To think Jewish people are the scapegoats of humanity?

[FactsNotFictionOnly]

I have not posted on the CITME board as although the current conflict is relevant, that is not the main point of this thread.

I do not mean to cause any offence to Jewish people. In fact the opposite.

IF THIS POST IS DELETED BECAUSE IT OFFENDS NON JEWISH PEOPLE, THEN PLEASE RESPOND WITH WHY YOU FIND IT OFFENSIVE BEFORE REPORTING.

I am an atheist and think all religion should be consigned to history books so have no affiliation with any faith but I found the reaction to Oct 7th shocking with almost immediate protests against Israel (the victim) in favour of the ‘freedom fighters’ (the agressors). The denials that atrocities happened, the antisemitism, horrifying comments on SM which are still allowed to stand to this day.

Never before in my life (and I’m getting on a bit) have I seen that reaction of hatred to any country that has been the victim of any kind of terrorist attack or act of war anywhere in the world. Never before have I been aware of the kind of atrocities committed in Israel on such a large scale by a neighbouring country, filmed by the perpetrators, either.

I had heard comments made about ‘the Jews’ at various stages in my life, how they run the world, the banks, the media etc but never really thought much about it or believed it.

I noticed an absolutely blatant lie that popped up on SM yesterday with thousands of comments agreeing with the poster so I responded (never normally do) saying so with evidence and the abuse I got was unbelievable.

That made me do a bit more research on the persecution of Jewish people through history and I was pretty shocked that they were blamed for the death of Jesus, murdering Christian children as sacrifices to be baked into flatbreads, the Black Death, World War 1, 9/11, Covid. All totally false and a lot of the time because it was a way of debtors not paying money they owed to the Jewish people who were the world’s money lenders as it was prohibited in Christianity and Islam and Jewish people were prohibited from other work.

Each time they were blamed for something whole communities were burned to death or had to flee. They were banished from England in the 12th century as well as lots of other European countries. Now I understand why there is so much hatred from the UK and Europeans as these ‘legends’ persist.

Of course in the Middle East from 586 BC they were persecuted where they were killed, forced to convert to Christianity (or pretend to to stay alive) before Islam took over, treated as 2nd class citizens, subject to high taxes and strict rules, regular pogroms and were also forced to leave their homes in their hundreds of thousands.

This was all before a return to Israel was even a thing so there was no ‘Zionism’ then which is currently the excuse for the widespread hatred of Jewish people.

Even before this current conflict there seems to have been a deliberate misunderstanding of the situation in the Middle East with a lot of relevant history missed out out.

Such as the Ottoman Empire ruled the area directly before the Mandate of Palestine and they referred to it as Southern Syria. There were no Palestinians only Arabs. Why didn’t they ‘freedom fight’ the Ottomans for their own State as surely they were occupied under the Ottomans too if they believe the land is all theirs?

I have never seen references to Palestinians being ‘occupied’ by the British either. Weird as they believe the land is theirs and always was theirs - from the River to the Sea.

Why do a lot of people ignore the constant terrorist attacks as the reason why not only Israel, but Egypt too, had to blockade Gaza after a terrorist group with a known mandate to annihilate Israel and kill Jews was elected to govern it by it’s citizens?

Why are people not understanding that this war is not a ‘normal’ war with normal rules of engagement between two uniformed military forces where civilians are afforded protection by their government, military hardware, munitions and bases are placed outside of civilian areas and civilians including children are not involved in military action by firing rockets, RPGs, shootings, stabbings, throwing IEDs, holding hostages in their homes and taking part in barbaric murders, rapes, burning people including children alive and taking hostages?

It is absolutely horrific that civilians have been killed in such a high number or at all but a lot of the deaths can be explained as above and are all due to the war Hamas started.

Why are Hamas not being publicly pressured by Palestinian protestors to give themselves up?

The only (and tiny) Jewish State in the world is now even being persecuted for defending itself against massive neighbouring states who want to wipe it out.

Has there ever been such a forensic examination of any other war while in progress as in this one?

The propaganda and false information circulating before and during this conflict has made it all too clear to see how the Holocaust happened and it’s terrifying to see. I used to watch films on the subject and wonder how could so many people have stood by and let it happen. Now we can all see how.

How can a tiny race of 1% of the population who have achieved more than any other race alive today, be so hated.

Is it jealousy of their success or the hundreds of years of lies that have been brainwashed down generations?

AIBU?

https://www.historytoday.com/archive/why-were-jews-persecuted

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Jews

Society creates many scapegoats. Jews, Muslims, Catholics, immigrants and their descendants etc.

I get that atm it feels personal to you @FactsNotFictionOnly, but it's not. Millions of people all over the world, millions of your own country women are being targeted and scapegoated by those more powerful than them.

I am sickened that in 2024 this shit is still happening and on the rise. No one in the UK should be living with this fear.

