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.

I'm not going to go into this beyond this one post as it's not on topic but this is similar to the way people mix the concepts of being anti-some of the ideas around 'trans women are women' (similar to anti-Zionism) and being 'transphobic' (similar to anti-Semitic).

@Evermean I'm not helping anyone who won't or can't read. I won't engage with you further. If everyone who actually agrees with me, or would if they had ever thought about it for 5 minutes, left Mumsnet there'd be tumbleweed blowing around the place.

Exactly. This is leftist identity politics. They demand that each designated minority group must have the power to censor everything that might 'feed the narrative of' any designated oppressor group. And then of course you have to fight like cats and dogs about who's more oppressed, women or transpeople, muslims or jews and on into literally infinity.

I can read. What you're saying in your post, as far as I can tell, is that mumsnet should not ever delete posts. I'm not sure that's a common view. Even amongst people who have thought about it more than five minutes. 🙄

Why? Would you say that if a Black or Asian person said that a White person doesn't know what they were talking about when they were spouting off about racism? Much anti zionism is anti semitic, justified by calling it anti zionism. In any case, anti zionism is saying Israel doesn't have a right to exist, which is exactly what Hamas is saying. So where do you think Israelis should go? Many of them are Arabs who have been persecuted for being Jewish so had to flee from countries like Syria, Iran and Iraq. Criticising the Israeli people and celebrating their babies' throats being cut because their electoral system is shit and they have a right wing government is like saying that everyone who lived under the British Empire should have had the right to come to Britain and slaughtered children because our electoral system was shit and we had a Right Wing government who starved Irish people to death, shot Indian people out of trees while they were trying to escape and numerous other atrocities.

So where do you think Israelis should go?
No-one worried about where the Palestinians would go in the 40s or whenever it was. They were told to go to other country’s and just hang out as refugees.

@CoughingMajoress

“Plus, Jews only have one single miniscule country to call our own where we can be safe (after centuries of non-stop persecution and multiple genocides). There are nearly FIFTY Muslim countries, and many of those countries are extremely wealthy and could protect and home the entire population of Palestine if they wanted to. “

This is abhorrent. Can you imagine living in your house for decades and then one day someone knocks on your door (rather violently may I add!!) and says you have to leave because that house is the only place THEY feel safe? But it’s ok you can go to someone else’s house who shares the same religion/skin colour! It would not even be remotely acceptable in ANY other part of the world. That is their rightful HOME. I can’t quite believe people actually think like this.

I would disagree. Just because a person chooses not to share all their thoughts on a post that isn't relevent to them doesn't mean they lack humility

'Would you say that if a Black or Asian person said that a White person doesn't know what they were talking about when they were spouting off about racism?'

Depends entirely on what they're saying obviously. One person's 'spouting off' is another person's 'speaking'. Even if it were true that one is only allowed to speak about one's own lived experience, which it's obviously not, white people also experience racism.

'anti zionism is saying Israel doesn't have a right to exist, which is exactly what Hamas is saying. So where do you think Israelis should go? Many of them are Arabs who have been persecuted for being Jewish so had to flee from countries like Syria, Iran and Iraq.'

What you're ignoring is that large numbers of people are literally unaware that any Israelis, or Jews, are Arabs. They genuinely believe they're all European Jews who arrived there very recently having been gone for 2000 years. They certainly have absolutely no idea they were persecuted/kicked out of so many other countries in the area. And if you bothered to ask them, many of them would tell you that they could instead live in peace and harmony with their Arab neighbours in a delightful multicultural state, just as they did before those devious Brits and their white colonial ways messed up utopia.

Obviously, some of those saying Israel has no right to exist are literally antisemites. On mumsnet the majority of them are ignorant and repeating leftist anti-colonialist dogma. That's not unconscious, subconscious or any other kind of bias. It's literally simply ignorance. And of course, it's perfectly possibly to be both biased and ignorant. You wouldn't be asking these questions if you actually listened to your opponents instead of demanding they be censored. Then you might also have a chance at changing their minds.

Jews would say that Israel is their home too, and they lived there well before 1948, and lived there for many centuries, only leaving due to persecution. Why do they not have a right to stay in the Middle East, where they are from? Especially Arab Jews, who have been persecuted in every other country in the Middle East, where they are from?

Actually in the 1937 Peel Commission Report the British suggested that the Arabs living in the 20% of the Mandate that was to be the Jewish territory should be transferred to the intended Arab state, and they/the new Arab state, was to be financially compensated for that. Their reasoning was that similar population swaps had resolved ethnic conflicts in several other places. Their main example was the population swap of Greeks and Turks after WW1. There was absolutely no suggestion they would be refugees anywhere.

You can agree or disagree with the rights or wrongs of that, but you should read it first. They set out the advantages they saw for the Arabs also in the plan. In light of what's happened since, while it may have been a grim proposal, so were many other postcolonial partitions. Some worked out ok, some much less so. In this case I think it would clearly have been less grim than what's actually happened.

Text of the Peel Commission Report (jewishvirtuallibrary.org)

I'm going to come off this thread now and do some reading.

While I don't agree with a lot that you've said in this thread, across a few of your comments you have made me aware of some major blind spots that I need to do unpack and educate myself further on before speaking on this topic again.

