Terrible but not surprised - Jewish community under threat

[mids2019]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx0331xxd7xo

It appears Jews are not safe in the UK at all.

Can we seriously look at the impact of anti semitism now?

This attitude is exactly why progress into trying to eliminate any form of racism is slow.
Racism is based on ignorance and fear. Education is the only way. Trying to understand why someone is racist is vital. You are not born racist, you become one.

“By Zionist, I mean people who want the territorial expansion of the state of Israel (see the settlers in the West Bank and the eviction of the Bedouins)”

This is a straw man version of Zionism. The mainstream Zionist position held by most Israelis and indeed most Jews worldwide is belief in the right of the state of Israel to exist.

Yes, before demonising Zionists it would probably be a good idea to check you all know what a Zionist is. That really should have happened 7 months ago.

People saying ‘I’m anti-Zionist’ should be aware that a lot of people saying it mean they don’t think Israel has the right to exist, where they probably assume it means ‘I don’t like the actions of the Israeli government’.

Even Al Jazeerah defines Zionism as:
" a nationalist, political ideology that called for the creation of a Jewish state, and now supports the continued existence of Israel as such a state."

Moreoever, 46.2% of Jewish people worldwide live in Israel.

So people proclaiming to be anti-Zionist is quite uncomfortable to hear.

Yes and then you have people talking at cross purposes. A guy with the wrong definition and a ‘fuck Zionists’ sign who is told that most British Jews are zionists will then assume most British Jews support ethnic cleansing.

Yes it’s interesting that to some people the concept of Jewish people being murdered in the U.K. is not the most horrifying party of this thread but that someone called another set of people NOT at risk in the UK, ‘sheep’

I'm very against Israel's actions, but not its existence, as the answer to the suffering of the Palestinian people is not to create an equivalent disaster for the Jewish people. Whether you believe Israel should be there or not, it is there and 7 million Jews live there and there is no safe, sane way to disestabilish it even if you wanted to. I

I believe in some kind of two-state solution with Israel in '67 borders and settlers cleared off land they are not entitled to. In some people's eyes this would make me an evil, ethno-supremacist Zionist, but in some Jew's eyes I'm a self-hating Jew anti-Zionist because I oppose their actions in Gaza and have attended marches.

I'm a lefty and concerned about the recent, and in my opinion antisemitic, rise in characterisation of Israel as 'Israelis are just white Europeans colonising brown people' - it's blantantly a play to make calls for Israel not to exist acceptable to guilty white liberals who are torn between opposing Israel's actions but acknowledge how the catastrophe of the Holocaust led to its foundation. And 40-50% of Israeli Jews are of Middle Eastern or North African descent and definitely not 'white colonists'.

Those statistics are shocking and what is even more shocking is the disproportionate rate of attacks on those two groups. To put into context:

Muslims make up 5% of the UK population and get 40% of religious hate crimes.

Jewish people make up 0.4% of the UK population and get 23% of religious hate crimes

Awful

Well I stand by my statement and I believe the marches are fuelling the fire to antisemitism. Whilst many of the ‘protesters’ may be calling for peace, a great many of them are terrorist sympathisers and clearly hate all Jews. The ‘mindless sheep’ I was referring to are the virtue signallers, students etc who see it as the latest cause to get involved with. Waving their ‘from the river to the sea’ banners not even knowing which river or which sea. Half of them don’t have a clue about any of it and yet will follow the antisemites blindly - without even realising!
You only have to see the treatment of that poor Israeli girl at Eurovision and how those idiots thought they were on the ‘right side of history’ by harassing and intimidating her (possibly worse if the police/security hadn’t been there). Where are their critical thinking skills? They really believe a 20 year old girl has anything to do with what her government are doing?

I’m not Jewish, by the way, but I stand with them and what I see happening in my country lately absolutely sickens me.

Anyway rant over.

Yep.