What really opened my eyes, as a naive Christian background person, to resurging antisemitism was the lack of condemnation by many VAWG in the UK when the 7 October terrorist attacks happened, and the attitudes seen on this thread. There weren't massive marches about the hostages or to condemn the terrorist attacks. Only when Israel defended itself, then suddenly there were massive marches (against Israel).

Then I noticed that British Jews were experiencing online and IRL abuse "because of Israel". Whatever the rights and wrongs of the conflict there, what's that got to do with British Jews? I feel a bit ashamed as I was until recently lacking any understanding of antisemitism and didn't realise Jewish people in the UK still faced so much of it.

DH found a podcast from the son of one of the Hamas founders. He's quite extreme in his views but still it was a very interesting listen from the perspective of a former Hamas insider.

@FactsNotFictionOnly , my heart broke reading your (not a question) plea. My observation is that Mumsnet is very left wing and as such I don’t expect much sympathy for you. The left is often horrifically and institutionally antisemitic.
Stammer advocated for a filthy human who called the antisemitic terrorists of Hamas his friends. 🤷‍♀️
There’s always jealousy from the left of people who work hard, make sacrifices, take risks and do well. The minute you’ve got some wealth, the left want to take it from you to give to the feckless and workshy. However the left particularly demonise Jewish people. They disgust me.

This.

Pogroms in the Russian Empire - Wikipedia

YANBU @FactsNotFictionOnly

And the overwhelming majority of Jews, especially Jews outside of Israel, are totally powerless about what the Israeli government does about Gaza.

But Jews are being held to account for the actions of the Israeli government in a way that no other group on earth is. And holding of Jews to a different standard than any other group, IS what shows it up as antisemitism.

YANBU OP. The behaviour of people over the part 8 mi this has been disgusting

And I see it didn't take long g for the "what about" mob to appear

I would say that the biggest scapegoats are children, they have no choice in what happens to them adults do

They're just the same as the 'All Lives Matter' right wingers. Absolutely no fucking difference. Just as racist but think their left wing credentials give them a free pass.

It was the left who marched against Oswald Mosely and highlighted the plight of the Jewish people under Hitler. The left wanted talks to stop the Palestinian people being pushed of their land by Israeli settlers. That is not the same as hating all Jews.

It’s OP who has repeatedly reference Israel and Palestine in her post. Of course people are going to challenge the erasure of Palestinians when she says things like ‘there were no Palestinians only Arabs’.

I agree that Jews should not be held to account for the actions of the Israeli government.

But equally you can’t expect people to not challenge Israel on that basis.

OP, you are not being unreasonable but as you can see the thread has already been derailed. And already the blood libels have started about how "Israelis celebrate the death of Palestinians".

There is no point debating it, because people won't listen, they have already gathered for the virtual lynching.

I will say that 20 years ago I didn't think that antisemitism could be a thing in the UK in the 21st century. What has happened on and since October 7th has shaken me to my core. It's like the 1930's but started willingly by civilians, not the government.

@jerkorperk Those poor children!

Jews are being held to account for the actions of the Israeli government in a way that no other group on earth is. And holding of Jews to a different standard than any other group, IS what shows it up as antisemitism

Well said @Towerofsong@Towerofsong
And sadly so quickly demonstrated on this forum.

Excellent post. I throughly agree. All Jewish people are being held to account for the actions of the Israeli authorities. This is completely wrong.

We should also be free to criticise the actions of the Israeli authorities without any accusations of antisemitism.

I don’t agree with hijacking videos and sound biting them with pithy phrases, but equating Heil Hitler with Free Palestine is really cynical and manipulative.

Hi OP,

First up I’m a gentile, not a Jew.

I’m reasonably well read on the topic of the Middle East (my father and brother are both historians and it’s kind of my father’s area of research, even my brother is named after TE Lawrence)…and I have to say your analysis is, for me, pretty spot on.

Its disturbing to say the least, seeing westerners on the streets of London, Berlin, New York etc. marching and shouting genocidal slogans and carrying signs advocating for the destruction for the democratic nation of Israel, while at the same time knowing next to nothing about the history or the current situation. Some of them even have no idea that Oct 7th ever took place. It’s unbelievable.

If you were being generous you could say that it’s touching to see so many people being moved by the plight of Palestinians. And yet, if you ask any one of them to provide a bit of basic information on when and how British Palestine was partitioned, they wouldn’t have a clue. If you asked them when Israel was founded, they wouldn’t have a clue. If you asked them how and why many Jewish settlers ended up there in the first place, they wouldn’t have a clue. And if you asked them, what are the basic facts surrounding the major wars fought since 1948, again, they wouldn’t have clue.

But to have a credible opinion on today’s awful situation, you actually do need to have this knowledge at base level.

I have and always will support the right of the Palestinians to a state of their own - I really, really do with all my heart. And most importantly I believe in the right of Palestinian children to a future of dignity and hope. Propping up HAMAS will achieve neither of these things. And neither will this unrelenting and untruthful assault against Israel in the media and on social media.