Thank you

Deleted

Also please visit a Holocaust museum OP, or one of the Nazi concentration camps, it's eye opening.

I genuinely don’t know why people are redefining anti-Zionism into a new category of meaning they don’t agree with the current government policies when anti Zionist has had has always had a different meaning. You can just simply say you don’t agree with the current Israeli government policies and actions and their interpretation of Zionism. I don’t agree with their actions or policies or interpretation myself.

However I would never have the audacity to label myself as anti Zionist unless I was prepared to accept that others would rightly assume this meant I did not agree with the ideology of Israel as a state, and therefore seen as anti-Semitic.

As Zionism is an ideology, there are going to be interpretations of it by Israeli governments that people are polarised by. However what it stands for was never meant to be about war or forced displacement of others and that is forgotten about here. It is not the fault of Jewish people in Israel if their government has made decisions that have antagonised other parties and caused harm, and it shouldn’t take away from their fundamental beliefs or rights to want to belong to the land in some way which holds a very long history to them. I am sure the majority of Jewish civilians wish for peace in Israel as much as anyone else does.

I think that is interesting. My own feeling is that people who are happy, prosperous and see a good future for their children don't generally want to go to war. If I was in charge in 47/48 I'd have proposed to the Palestinians that we are here we are staying but we will split the land 50/50, we will ensure that every Palestinian child will go to a school that is as good as the schools Jewish children will go to, that hospitals will be as good and as well resourced in the Palestinian areas as in the Jewish areas, that the laws will be imposed equally regardless of ethnicity or faith, that displaced people will be supported to set up a new life, that investment and development will be equal in both areas, that we will work together to run Israel/Palestine for the benefit of all.

I reckon most Palestinians would be too busy leading their productive comfortable lives to want to have war now. There are always a few extremists so I imagine there would be some Palestinians who want their land back and some Israelis who want to land grab to expand Israel but I reckon the majority would be living together happily now and although it would have been a huge financial commitment for the Israelis in the long run it would have been cheaper than constantly being on war preparations, lives would have been saved and everyone would be happier.

Maybe I am naive but I think it would have been worth a try.

I have and it is but the Palestinians weren't responsible for any of it.

Actually in the 1937 Peel Commission Report the British suggested that the Arabs living in the 20% of the Mandate that was to be the Jewish territory should be transferred to the intended Arab state, and they/the new Arab state, was to be financially compensated for that. Their reasoning was that similar population swaps had resolved ethnic conflicts in several other places. Their main example was the population swap of Greeks and Turks after WW1. There was absolutely no suggestion they would be refugees anywhere

Thats not much better is it? Say the Israeli's were ordered to hand over 20% of the country over to another population and if they live in that area they can shift. Oh but financial compensation. I don’t think they would agree. I don’t think ANYONE would agree to that.
Israel is loath to give back the land they acquired by force never mind that which is considered theirs.

I mean…population swaps? Asking for trouble. But that’s the British Empire for you.

I didn’t call anyone an anti semite. I have seen anti Jewish statements and stereotypes. It doesn’t paint people in a great light to shut down discussion and tell people what is and is not anti Jewish judgement. What qualifies you to say this?

Not much better than what?

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

Lots of populations did agree to population swaps, obviously enough. Did you miss that? Are Greeks and Turks 'ANYONE'?! Or were you by any small chance unaware until approximately 5 minutes ago that that had ever happened?

Fair enough. I appreciate people who do genuinely take the time to learn. However, this does include listening to people with lived experience though. There appears to be no space for people like me who desperately want to be balanced. We are constantly shut down when we do see anti semitism. It’s on this thread! Not by you, I must add, but by others.

@Defiantjazz As I get older I find it very hard to reconcile how I feel to be British, when I am so acutely aware of how much of the issues in the world have been caused and created by the empire and colonialism. I once went to a museum in Cambridge and there they had a huge totem pole in the middle of the room and from what I could see, someone decided it would be great for everyone else to see in the U.K. so took down a huge religious artefact and popped it onto a boat and sailed away with it. Everyone was in awe of this totem pole, it’s beautiful but it made me feel very sad. I feel sad now, even though I know these things took place a long time ago, and I can’t change them I just feel sorry. Perhaps thing were done with the best of intentions at the time although I often doubt that….

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.

@Iwasafool

The belief that war is caused by economic factors is simply, again, left wing dogma. Historically, most human conflict seems to have been about access to women actually. Interestingly, I rarely hear people argue that, say, the Crusaders were in no way motivated by religion. Or that if they had been happy and prosperous at home they'd never have gone.

Maybe most western people just don't meet many men who absolutely love war, who live for it. You'll find them on Telegram posting videos about blowing up tanks. They also don't meet many people who genuinely believe in their religion and believe their duty to their God is to go to war, that they'll go to hell if they don't and heaven if they do. There's an odd assumption that all humans are motivated by standard 20th century materialistic western values - happiness, material wealth, optimism.

I do think you're being optimistic, yes. At one point, around 1939, the British proposed that the Jews should just get 500 square miles I think it was. The Arabs still rejected it. Former dhimmis don't get sovereignty on Islamic lands. Lands conquered by Islam cannot be voluntarily handed over to former dhimmis at the request of other non-muslims.

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?