To share the actual definition of antisemitism

[LemonyTicket]

The boards have been full for a week with cries of woe that you can't criticise Israel without being accused of antisemitism. So to make life easy, below is a summary of what defines antisemitism as agreed by more or less the leading experts in the world. If you'd like to discuss Israel without being antisemitic, you can follow these guidelines to say what you would like to say without causing pain to Jewish people:

POINT 1
What is particular in classic antisemitism is the idea that Jews are linked to the forces of evil. This stands at the core of many anti-Jewish fantasies, such as the idea of a Jewish conspiracy in which “the Jews” possess hidden power that they use to promote their own collective agenda at the expense of other people. This linkage between Jews and evil continues in the present: in the fantasy that “the Jews” control governments with a “hidden hand,” that they own the banks, control the media, act as “a state within a state.

Making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective — such as, especially but not exclusively, the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions.

So when you're criticising Israel, please do so without implying Jews, Israel or anything relating to Jews is part of a plot to control things or act in evil ways generally or that Jews or any Jewish organisation have control over institutions. This isn't how other countries are spoken about and it's particularly antisemitic in line with Nazi propaganda.

POINT 2
Antisemitism can be manifested in words, visual images, and deeds. Examples of antisemitic words include utterances that all Jews are wealthy, inherently stingy, or unpatriotic. In antisemitic caricatures, Jews are often depicted as grotesque, with big noses and associated with wealth

This is one most people instinctively know is racist - to apply certain characteristics to Jews - like having lots of money or big noses etc.

POINT 3
Antisemitism can be direct or indirect, explicit or coded. For example, “The Rothschilds control the world” is a coded statement about the alleged power of “the Jews” over banks and international finance. Similarly, portraying Israel as the ultimate evil or grossly exaggerating its actual influence can be a coded way of racializing and stigmatizing Jews. In many cases, identifying coded speech is a matter of context and judgement, taking account of these guidelines

This means, don't be antisemitic when using any words which clearly refer to Jews in particular. "Jews own the banks" is antisemitic. It remains antisemitic when you substitute words, like "The Israel lobby owns the banks" or "Zionists own the banks" or "George Soros owns the banks". Substituting code words is not a free pass for being antisemitic.

POINT 4
Denying or minimizing the Holocaust

A pretty obvious one which needs no explanation.

POINT 5
Applying the symbols, images and negative stereotypes of classical antisemitism to the State of Israel

So this means taking classic antisemitic tropes or canards, such as "The Jews are puppet masters" and applying the same language to the only Jewish state. We see right through this, please don't do it!

POINT 6
Requiring people, because they are Jewish, publicly to condemn Israel or Zionism (for example, at a political meeting)

This means making a Jewish person, anywhere, anytime feel obligated, pressured or required in any way to condemn Israel or Zionism. It means you don't "put them on the spot" in public by singling them out as a Jew to ask their opinions on Israel's atrocities. Their views of these things will be coloured by a completely different perspective to yours, and likely more personal knowledge, their family history and so on - so please be respectful of their right to determine their Jewish identity and opinions without your critique.

POINT 7
Calling for, aiding, or justifying the killing or harming of Jews in the name of a radical ideology or an extremist view of religion

Another one which should be obvious, but clearly "gas the Jews" is unacceptable.

POINT 8
Accusing Jews as a people of being responsible for real or imagined wrongdoing committed by a single Jewish person or group, or even for acts committed by non-Jews

Again, fairly obvious.

POINT 9
Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations

This is a common form of prejudice in Britain where Jews are frequently accused of being in on some plot with Israel, or part of a group of Jews acting against their own country for the benefit of Israel. It's madness, and please don't do it.

POINT 10
Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor

Jews, like everyone else, have a right to self-determination. If you don't make other countries feel ashamed of existing or if you don't make other groups feel ashamed of their national identity; then Jews should be entitled to the same. You are free to have your own opinion on if Israel should be a country or not, and how it should be. You are not free to deny Jews the right to decide that for themselves though.

