Will antisemitism ever be looked at and dealt with in the same way as Islamophobia is?

[LucyWestenra]

AIBU for thinking it won’t? Because it doesn’t seem to be the case in this country or my home country (Germany).

(I just googled because it didn’t seem right to have antisemitism in lower capitals, but apparently that is correct, as I thought)

Much love to the Jewish community, wherever they are.

❤️

I think we have to agree to disagree on this.

There are clear examples here of people who claim to know but then show that they don't know/understand the basics like Jews are not only a religious group but also an ethnicity. There are many ethnical Jews that are not practising but still believe that Jews need a country where they are safe (UK is certainly not a safe country for Jews). Then the whole ignorance (but trying to be "smart") around that there are more semites than Jews or that some Jews come from Eastern Europe - just wow! You can't change the meaning of a word just because it suits your (racist) agenda. Antisemitism is Jew hatred. It is like "discussing" with MAGA "pro-lifers", who claim that abortion is murder, when murder has a legal definition. Same kind of exhausting ignorance.

Lastly, I find it mind-boggling how the same person can distinguish Trump from the US and ordinary Americans, but then spew hate over Israel because of Netanyahu and think that antisemitism towards British Jews is understandable (without the explanation of racism).

After years of campaigning against racism, I've stopped when I now can see that it is not real for many. I will just focus on trying to be a good person in my everyday life.

First it doesn't really matter if anyone thinks Israel should exist. It does, that's just a fact. I always find it weird the whole discussion about a country's right to exist. Countries don't have rights, they exist because they do and Israel is most certainly a fully functioning nation state.

And Jews are an ethnic group, a people, it's far far more than religion. Fact is that Dreyfus was a secular French Jewish officer, he wasn't religious and it didn't matter. And the Nazis certanly didn't check if someone kept kosher before murdering them. However, your belief that Jews should have a country in their ancestral homeland does actually make you a zionist, by definition.

The Palestinians really aren't distinct from Jordanians. Most Jordanians are acutally Palestinian. And what became Jordan was part of the British mandate for Palestine in 1917, the Brits set up the Kingdom of Jordan. In fact, it's the Jordanian waqf which is responsible for management of haram al sharif compound. But, that said, the Palestinians do have a strong national identity which is distinct from that of Jordan and I can respect that even if they are indistinguishable in every other way.

Zionism is a poltical and cultural movement. Like any movement, it has its extreme and factions. The zionism you are thinking of is the most extreme and religion stream of zionism, one that doesn't represent most zionists. There are far more liberal strands of zionism. For example, you can read here about the ideology and platform of the "Meretz" political party - a zionist party but one which seems aligned with your own views and opinions as, indeed, are many Israelis. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meretz#Ideology

huh? Are you saying the Palestinian Arabs are ancient Philistines? WTF?

But to your question, civil war usually leads to displacement, sad but ture.

Many of the Palestinian Arabs fled out of fear, others were itnetionally dsplaced. However, every single piece of territory held by Arabs were also ethnically cleaned from jews like the old city of Jerusalen and the Etzion block. So it happened on both sides and one side just happened to win. BTW, many Arabs didn't flee and remained and now form 20% of the population of the State of Israel with Israeli citizenship.Why weren't they all cleansed the way the Arabs did to the Jews? Why were all Jews massacred or displaced in the territories of held by Arabs?

One could ask why were the refugees in the neighbouring Arab countries not assimilated the way that all otehr refugees int he world from the 1940s have been? Why keep them as refugees? Why do Palestinians have a unique status which means their refugee status never ends as opposed to every other refugee int he world?

Furthermore, let's take a comparative look as well.

Why were tens of millions of people displaced when India was partitioned into India and Pakistan?

Why were millions of ethnic Germans displaced from eastern Europe when they lost WW2?

Why were millions of ethnic Greeks, Turks and Armenains displaced during and following WW1?

It’s actually quite funny that you say my post contains lies and then go straight to repeating the same misreading of what I actually said that I have already had to re explain to another poster:

I never said Palestine didn’t exist as a region, I said it was never a country. And yes I know there can be nations or ethnicities etc without a country - like the Kurds or the Yazidis - I mean I’m not stupid - but the region called Palestine did not contain any such corresponding “nation” historically. That’s why old newspapers refer to Jews as Palestinians while their opponents are called Arabs. How could that happen if the Palestinians were an ancient people different from the Jordanians and Syrians etc?

The rest of your post is similarly misrepresentative and I don’t have time to go through it all just now. But it’s either wrong or misrepresents what I said and quite often both.

You seem quite confused and conflating different things. No, Arabs didn't identify as Palestinians before 1948, the Jews did! Of course there was a region called Palestine, it was called this since Roman times after they expelled all the Jews as a punihsment for them to call them after their ancient and despised enemies the Philistines, but absolutely no national identity. Only Jews living in mandatory Palestine called themselves and identifed as palestinan. Fact.

