish friends who don’t actually exist.

Please stop. You know perfectly well that she wasn't saying that. She described, as have I and countless others the glaring difference between regular criticism like every other country gets and this bizarre shit that goes on here.

No other country NONE has their students accused of being part of a secret cabal of a foreign state. NONE. No one else has their history repeated over and over again to them in ways that are utter garbage. No one else gets told they don't know what racism towards them actually is and gets sent links to explain to them that they're actually just smearing people for Israel.

It's bloody mad!

@Brightlyshining has actually described at length the antisemitism she's experienced (which was nothing like "criticising Israel") and instead of commenting on that or trying to actually think about how it might feel to put up with this shit, you sit there waiting to pounce so you can gaslight us yet again.

I am not seeing them this weekend but thanks. I am afraid having good Jewish friends is unavoidable if you live in N London ;-) They are great. And seem to quite like me. 🤷🏼‍♀️ I recommend you make some. For the bar/bat mitzvahs if nothing else!

Please stop trying to object to perfectly typical language and normal ways of speaking. I obviously can't write long things using "some, but not all Jews" every time instead of just saying "we".

I am Jewish, when I write about our history or anything like that, I can and will say "we". When I talk about our wider experiences as reported literally everywhere, I am totally entitled to say "we" as part of the group I indenitfy.

I would do the same if I was writing about anything. It's totally normal use of the English language. There is nothing offensive being implied about you. If I say "we experience antisemitism" and you haven't, you are not harmed.

You are just being contrary for the sake of it because I wouldn't answer your silly question yesterday and you had some silly tantrum over it where you went on for ages demanding I did what you said.

I can say "we" and will continue doing it. Stop trying to dictate to me what I can say and how I can say it. You do you.

You’re not seeing them because they don’t exist. Living in North London doesn’t mean everyone who lives there is your friend. I’ve had a couple of non-Jewish friends who said the same kind of rubbish as you, and I unfriended them because I don’t need to put up with antisemitism from my own friends.

Theoretically, if these alleged friends of yours saw the disingenuous stuff you’ve written in this thread, there’d be a huge argument coming. The only reason it’s not going to happen is because you don’t have these friends in the first place.

We’ve all heard variations of “Some of my best friends are black” a million times. Nobody believes you.

This is getting stupid. I am not seeing them this evening because they spend Friday night with their families.

I don’t have to defend my healthy and mutual friendships with internet nobodies.

If this is your only defence now, I shall no longer engage with your silliness and will leave you to have the last word you so desperately crave.

For anyone else reading this who is genuinely interested in learning about online antisemitism, and racism in general,@MeganSupervision ‘s questions and comments above are actually a common tactic used by racist people online. They’ll come along and ask faux-innocent questions when they don’t really want an answer. They just want to demand answers from Jewish people and deliberately get into an argument because they find it amusing. It’s subtle and nuanced, and you don’t necessarily see it at first, but unfortunately it’s a reason why a lot of us have given up commenting on these threads. This isn’t something that only happens to Jewish people. It happens to a lot of non-white people, just tiring people out and not genuinely wanting to have a civil discussion about it. It’s passive-aggressive behaviour.

@LemonyTicket, there's only one last thing for me to say to you and it sums up in the saying 'practice what you preach'. You seem quite good at accusing others of your own actions.

As a jew, I have gone to finding your first posts interesting to finding them non credible because due your condescending attitude.

Exactly, literally what the poster below your post is doing. Came to this thread yesterday and asked me to give her a detailed description of infrastructure, medical access and so on in the west bank (Something easy to google in seconds and nothing to do with this thread). Objective clearly being to start an argument. When I wouldn't give in to the demand, she started getting very aggressive and goady to a point I had to read the posts a few times to see if I'd missed something to explain the weird rage. Clearly just pissed off I wasn't taking the bait.

When that didn't work, came back to complain about me using the word "we" about Jews saying that she is a Jew (😯) and demanding I change my use of the word.

Just desperately goading, and we have it constantly. It's not about conversing, it's a spiteful kind of passive aggression.

I’ll believe you. You’re Jewish.

So how do you manage to overlook the history of the Jews in respect of their willingness to defend Israel?

Other than Israel, that’s it for Jews and Judaism. As I imagine you’d understand.

Did you read my post or knee jerk? Did you see my own criticism of the Israeli government? No, you just wanted to get one up on me. You have failed.

It is other people who start to link it to Jews around the world, not the Jews. Do you not get it?!! Since last Saturday, there has been a 3-4 fold increase in attacks on British Jews. Why the fuck should I be at risk because of the choices of a country where I do not live?

For the hard of reading, I didn’t say being anti Zionist is antisemitic. I said it is intrinsically linked purely because so many people resort to antisemitism. So, if you’re upset you’re not getting a fair or balanced debate, have a chat to those who ARE being antisemitic. They’re the ones hindering the debate and shutting it down.

I can tell you didn’t even bother to read my post. I know you saw one line and decided you knew me and my views but I don’t know why? What are you getting out of it? It is possible to criticise Zionism without being antisemitic. Unfortunately, people haven’t learnt how to do that. For that, it’s their own prejudice and ignorance.

I clearly said I condemn the actions. I have said it throughout this thread. I have criticised the Israeli government.

Did you read my post or knee jerk?

I was being sarcastic tbh.