There are countries across the world with much, much worse human rights abuses than Israel, but in a world awash with human rights abuses, zoning in on only one nation - and that, the only effective democracy in the Middle East - doesn’t actually give the impression that these “activists” are for human rights in any way shape or form. It just makes them look like they’re aiding and abetting a campaign against Israel’s very right to be.

For the past 8 plus months, I (just like you and many others I would imagine) have watched the world ignore, deny or justify Jewish pain. Jews have been demonized and ostracized in every corner - from the streets of capitals and lecture halls of campuses to the chambers of elite institutions. Plenty of Jewish people, Israelis, and zionists loathe the current Israeli government, and are even critical or opposed to various aspects of this war (myself included).

BUT, no other people or country is treated this way - turned into a monolithic symbol of all that is evil. The crime Jewish people are guilty of is simply existing - and not as helpless victims, but as agents in charge of their own destiny. Yes they fight back when they are mercilessly and relentlessly attacked militarily and politically, and anyone against them doing this should have long hard look at themselves in the mirror, IMHO. Because it is pure antisemitism and bigotry that is driving their condemnation of Israel.

I was aghast when I saw “pro-Palestine” protestors waving flags belonging to terror groups and chanting slogans championing attacks on Israeli civilians…outside an exhibit memorialising the Nova music festival massacre this week. It was in New York. Who the fuck does that! It’s like on Oct 9th when a protest gathered outside the Israeli embassy in London and participants screamed the genocidal slogans “From the river to the sea etc.” and similar (I saw the video of this, it was really aggressive and intimidating). They did this far in advance of Israel’s response, it’s like they just gathered to luxuriate in the slaughter and suffering of the Israeli people in their darkest day since the holocaust. It’s like the people who participate in these types of protests can’t see how disgusting, disturbing and vile their actions look to normal, decent people who are observing all these protests from afar.

I just wished these people understood the history a bit better (ok, a lot better). I wish they would reach for a history book or two, not TikTok accounts that spew out ahistorical nonsense. They seem to be under the delusion that the Arabs of Palestine have been in that region for millennia. Not true. (By the way, I say Arabs of Palestine, because the term “Palestinian” didn’t actually exist before the 1960s). At the end of the day Palestinians are Arabs - there is no such thing as a separate Palestinian people. The Gazans are mainly Egyptian (their surnames bear this out). The Israeli Arabs that decided to stay after 1947 had most likely lived on the land for centuries. And the ones who now live under Palestinian Authority rule in the West Bank are made up of peoples who came to the land from all over the Ottoman Empire. Again, you can tell by the surnames. You can also tell by studying Ottoman and British Mandate census accounts and records. It’s all verifiable.

And here’s the thing, because the British Mandate was so well run and there was a good chance a person could get employment, there was lots of legal and illegal immigration from Syria, Lebanon and Egypt. Under the Ottomans, the population of Palestine generally was small. Jerusalem, for obvious reasons was an exception. Palestine as a nation and ‘population’ is relatively recent construct. They are Arabs.

In contrast to this, the connection between the Jewish people and Israel goes back long before the birth of either Christianity or Islam. Jews created a society there in the days of Joshua, a kingdom in the days of Saul, and a nation with Jerusalem as its capital in the days of King David - more than 3,000 years ago.

Jews are the only people who ever created a nation state there. At all other times in the past 3,000 years it was merely an administrative district in an empire whose centre was elsewhere: the Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, Alexandrian, Roman and Byzantine empires, the Crusaders of the Holy Roman Empire, the various Muslim empires such as the Umayyads, Abbasids, Fatimids, Mamluks and Ottomans, and finally the British. Jews are the only people who have maintained a continuous presence in the land. They are its indigenous, original inhabitants.

Sorry this is a bit long now, I didn’t mean for that to happen. All I really wanted to say is: Israel is being attacked twice, not just by Hamas and other terrorist murderers but by a sea of propaganda that spreads lies about the world's only Jewish state. It is infiltrating individuals and institutions, subverting the truth and turning people against the victim (Israel) in a perverse counter-narrative to what is really happening.
Israel is defending itself and doing more than most in protecting civilians. Hamas puts them in harm's way. But this reality is subverted as cause and effect is turned on its head. The roots of this dangerous propaganda campaign comes down to an age-old hate of Jewish people…so you are definitely, definitely not being unreasonable!

This. Not Jewish, completely agree.

When "free Palestine" is used in that particular context I would say it is.

Wow. OP makes an intelligent post about antisemitism and scapegoating of Jews and you mention Palestinians. Whatever your views on the current conflict "the Jews" are not responsible for what's happening in Gaza. The Israeli government's actions are not actions of all Jews.
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OP’s post talks about Palestinians and that they never existed, I didn’t mention Palestine out of a vacuum.

No one has said Jews are responsible, you’re arguing a straw man.

Of course it is. It's all about intention.

Some people minimise and excuse antisemitism like it's a sport.

I think Netanyahu proclaiming ‘from the river to the sea’ is worse than Free Palestine.