To think that antisemitism now needs to be tackled in the strongest possible way?

[LucyWestenra]

The Bondi thread in chat was eye opening.

Forty pages and a lot of it whataboutery, excuses and vile antisemitism.

It’s disgusting.

It needs to be called out. It needs to be rooted out.

I feel so sorry for the Jewish communities everywhere. How can they possibly feel safe?

Looks like a few of us left and came back! X

I'm so glad you all came back.

It can feel lonely sometimes being vocally pro Israel.

Though there are some fantastic fellow pro Israel supporters even on the scary CITME board, generally much better informed than me (but I am only an apprentice 😂)

I like to assume only really really stupid people don’t understand the thousands of years of history of Jewish persecution and the need to endure it doesn’t happen again. Unfortunately it turns out the world is full of really really stupid people who will recite whatever crap people write in the barn wall! Anyone caught denying the Holocaust should be sent to jail imo

Oh I know you're a staunch supporter and poster on CITME x

I think lots of people know about and understand the Holocaust. What fewer people understand is that antisemitism didn't start there, just as much as it didn't end with it - Jews have a lot of reasons to feel unsafe, literally millennia of it. And that's a big gap in understanding.

I am a Jewish critic of Israel and I think Netanyahu's actions are unforgivable. I believe now that the founding of Israel (certainly how it was done) was an utter disaster for the Palestinian people. But the answer to that isn't to, I dunno, disestablish Israel and create a disaster for Israeli Jews instead. The wrongs of Israel's founding is not the fault of every person living there now. So the only way forward has to be a compromise, which the leadership of both sides have made a virtual impossibility.

You know there won't ever be a compromise, surely?

Including here in the UK, where the focus on destroying Israel and Jews has some hardcore adherents, from the bullies who terrorise the streets with slogans and placards, to those sweet-looking OAPs happy to be arrested for Palestine Action (whose co-founder spoke in praise of Hamas in Manchester on 8 October 2023).

This is not "just" a Middle Eastern conflict.

https://www.cps.gov.uk/north-west/news/terrorists-convicted-over-plot-targeting-jewish-communities

Walid Saadaoui planned to smuggle four high-powered military grade AK 47 rifles, two pistols and 900 rounds of ammunition into the UK. He had paid a deposit on the weapons in February 2024. His plan was to use these to carry out an attack on a mass march against Antisemitism in Manchester city centre, and then to move the attack to an area of north Manchester occupied predominantly by the Jewish community.

Thanks to @keepeofthesevenkeys for posting this link on the Bondi thread.

Even after that Manchester case, useful idiots still doubted the threat of Iran AND marched for them, during the nuclear weapons fiasco with Hamas. Dangerous people, all round.

Why are so many pro Palestine activists so hellbent on supporting a terrorist organisation whose members have attacked a Jewish-owned business, damaged RAF planes and allegedly attacked a police officer with a hammer? It's not been proscribed for being pro Gaza, it's been proscribed because of evil shit like this.

Why don't they want to distance themselves from it and support legal, non terrorist organisations in support of Gaza? Why's it got to be this one?

Thank you. Yes, it is difficult, with so many people demanding freedom of speech. Anyone inciting violence must be prosecuted, far as I’m concerned. Of whatever view.

Completely agree. How this stalemate ends, no idea.

Been listening to The Great Mortality on Audible. Jewish people were blamed for bringing about the plague in the 1340s. Many thousands summarily rounded up and publicly executed. Horrific. I didn’t really know much about the history of Jewish people prior to October 7th. Other than what I’d read about The Holocaust. Since then, I’ve looked into it a little more and can completely imagine how Jewish people around the world must be feeling, right now.

I hate Hamas. I hate Netanyahu and some members his cabinet.

Their actions have nothing whatsoever to do with innocents around the world, though.

Yes, hence the last part of that sentence. But Israel never can and never should try to murder or immiserate the Palestinian people out of the region either. A lose-lose situation for everyone.

I don’t think I’m a stupid person. Well aware of The Holocaust, of course. However, as an atheist, I’ve not really had much interest in any religion for most of my life so not looked I to their histories. I probably should.