POINT 11
Applying double standards by requiring of Israel a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation

Another very common one, where Israel is often held to a very different standard to other countries. An allowance can be made for the fact surrounding countries generally aren't democracies and as such are generally held to a different standard, but you should aim to treat Israel in the same, balanced way that you would treat any other country.

POINT 12
Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis

This is another very common one. Do not compare things which are incomparable just for the sake of hyperbole. It's very offensive. Almost every Jew in existence lost family in the Shoah. Please don't use it to attack.

Those are the things you can't do. What you can do is criticise Israel robustly, like you would any other country

Sorry I thought you meant here in Britain! Sorry, misread. I was thinking...huh?!

Where are you getting you numbers? I have it at around 5 million in West bank and around 2 million in Gaza.

Quite interestingly Gaza has roughly the same amount of citizens as Venice and is roughly the same size. Nothing to do with the conversation we are having but an interesting thing

The definition of ethnic cleansing is: “the mass expulsion or killing of members of one ethnic or religious group in an area by those of another.”

This is what is happening in Gaza right now. Just because Palestinian numbers are increasing (and I am taking your word for that) it doesn’t mean they’re not being expelled from their land and killed.

The definition of apartheid is: “a policy or system of segregation or discrimination on grounds of race.”

This is what had been happening for decades prior to the current situation.

Read again what I wrote

However, calling Jews terrorists is not antisemitic, but is Islamophobic.

It is not about owning. It is about what causes specific harm to a group of people.

Muslims have been specifically marginalised and stereotyped as terrorists. Typical racists would use this as a term associated with Muslims in order to insult them, harm them and dehumanise them.

That is why it is Islamophobic.

It is not antisemitic, because no one has ever persecuted Jews on this basis.

I don’t need to read it again. It still doesn’t make any sense that calling Israelis/Jews terrorists would be islamophobic.

As terrible as killing people is, it is not ethnic cleansing - if it were then every war and conflict in history would be ethnic cleansing. If Jews wanted no Palestinian Arab population in Israel there would not be one (as there is no Jew population in Gaza). It certainly would not have doubled. It is illogical nonsense.

Can you please use another thread to start this "apartheid nonsense" if you want to carry on with it. Jews are in apartheid in every place across the middle east and have been for almost 700 years. Muslims, however, live in Israel with equal rights enshrined in law - something Jews have never had.

None of that is relevant to this thread through, which is about defining antisemitism - it's not a Jew bashing thread. Although I understand many people can barely contain the urge.

No it wouldn't, which is why that is not what I said. Read it again.

Calling a Jew a terrorist is NOT antisemtic.

Calling a Muslim a terrorist IS Islamophobic.

I can't be more clear.

However, calling Jews terrorists is not antisemitic, but is Islamophobic.

This makes no sense whatsoever. It isn't just Muslims who can be terrorists. It is anyone who commits an act of terror.

Yes, Muslims have been stereotyped as terrorists, but the term is certainly not specific to them.

You may well have an argument for ethic cleansing depending on what happens in the coming months or years. Nobody knows yet

Apartheid is arguable if you know the history and understand the whole situation. It also was something a leading antisemit started saying because of his hate for Jews. Now it has become fashionable to say amongst the Woke and Jew haters.

Desmond Tutu is responsible for the “apartheid wall” mythology that has been one of the most repugnant propagandistic manipulations that Israel has ever suffered, because it is based on ignoring of the cause-effect nexus. All decent people know that Israel is not Soweto. But Tutu resembles those Christian bishops who fomented the Final Solution by the idea that the wandering Jew is the symbol of God's rejection of the Jewish people.

Tutu has demonized the “Jewish lobby” as too “powerful” and “scary," resorting to a vile myth rooted in anti-Jewish stereotype, whereby the Jews control Washington. According to Tutu’s horrific and false accusation against the Jewish people, Israel is a sadistically colonialist entity, a blind persecutor of children, and a mad builder of apartheid walls.

