What is going on on the left? Gaza/Israel conflict

[Notsuretoputit]

I am left wing, I wouldn’t consider myself anything other. I absolutely support Israel, have no problem understanding and supporting Zionism, and am absolutely horrified by the rising levels of anti-semitism in the UK.

It is to my despair that much of that anti-semitism is being perpetrated by those on the left. People I like, consider friends, who are tolerant and who I would never, ever have considered racist or anti-Semitic are plastering their Facebook walls with pro-Hamas TikTok propaganda. These are not teenagers naively believing propaganda, these are people who’ve spend years active in (left wing) politics.

I’ve read a lot in recent weeks about the far left’s historical problem with anti-semitism, but how can it be that nice, friendly, socially conscious people are indulging in this insane display of anti-semitism? Actively showing support for a terrorist organisation? Refusing to believe Hamas is guilty of any crimes, or that they have an excellent propaganda machine currently in operation. What is going on?

The right wing didn’t win a plurality of seats in the Knesset until 1977.

@etmoiandme I think it's both. So there are somethings that are very blatantly anti semitic. I won't repeat on here but even a child would tell you that it's wrong to say such things about anyone. And there are other things I might not have realised that it is anti-semitic if I hadn't read more about it on here.
I know it's not of much comfort to hear this but some of the things said online are really really bad. So i follow one Jewish influencer and her videos on topics that have nothing to do with the war still get alot of hate comments sadly.
And as the OP said at times its not just children/teenagers but adults too who really should know better.

@Struggggggling there are lots of political parties. The best way of comparing would be the Rwanda vote last night and the 'families' of the Tory party. Imagine if they were all political parties?

Netanyahu has burnt many political bridges and I think at the last count had a less than 10% popularity rating. No one I know (they are moderates) like him. That means in order to put a government together he had to get into bed with extremists and with that came concessions. You can have this if I do that etc. It needs resetting.

I hope he goes fairly sharpish and I am sure he will as soon as there is a break. He is unusual in that war time premiers normally have a boost from the public and he hasn't. That's not just because of the hostages.

Anyway I hope that's what you meant. Sorry if it's not.

I mean that I am on the left politically. I have seen (and heard) many, many antisemitic comments.

Yes, I think you’re antisemitic. Or at least your comments are. You are blaming Israel - the world’s only Jewish state - for the crimes of Hamas.

But I’m not only talking about antisemitism stemming from the current conflict. There was a problem long before this. Just this week I’ve heard ‘comrades’ on the left announce that Jewish children can’t cross roads, that Jewish schools shouldn’t get tax payers’ money, that the Labour Party is paid for by Israel, that Orthodox Jewish children would be better off attending non-Jewish schools, that Jewish schools don’t give the girls a good education. It is rife on the left.

Stoma I literally posted one reply on this thread, entirely respectfully, before you turned up and tagged me with some catty comment.

I am not reporting anything, we aren't at school. Equally I'm not going to sit there in silence while you make snide comments at me implying all sorts of stuff which is just bullshit.

@Parkingt111 Ah it's fine, I've seen so much of it now that nothing shocks any more! And this was the case with the hard-left during the Corbyn years. Someone Jewish with a decent number of followers would post something completely innocuous, like what they had for their tea - so absolutely nothing to do with being Jewish, Labour/Corbyn or Israel-Palestine - and their mentions would just be an absolute sewer of antisemitic reply guys. And it was coming from accounts who were very visibly far left, die-hard Corbynites.

And yes, the problem with the children/teenagers is that many of them get it from the parents. But that's the nature of the beast with any kind of racism!

Thank you for replying, agreed Netanyahu needs to go. I can't believe what he is doing with the power stripping of the supreme Court, he's a power hungry maniac

@etmoiandme there's also alot more islamophobic comments/social media posts etc too but I won't go into that as that's not what the thread is about. Just to give give a insight into my personal experience as i have seen a rise in both but I was always aware of Islamophobia so I'm not really as taken aback by it. Whereas I wasn't really aware as much about anti-semitism, but I have seen alot more of it since October the 7th and i do really hope things change.

@AdamRyan I thought it was etiquette that if the op has asked you repeatedly on their thread to change tack and then leave then you do. Not stick around to misdirect their thread. Surely you see that?

You are blaming Israel - the world’s only Jewish state - for the crimes of Hamas.

Israel are the ones dropping the bombs and sieging the city. They have agency in this and are choosing this response. That is what people are upset about.

Your statement comes across like a child going "they asked for it, they started it, it's their fault".

It is not antisemitic to protest the scale of destruction the Israeli government is causing and to call for them to stop.

If you think it is then that's probably a key reason why you are seeing all your friends as antisemitic, as the vast majority of people do want the Israeli government to temper their response and as you are left wing, I'm guessing most of your friends are too.

I mean, look at the UN General Assembly vote last night and Bidens comments over the past few days. You are in the minority with your viewpoint.

@Struggggggling with him I see a man in a hole. Lose the game change the rules. It's the only thing I can think.

Nah. That's how you get an echo chamber. People can and do post where they like on MN.

I guess the only possible exception is on the relationships threads where people are looking for advice, but even there people still pop up with a different view.

