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

The history of antisemitism is awful but trying to say one group suffered more than every one else is, frankly, just exceptionalism. There is nothing to be achieved by competitive suffering. The history of women, gays, black people, the poor and so many others are all horrific - why would you want to rank that suffering?

The only answer to human rights abuses is a common defence of human rights for everyone.

My surname could be mistaken for a Jewish surname. My youngest has been subject to antisemitic comments at school since October. School have had to step in. Never before has this happened, we are concerned for him, and worried this will spiral. He wants to change his surname.

Of course there is always whataboutery and we absolutely are horrified by the multi generational genocide and hatred between humans. Stop killing each other.

Jo Cox - We have more in common than that which divides us

Well no, you've just decided that historical antisemitism is the reason that some plights are deemed important.

And you seem to be basing that on a random survey which I don't believe reflects Irish people at all.

You know yourself that there can be a lot of conflicts going on in the world at any given time but only one or two might grab a lot of attention and the others are largely ignored. So you already know that that is a phenomenon that happens, so why if it's to do with Israel does that mean it has to be antisemitism?

@FactsNotFictionOnly

Can you think of any other groups targeted like that and for that long? To a group that still exists?

Possibly disabled people? Although I don't know if that varied over centuries and/or whether some cultures or nations at various points in history had better attitudes than others.

That's another area of history I'm interested in finding out more about actually.

Thank you for replying @DayIntarnishedarmour
It just occurred to me that saying 'Jews' instead of 'Jewish people' could be seen as similarly offensive as saying 'blacks' instead of 'black people'.

I think the global hatred of Muslims is comparable @FactsNotFictionOnly.

They have been burnt and driven out of Myanmar.
They are being massacred in India.
They are strictly controlled and detained in concentration camps in China where they are forced to work.
They are being massacred in Gaza, Yemen etc while the international community facilitates their oppression.
When Islamic terrorists attack, violence against Muslims increases. Similarly when Israeli government violence increases, violence against Jewish communities increases.

Being one of society's scapegoats is dangerous.

Yes, there was. It's just so insane to me. Before any response had even been indicated, random Jews who had zero to do with the country of Israel were being targeted. It can only be antisemitism because otherwise it makes no sense.

Jewish people were persecuted long before the Islamic religion was created in 610AD @TooBigForMyBoots. About 1200 years before actually.

That was kind of my point actually. That they have been persecuted for 1000s of years and still are.

I used to be glued to the news all the time more than most people following conflicts and disasters and all bad news stories etc. and it negatively impacted my life and my general mindset about how hopeless the world is.

Having dealt with very poor mental health I now choose to not follow much of what is going on in the world so save your superior, patronizing bullshit.

That certainly doesn't mean that I don't condemn the actions of other groups who are persecuting people. I just don't follow what is going on anymore.

There's definitely been awful racism towards black people and Africans too, but does it go back as far in history as the racism towards Jewish people? I don't know. Maybe someone else does?

Obviously it's not a competition and all racism is shameful. But OP's posts are asking if there's any other group that's faced it for so long through history. I don't know? (I think possibly disabled people).

When I was reading about the Eastern Orthodox Church, I found the history of Ethiopian Christians interesting. One of the oldest Christian groups in the world, maybe the oldest?

Anyway when reading about that it reminded me about Ethiopian Jewish people. They're not the only Jewish people who are black. I think there used to be a UK MP who was black and Jewish (and a woman). Can't remember her name.

As a Jewish person, I'd like to say that I agree with you. This is not about Judaism but about colonialism and the broader plan to silence and destroy the Palestinians. We are witnessing a genocide and a war which is (and always has been) incredibly one-sided. An apartheid state like Israel, (as defined by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and B'tselem (an Israeli independent organisation)), cannot expect that an oppressed people will not fight back after years of siege. There is no excuse for using any of this as an excuse for antisemitism or racism but I'd advise other Jewish sisters to please stop conflating a beautiful religion with war crimes by blindly supporting Israel and its atrocities.

Stop killing people. Talk.

And I want war to stop because it seriously harms animals. I don't care about the humans, who just seem to want to fight and argue forever.

Also is no one going to call out that the propaganda in this post:

"Eyes gouged out, breasts sliced off, beheadings, families tied together with wire and burned alive, the most insanely violent gang rapes (where the victims were cruelly taunted by the perpetrators), infanticide, human trophies (dead bodies) driven around the streets of Gaza for civilians to stamp and spit on…let me guess, you’re not across the details of this atrocity either right?"

Most of these stories were largely disproven. I'm
also not sure why this is relevant. Nor does a rundown of other horrible wars in anyway undermine the 40,000 innocent Palestinian lives lost because it's currently a smaller number.

Jews do not deserve to experience racism. Criticism of Israel's genocide should not be met with oneupmanship using an insane dramatisation of news that didn't happen.