Tutu has ideologically built this conceptual mousetrap of “Zionist apartheid," where the Jewish question is the cheese and the victim. The Archbishop perfectly knows that charging Israel with apartheid is simply a blood libel, as Arabs and Jews live and work together in Israel, while sharing all public facilities (hospitals, schools, malls, buses, cinemas, parks.)

He has minimized the suffering of those killed in the Holocaust. He has attacked the “Jewish” – not Israeli – “lobby” as too “powerful” and “scary.” He has invoked classic anti-Semitic stereotypes and tropes about Jewish “arrogance”, “power” and “money.” He has characterized Jews a “peculiar people,” and has accused “the Jews” of causing many of the world’s problems. He once even accused the Jewish state of acting in an “unChristian” way.

He has minimized the suffering of those murdered in the Holocaust by asserting that “the gas chambers” made for “a neater death” than did Apartheid.

He has complained of “the Jewish Monopoly of the Holocaust,” and has demanded that its victims must “forgive the Nazis for the Holocaust,”

He has compared Israel to Hitler’s Germany, Stalin’s Soviet Union and Apartheid South Africa, saying that they too were once “very powerful” but they “bit the dust,” as will “unjust” Israel.

When confronted with his double standard against Jews, he has justified it on phony theological grounds: “Whether Jews like it or not, they are a peculiar people. They can’t ever hope to be judged by the same standards which are used for other people.” There is a name for non-Jews who hold Jews to a double standard: It is called anti-Semitism.

You did say that, in fact you said it twice, in separate posts.

Agree that statement in itself is Islamophobic

Terrorists have been Christian, African , Irish, Etc

@LemonyTicket it is relevant because you and @Trulywonderful made it relevant.

You said:

”Jews have actually never, in their history, showed the slightest fucking interest in exterminating anyone. Largely just in being left the hell alone.”

and @Trulywonderful said that ‘a large number of Palestinians are Nazis’.

I’m afraid if you don’t want to discuss the conflict here you shouldn’t comment on it. If you’re going to make controversial statements regarding the current situation then it is likely you’ll be challenged.

You should also reread your own messages because that is not what you said. What you said was:

“However, calling Jews terrorists is not antisemitic, but is Islamophobic.”

I can’t be expected to read your mind and insert words into your sentences for you.

This is like Fawlty Towers.

There is an official definition of Islamophobia.

Point 2 on it reads:

Making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about Muslims as such, or of Muslims as a collective group, such as, especially but not exclusively, conspiracies about Muslim entryism in politics, government or other societal institutions; the myth of Muslim identity having a unique propensity for terrorism, and claims of a demographic ‘threat’ posed by Muslims or of a ‘Muslim takeover’

Note the underlined.

MUSLIMS, Muslim organisations, scholars, experts and so on have SPECIFICALLY defined calling Muslims terrorists as Islamophobic.

I have explained why.

No one, anywhere, has ever used "terrorist" as an antisemitic trope, canard or Jewish stereotype, therefore the powers that be have not included this on the list of antisemitic statements. Hitler wasn't rounding us up calling us terrorists. That is not a thing.

Therefore, some terms are racist when directed and some groups and not at others.

Like wise if you tell a black person they are controlling a bank, this is not afrophobic.

Can you honestly not understand that different racisms have different harmful stereotypes?

@Trulywonderful It very literally fits the definition. Israelis have segregated and discriminated against Palestinians on the grounds of their race. However you want to explain it away is really irrelevant.

Yep I said that and it doesn't relat all to the other ops post I was stating something you Google research on if you could be asred.

Don't drag me into it

I have reported this thread. You can’t make controversial statements about the current conflict and Palestinians under the guise of the definition of anti-semitism and then complain when challenged on those statements. This isn’t a space for you to say whatever the hell you want unchallenged.

Can you honestly not understand that different racisms have different harmful stereotypes?

Of course I can understand that.