When the Brits left on 15 May 1948, on that very day, the Palestinian zionists declared the State of Israel in place of the colonial mandate of Palestine. You know who didn't declare a state of Palestine? The Palestinian Arabs. Why? Please do tell us. Why did then 5 surrounding Arab countries INVADE the new state of Israel? Also, antoehr question. The Arabs held the Gaza Strip and West Bank from 1948-1967. Why was no State of Palestine established there? Why did Jordan annex the West Bank (including the old city of Jerusalem and they forbade Jews - not Israeli Jews but all Jews - from accessing their most holy sites) and why was that ok?

Let's not pretentd Israel doesn't have its sights on South Lebanon? Like seriously? What social media dirge have you been consuming! Israel has zero claims on South Lebanon and never has. Even all the years when Israel got itself involved in the Lebanese civil war and kept a security buffer in south Lebanon, it never made any claims of soverignty. Israel withdrew from every last inch of Lebanon in 2006 as certified by the UN. What did they get in return? Hezbollah inserting itself and preparing to attack Israel at the behst of Iran as indeed has happened. Just like what Israel got in return from withdrawing from Gaza. What lessons do you think Israel is learning from this? That withdrawing from territory leads to peace or to further attacks?

Why did Israel return Sinai? What did it get in return?
Israel also offered nearly all of the WB wth land swaps for the reamining small percentage, all of Gaza, land corrdidor linking the two and a Palestinian State in return for a recognition of an end to the conflict. This happened under Barak at Camp David, theis happened under Olmert at Annapolist. Both times the Palestinians refused to sign. They didn't want to give up the right of return to Israel, they didn't want civil war with their extremist elements.

I mean, FFS, you can't pin this all on Israel. yes, israel has made mistakes especially with the settlements in land which is under military occupation for palestinians. Yes, the compromises of a peace deal would have a biitter pill for Israelis to swallow and not all supported. yes, Israel has definitely moved to the right over the last couple of decades and is becoming less and less democratic. But there's also a reason for it. And you can't ignore the fact taht the Palestinians did not want a two state and do not want peace with Israel. Hamas was blowing up buses in the 90s in order to prevent a peace deal. The reason this is such a difficult conflict is precisely because there is fault on BOTH sides.

You really need to educate yourself on the history and poltiics of the region.

Tell that to Gazans, Iranians and Lebanese?

Thanks for doing what I couldn’t quite face and unpicking what was untrue in the remainder of that post!

Countries don't just exist, they are usually formed along political lines,which can change over time. Of course states like Israel are hugely controversial, it has been built upon and thrived only because of systemic oppression. You find it odd that people are bothered by that? And for the love of God, please stop trying to minimise the right for Palestinians to even have an identity. It's truly awful, but made so much worse when it's juxtaposed with how Jews aren't just a religion but an ethnicity too. It just reeks of a portrayed superiority.

I'malso anti apartheid and colonialism. Lucky that they have absolutely nothing to do with Israel where about half the doctors and probably all the pharmacists are Arab and an Arab judge jailed a Jewish ex-president.

hey, you know which country doesn't allow Palestinians to vote, work in certain occupations or own land? Lebanon! So if you're anti apartheid, I hope you're doing something about that.

And those Israeli Arabs do not have equal rights enshrined in law, which is what makes it apartheid. I'm glad you brought that up.
The Lebanon voting analogy is very off. You cannot vote in probably the vast majority of countries in the world if you are not a citizen, including the UK. That is not apartheid, it's rules of citizenship. Israel is apartheid and doesn't shy away from this as it is an ethnocentric state, with Jews having full rights, regardless as to whether they have been there generations or just arrived yesterday. Arab Israelis do not have full rights, despite the vehement claims.

That makes absolutely no sense. The State of Israel was declared by Palestinian Zionists on the day the Brits unilaterally left and had to fight for its very existence, first in a civil war and then invaded by all neighbouring arab countries and then some. Nothing to do with "systemic oppression' 😂. Why was no State of Palestine declared on the same day? They could have just as easily....Or in the many years that followed.

Anyway, if you're bothered by Israel being founded, your mind will be blown away by Pakistan! Why doesn't we question Pakistan's right to exist?

Ohhh and sneaky editing to add in little snide comments about superiority because Jews are a people and not just religion. Too bad, that's jsut reality. You're bothered about whether Palestinian national identiy is recognized but somehow think you can determine for Jews what their national identity is 😀

Yes it’s odd because the same people don’t seem to have similar qualms about the continued existence of North Korea (which is definitely not an ethnicity and which treats its unwilling citizens horribly) or even Spain (remember when the elected leader of Catalonia was arrested for holding an independence referendum? Surely that should call the continued existence of Spain into question if the Catalans don’t want to be part of it?)

And why don’t the Kurds get a state? Don’t they deserve one? Their nationhood is far older and more affirmed than the Palestinian-Arab one which is basically a mid 20th century creation.

Why is there so little western interest in the fact that a democratic but unrecognised country Somaliland exists next door to the failed state of Somalia which it has seceded from? The refusal of western states to recognise Somaliland is keeping it in poverty but nobody seems to care much.

The only country whose existence, or not, causes any soul searching by westerners is Israel.