I don’t know who this person is but why on earth would any platform allow what is clearly hate speech?

Mengele, propaganda? His sick practices were thoroughly documented. How can anyone deny them?

Oh, her!

Why would anyone take someone who is clearly unwell seriously, let alone publish their musings?

Beyond me.

Very true! Honestly, I wouldn't normally care what goes on with social media - it's always been full of lunatics following lunatics. It's really opened my eyes to how many weirdos there must be walking among us!

What makes the terrifying surge in antisemitism different is that (a) it results in such violent destruction (b) seems to be intensifying and (c) appears to be deliberately orchestrated by extremist forces that are not short of a few bob (e.g Qatar funding), to achieve goals that are clearly stated yet tend to be overlooked and underestimated.

I realise that (c) makes me sound like a conspiracy theorist, but I'm just following the evidence of my own eyes over the past 2 years. The sadistic attacks of 7/10 were horrific enough, but seem to have been designed to capture the public attention ready for a sustained global "PR" attack on Israel and Jewish people around the world. And it is rapidly gaining impetus.

Really appreciate your insight.

No, I don’t think you do sound like a conspiracy theorist: I think I have a pretty good antenna for them 😁

The stats speak for themselves, gobsmacking rise in hate crimes against Jewish people since the attacks on 7th October. I honestly had no idea until quite recently because it’s not widely reported.

I have absolute sympathy for innocent victims in Gaza, what that nasty bastard in the Knesset (spelling?) is doing to save himself from prison is sickening, but that terrible situation clearly has nothing to do with British, or any other nationality, Jewish people. They should not be fearful going about their lives.

I’ve found threads such as this very informative. Still absolutely no idea what the solution is, though.

That said, The government of Israel is doing itself no favours by allowing 19 further illegal settlements. Those fruitcakes are as insane as Hamas.

How on earth will this ever end with both “sides” so entrenched? It’s desperate.

Nobody is as insane as Hamas and their ilk..

I’ll have to agree to disagree with you. Some of the interviews with settlers are equally chilling. Just as Hamas want to wipe Jewish people and the nation of Israel off the face of the earth, some settlers have the same ambition in respect of Palestinian people.

Both groups are insane, in my opinion.

I agree that both groups are insane. I suppose the difference is that the settlers don't have the whole world dancing to their tune; people outside Israel, and many inside Israel, view them with contempt. (I'm not sure what's going on there: maybe a sort of flex to restore a sense of having the upper hand after the gut-churning terrors of 7/10?)

Unfortunately, you can't say the same about the genocidal hatred of Israel (and by extension the Jewish people), which has gained high fashion status in the Western world and is regarded as "being on the right side of history."

Whilst the flex idea is a sound one, psychologically, that it was happening long before 7th October would suggest to me that there is far more to it than that.

I can’t argue with your second point at all.

But hasn't there been a sharp rise in settler violence since 7/10? The Israeli government seems deeply divided by all kinds of schisms, and (god knows I'm probably talking out of my arse - I don't understand politics at the best of times, and to say that Middle Eastern politics are complicated is an understatement!) it may be that certain bonkers elements of the government want to keep certain bonkers elements of the population happy in the hope of being re-elected.

But even in the wake of 7/10, the IDF, the Israeli Security Agency and police chiefs were condemning settler attacks as "Jewish terrorism" - and that's at a time when it would have been tempting to look the other way.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-shin-bet-and-police-heads-slam-settler-attacks-as-terror-vow-to-fight-them/?utm_source=copilot.com

It will be interesting to see what happens when there is a national election there next October. I certainly wouldn't fancy being responsible for trying to make sense of it all and forge a path towards a lasting peace, surrounded as Israel is by wealthy countries that want no such thing.

I do think there is a tendency for Western media/social media to focus on the extreme elements of the Israeli government as though they are the ones in charge. If they were, I think the recent conflict would have resulted in a lot more than 3% of the Gazan population being killed. It has become widely accepted that Israel is run by genocidal maniacs with all the might of the Western world behind them. This distortion feeds into the dangerous levels of antisemitism we are now enduring. I wish there was a bit reset button to press, to restore clarity and balance.