I'm not the one here saying things they don't actually mean, twice, berating others for disagreeing with them, then eventually saying in response that you "obviously" meant something totally different to what you actually said when questioned about it.

Well, for the sake of the overall discourse, let it go now.

Glad you have posted it but going to say I don’t agree with your interpretations of 10 and 11. No country, person, religion or group are above my judgement and it would be anti Semitic (or maybe pro Semitic?) in itself if I applied your interpretation of these rules.

POINT 10
Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor
**
Jews, like everyone else, have a right to self-determination. If you don't make other countries feel ashamed of existing or if you don't make other groups feel ashamed of their national identity; then Jews should be entitled to the same. You are free to have your own opinion on if Israel should be a country or not, and how it should be. You are not free to deny Jews the right to decide that for themselves though.

I don’t know what you mean necessarily by state of Israel. Am I against Israel existing - of course not. Am I against the expansion of Israel and occupation of Palestinian land beyond the UN agreement - yes. That’s nothing to do with Jewish people - that’s a country doing that. I would feel the same way about any other country doing that. And about whether we have the right to deny Israel to decide that for themselves. Well of course we do. In the same we deny Russia trying to take land from Ukraine. Or China from the neighbouring countries they are always eyeing up.

As an aside my own personal view is Jerusalem should be a separate state like the Vatican City. It should not be Israeli or any other countries. It is the birth well of most modern religion and important to everyone world over. I think the whole Palestine / Israel issue will require world over peace brokering involving all other countries as it’s clear both sides are too traumatised to sort this themselves. Never going to happen. When that deal is brokered Jerusalem needs to be removed as separate to both states.

POINT 11
Applying double standards by requiring of Israel a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation
**
Another very common one, where Israel is often held to a very different standard to other countries. An allowance can be made for the fact surrounding countries generally aren't democracies and as such are generally held to a different standard, but you should aim to treat Israel in the same, balanced way that you would treat any other country.

It’s true I have different expectations for different countries. Israel is a modern civilised society and I expect it to behave like one. I expect reason, rational, democratic and good behaviour from their leadership. The same as I expect of all first world countries. Russia and China included. I can express displeasure or outrage when they don’t meet these standards. Like when US banned abortions or when China are incarcerating and killing Ugyhurs. Do I expect Iran to allow gay marriage. Probably not. Would I be outraged if Canada banned gay marriage. Of course!

It’s not at all obvious as I repeated it and you restated it again. You are clearly an articulate person and I would expect you to be more careful with your words.

Arabs are not segregated on the grounds of there race or religion though. 2 million Arab citizens live in Israel as full citizens with full rights. Most of those are Muslim. Is that not the same number of Arabs that live in Gaza?

Whereas Gaza was ethic cleansed of its Jews firstly in 1948 by Egypt and the Arabs now now as Palestinians. Then again in 2005. Today there are zero Jews living in Gaza. This was something the Palestinians leaders instead on in 2005 if they were to agree peace. So the Israeli army had to remove the Jews that had gone to live there or gone back after the Egyptians were gone.

Israeli - 2 million Arabs - 7 million Jews

Gaza - 2 million Arabs - zero Jews

West bank- can't remember of hand how many Jews several thousand? - 5 million Palestinians

The population rate of Arabs has grown at the roughly the same rate as Jews for many years. If that is supposed to be genocide or ethic cleansing Jews are really bad at it!

Segregation as you call it didn't happen over night. It happened because of wars and terrorist attacks on citizens. In 2005 there was no wall. Israel and Egypt didn't put up a blockade. However they did have some border control because Gaza was now not part of either state. Gazens were still able to leave and work in Israel etc. However Hamas started with the bus attacks and stabbings and rockets. Not just at Israel but they pissed off Egypt too on a smaller scale. Therefore in order to save lives the blockade started. You now the one where Egypt hardly ever gets mentioned by people. No Jews you see.

Stop derailing the thread.

@AgingDisgracefullyHere I didn’t have to, the OP and @Trulywonderful have managed that!