Yeah, they do actually. Glad you mentioned it.
Better than, say, the discriminatory laws in Malaysia or in Lebanon. If Israel is aparthied then they are apartheid ++

Why do you keep shying away from facts and try to deflect by bringing in other countries?

You are correct - the previous poster assumed that you would know there is a difference, although the rise in antisemitic incidences suggests people don’t acknowledge or understand that.

Mine is not the disingenuousness here.

Israeli people = people who live in Israel and have that nationality. These can be any religion - around 18% are Muslim, although the majority are indeed Jewish.

Jewish people = people who are ethnically Jewish. They may also practice the Jewish religion, but this is a choice, as ethnicity is not.

Nobody is ‘getting a pass’ but all Israelis are not Jewish - and somebody Jewish from the UK is not an Israeli citizen.

Not bothering to understand these differences leads to both racist and religiously intolerant beliefs, like that Jewish citizens of the UK are responsible for the actions of a different country’s army.

Yeah, but really who cares? Israel exists and does all the things a country needs to do for its citizens.

Really, they should stop handwringing that Israel got its act togehter and declared a country on the very day the Brits got up and left and perhaps look at all the things that the Arabs have done to prevent there being a State of Palestine since rejecting the Partition Plan in 1947 through to the three nos of Khartoum through to the rejection of both Barak's and Olmert's peace proposals.

But I guess it's easier to just present things as black and white. Israel is apartheid, colonial, genocidal, systemic oppression blah blah and Palestinie is just an eternal hapless oppressed victim with no agency and no responsibility.

First of all, you don't have facts. For example,Palestinians cannot be doctors or own land despite living in Lebnon for generations. So let's get these facts straight.

Second of all, of course if you scream 'apartheid' at Israel but then there's a ton of countries which have far worse situations including openly discriminatory laws which are not labelled apartheird, one does wonder why? Exactly the point being made here. Israel derangement syndrome. Like, a totally weird obsession with eveything to do with Israel. Israel has its flaws and there's certainly racism but it's not apartheid.

Thank you for trying! Unfortunately, I think it is pointless. This is so basic and not difficult to understand. But many just thrive on hate, especially if they can do it being applauded by others.

Who really cares? Perhaps the people standing around watching their families getting murdered? Or those evicted illegally from their homes? Or denied medical treatment? Tortured in prisons...I could go on but it would get boring as the list is very long. It's also very possible to care about basic human rights from a distance. And yes, before you ask, I care about lots of issues.

Well, as you know "No Jews, no news".

The idiot applause drives me round the bend more than anything else. Hannah Arendt was right saying that evil comes from not thinking.

Good, glad you care about lots of issues! Don't see it really but hey ho.

Anywa, none of this has anyting to do with the existence of the State of Israel. Who cares if you are upset by the fact that the country exists? Israelis don't care, they are getting on with their lives.

Perhaps you should be bothered about the fact that Palestinians have rejected a two state solution for almost 100 years. That would have led to a much better situation for Palestinians.

I personally do not support a lot that happens in Israel. Totally correct that there are human rights abuses and war crimes and that the country has moved to the right. Many Israelis are concerned about this too. Luckily these things are reported in the press and discussed openly.

But that's totally separate issue to the existence of Israel and how much it bothers you that it exists.

Plus, let's also be realistic, far worse happens all around the world and yet we don't see Russian orthodox churches being bombed because of Ukraine or Buddhist temples being targeted because of the Rohingya genocide. Indeed, Paksitan, an artifically created country, committed genocide in Bangladesh yet no one discusses whether Pakistan should exist.

Wait - you’re calling Israel “apartheid” but you don’t want anyone (else) to mention other countries??

Where do you think the word apartheid comes from - Hebrew?

FFS

There is a Jewish counterpart already, appointed in 2019:

John Mann, Baron Mann, is the UK government's independent adviser on antisemitism, often referred to in the media as the anti-semitism tsar.

haha, very true

They also don't want their hypocrisy called out either.

I remember going to work in 2009 in London and desperate Tamils were lying in the road to try to draw attention to the genocide happening in Sri Lanka. No one seemed to care.

The ongoing genocide in Sudan. Not a word. The Sudanese government has accused the UAE of genocide. No marches outside the UAE embassy? No outrage.

Israel most certainly has its flaw. Absolutely. But the obsession with Israel - of the far left and Muslims - is just nuts. Most of it is plain old antisemitism wrapped up in the camoflauge of virtue signlaling. And then what happens - Israelis stop listening. You can scream apartheid as much as you want but when Israelis go to work and sit on the bus with Arabs, go to hospital and have Arab doctors, nurses and pharmacists, go to university and have Arab professors, watch TV with Arab presenters and sit in a restaurant owned by Arabs for dinner, they know it's bullshit and they stop listening as they know that any criticism isn't based in realtiy.

And it makes it harder for those of us who genuinely care about human rights and reaching a realistic and just sustainable resolution to improve the lives of everyone in the Israel AND Palestine. There is no apartheid within Israel - it's a total misunderstanding of the very real issues which need to be solved.