Just as - Palestinians do not deserve to live under apartheid or through genocide and criticism of Hamas's attack does not need to be followed with a run down of all the atrocities against Palestinian children.

Basically, stop conflating Judaism with Israeli war crimes and at least then true antisemites will be exposed for what they really are.

I watched a documentary about the Nuremberg trials the other day - it was actual footage from the trials.

I’m not Jewish. I’m barely anything, tbh.

You know, as the daughter of a WWII soldier who has studied history and thought she knew just about everything there was to know about those atrocities and about Nuremberg, there was so much I didn’t know. And what I learned was horrifying. Sickening.

I may be in my 60s, but I just can’t comprehend how killing innocent people accomplishes anything.

Old men make war, young men die fighting it.
And millions of innocents get in their way.

It’s theater of the absurd.

Are you saying they are scapegoated more because they've been in existence for longer?

Many groups that were targeted, marginalised and and scapegoated in the past no longer exist.

Well I also think that ordinary Chinese people who are ruled by a communist, authoritarian and brutal regime don't have the same choice over their rulers and the policies they pursue as a democracy which holds regular elections. So not even plausible whataboutery

YANBU, OP.

I grew up outside of New York City. The only place in the world with a larger population of Jewish people is Israel. So I wondered how many Jewish people live in Ireland? Google says about 2,500. I suppose if you don't know any Jewish people it's easy to other them. If they're your friends and neighbors and coworkers and husbands and wives, you'll feel sympathetic and and protective.

The YABU people seem to be hand waving the antisemitism in the past away because they believe this time the Jews deserve it.

I find you extremely interesting @Help23.

Have you been to Israel yourself?

Where is the lack of condemnation? I find such claims astonishing. The Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition and a whole variety of other officials condemned Oct 7th. Prince William expressed sympathy for both Israeli and Palestinean civilians caught up in it, even though the Royal Family don't even get involved in these matters typically.

Compare that to the UK and US reaction to an actual genocide in Rwanda, where they pretended at the time in 1994 it wasn't, so that they didn't have to intervene or take refugees in. They then apologised many years after the event and said oh yes it was a genocide after all. Investigative journalism showed that the US and UK knew all along but deliberately misled for the reasons I've already stated.

There is no issue with Jewish people, they're not a group that people speak badly about or criticize because we don't have reason to. They're not on peoples radar to criticize because we really have no issue with them. There's no 'othering' going on that's any different than how we feel about other groups who we don't really come into contact with.

As I said as an Irish person I always would have been aware of the plight of Palestinians, the only Jewish person I knew served in the Israel defense forces! I didn't have an issue with him either, he was always nice to me.

Once again, people condemning the Israeli government are not condemning Jewish people.

When were those atrocities ever disproven? There are videos available on Hamas.com taken by Palestinians themselves of some of them
including the beheading of a Thai man, who went to Israel to learn about farming, with a garden hoe. Everyone who thinks Hamas did not commit these atrocities needs to see the pure horror of these videos and be traumatised for days like I was before making comments like yours.

What do you think happened to Shani Louk before her NAKED dead body with an obviously twisted leg was spat at by civilians in Gaza while being paraded with men sitting with feet over her on the back of a truck?

Do you call that fighting back - a 22 year old young woman?

The young girl with blood all over the back of her trousers and slashed ankles?

How can you say these atrocities are not relevant to the action Israel has taken? They are the very reason for what’s going on in Gaza.

Are you an anti Zionist Jewish person can I ask?

Kind of seems like to me like chickens being for KFC as an observer? I don’t get it.

As a Jewish woman I can assure you are incorrect when you say., Jewish people have not been spoken badly about, criticised because people don’t nave reason to and are not on peoples radar to criticise because we have no reason to is 100% not the experience of my family or friends. How can you possibly say this? It is utter nonsense.

@kkloo

Well no, you've just decided that historical antisemitism is the reason that some plights are deemed important.

"The" reason is far too strong and is not my claim.

There's a lot more to be said about how antisemitism may have shaped Ireland's political consciousness and actions in the 20th century. But I didn't want to go too hard on that point, because I think a lot of countries have a lot to be ashamed of and it's not a competition.

I'm discussing my experiences as an Irish (non Jewish) person. Israel is often criticized but Jewish people are not.

What did the British Government do when Terry Waite or John McCarthy were kidnapped in Lebanon or Rachel and Paul Chandler were kidnapped by Somali pirates? There seem to be a number of unsubstantiated claims on this thread that people don't know the history, or don't like Jews, or that they are held to a different standard. It is not the case.

It is perfectly possible that people can hold a different opinion from Israel and its supporters and so make legitimate criticisms, which as a democracy Israel should be able to take. This is just part of free speech.

This