It's definitely etiquette to not @ people randomly to tell them off, and follow them round threads misrepresenting their views though.

well I think you are wrong. I’m critical of the Israel authorities and not of the Jewish people. I don’t understand why you would see my view as anti semitic. I can criticise the British government and not be seen as anti British and criticise the Iranian government without being seen as anti Iranian or anti Muslim. No government should be above criticism. Labelling criticism of Israeli policies and the Israeli authorities as anti semitic undermines real anti semitism which absolutely exists.

I don’t understand the schools issue to comment but everyone should be able to cross the road.

@Parkingt111 Oh yes of course, and I know you have the same fears here that we do just now. I really hope things change too, but I think we've got a rocky patch to get through first sadly.

There are periodically surveys, carried out by academic institutions or YouGov that are designed to discover how antisemitic views run across, age, gender, social class, political leaning, religion and a couple of other variables that I can't remember.

Broadly speaking, antisemitism is almost equally prevalent amongst voters of the tory, labour and liberal parties, with there being a slightly greater agreement with statements such as "British Jewish people chase money more than other Jewish people" and "British Jews are more loyal to Israel than the UK" from those who voted Tory in the 2017 election. But the differences are marginal.

What is noticable is that more men than women will agree with statements like those.

However the greatest variation comes when you look at EU leavers and remainers. The differences are far more marked in that leavers tend to have a far less favourable view of Jews than remainers.

https://d3nkl3psvxxpe9.cloudfront.net/documents/CAAResults_180907_Antisemitism_website.pdf

Survey in 2018. It basically said much the same as a more detailed one done in 2015? 2016? carried out by a Jewish organisation, which I can't seem to find now, but the earlier one went into much greater depth.

This article really gets right to the heart of what I was asking:

This first became a serious problem on the left in the late 19th century, as antisemitism first became a political force in the modern world. Some on the left flirted with the response that there might be something progressive about antisemitism: that it was a kind of anti-capitalism, however crude, which could be harnessed to the socialist cause. They also thought that philosemitism was more of a problem, because it supposedly encouraged Jews to make too much of (or even fabricate) antisemitism and to resist assimilation. One criticism of this approach at the time was to call it the “socialism of fools”, a problematic formulation because it suggested that antisemitism was still some kind of socialism.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/01/shame-of-anitsemitism-on-left-has-long-malign-history

@AdamRyan Please don't go away. I agree with everything you said in your post.

Thank you

@Notsuretoputit that's an interesting article.

That’s really interesting.

On the question

"Jewish people consider themselves to be better than other British people".

6% more Labour voters agreed it to be true than Conservative and 9% more Conservatives believed it to be not true. On the other two questions there was only 1-2% between who believed the statements to be not true between Tory and Labour voters.

I might be wrong but I suspect if a similar survey was carried out about Muslim people rather than Jewish (had a look but can’t find anything), Labour’s agree numbers would be a lot lower and disagree a lot higher.

There is some surveying of attitudes relating to Muslims. They found a class correlation where working class people were less likely to have negative attitudes so it could follow that Labour voters are more sympathetic to Muslims.

On the whole though they found more negative attitudes towards Muslims than other religions.

https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/news/2022/university-of-birmingham-survey-reveals-islamophobia-is-the-posh-persons-prejudice

1. Muslims are the UK’s second ‘least liked’ group, after Gypsy and Irish Travellers: 25.9% of the British public feel negative towards Muslims (with 9.9% feeling ‘very negative’). This compares with 8.5% for Jewish people, 6.4% for black people, and 8.4% for white people. Only Gypsy and Irish Travellers are viewed more negatively by the British public, with 44.6% of people viewing this group negatively.

What stands out is the dramatic difference between EU leavers and remainers. A far greater number of the former consistently had views that were disparaging about Jews, in some cases with a ratio of 2.5 to 1.
Look amongst the leavers if you really want to find the antisemites.

That's interesting quiteold. I wonder how much antisemitism correlates with racism generally?

Antisemitism being more prevalent amongst leave voters than remain doesn’t really have anything to do with it still being a big problem on the left (and, of course, many on the hard left were also leave supporters).

Another interesting article about antisemitism as a left wing tradition:

Antisemitism on the left has a long history, starting from the ambivalent stances among Enlightenment thinkers toward Jewish emancipation and antisemitic sentiments expressed by some left-wing philosophers during the nineteenth century.[3] In the 20th century, antisemitic incidents in the Soviet Union and its sphere of influence included the Slánský Trial[4] or the Doctor’s Plot[5] in the early 1950’s, but the persecution and institutional discrimination against Jews and simultaneously anti-Zionist as well as antisemitic propaganda remained a feature of the Soviet Union until its demise (the following section will discuss the differences and overlaps between anti-Zionism and antisemitism in greater detail).[6] In Germany, far left terrorist groups in the 1960’s and 1970’s carried out antisemitic violence,[7] plotted to bomb a synagogue[8] and celebrated terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians.[9]
While today such antisemitic violence from the far left is relatively rare, antisemitic incidents and rhetoric are still present in the broader political far left.

https://www.isdglobal.org/explainers/far-left-antisemitism/