And whilst Jewish people may not always be ‘visible’ the fact I know so many who have changed their family name at some point to prevent attacks and discrimination speaks volumes

There's definitely a lot of ignorance - this is why I prefer, when I see it demonstrated, to try to educate people from a Jewish standpoint rather than immediately yelling at people that they are antisemites.

You can usually tell, looking at someone's social media, if they are an antisemite or ill-informed, and if the latter I make a point of explaining to people why they might not want to say something. Trying to shame people by screaming 'Antisemite!' at them is unhelpful as then of course they will get defensive and are more easily influenced by dodgy people coming along and going 'Ugh, those Jews, they just call everything antisemitism' - I prefer to approach it as 'I don't think you want to be saying that, you need to understand it's antisemitic' as that might actually cause some reflection because you are calling out what they said, not casting aspersions on them as a person.

I am not surprised by those figures. I rarely hear religious hate expressed towards any other groups.

It is extremely concerning that once again the Islamic State are influencing terrorist attacks in Britain and that Jews are the target. Terrorist ideology has no place in modern societies and I am sorry to hear how unsafe Jewish communities are feeling in the UK. No one wants that, no one should feel fear going about their daily lives and practicing their faith. People should be free to live their lives however they want and despite all the disagreements and opposing view points I would be very surprised and disappointed if this was not the majority view.

Agree with a lot of what you say.

I also do question what Israel’s strategy is and what an ‘end’ looks like. I guess Hamas could test this by returning the hostages. If Israel continued after that it would make it harder to support.

I have no idea what the path to peace looks like. But I don’t see peace comes from a ceasefire either without work being done to demilitarise Hamas.

This is why I find the ‘ceasefire now’ army quite confronting as it feels like they don’t mind or care what this would mean for Israel.

I rarely hear religious hate expressed towards any other groups.

Yes and for both Muslims and Jews there’s always a thinly veiled caveat of “What do you expect when Israel/Afghanistan/the Taliban are doing XYZ” rhetoric. It may not be said like that but that’s what people mean.

It’s funny how attacks on UK Catholics didn’t suddenly spike once the uncovering of the number of priests who were raping children the world over was exposed.

It’s funny how attacks on UK Catholics didn’t suddenly spike once the uncovering of the number of priests who were raping children the world over was exposed.
I don't think that's the same thing. They are crimes committed by people within the faith. The abusers, where possible, were dealt with by the law and many people, including myself, practicing that faith turned their back on it. Whereas the hate towards Jews and Muslims is an irrational hate stemming from prejudice and ignorance.

I agree totally with you. Sadly, trying to explain this on here is met with derision or contempt.

I know what you’re saying but imagine if there was a child sex abuse scandal amongst Rabbis or Imams - do you think the everyday Muslim and Jew would be left alone following the backlash?

Unfortunately ‘Zionism’ has been adopted as an insult or a term to describe something sinister. You yourself do the same by saying Zionism means territorial expansion of the Jewish state. This is now what Zionism means. The nutter extremists in the West Bank are a tiny tiny proportion of Jewish people and the majority do not support them. The West Bank is also not Gaza and the two are often falsely conflated.

Many hide behind being ‘anti Zionist’ rather than anti Jewish, but the problem is that most Jews will be zionists. All it means to most Jews is support for a Jewish national state, based on Israel being the ancient homeland of Jews. The mistake is to state that this right to self determination is at the expense or exclusion of any other people. This is not what Zionism means; and you will see Jews live happily alongside Arabs, Christians, druze etc in a democratic, successful, peaceful state.

So you may not feel you’re openly anti semetic, but you’ve clearly allowed yourself to adopt some of the false tropes about Jews I.E. that zionists are trying to steal land. Israel literally gave over Gaza, they have no interest in it. The issue many Palestinians have is that Israel is Israel, they do not want a two state solution, and in 2000 arrafat walked away from a deal to give over even more land. It’s never been about that. Arafat would only accept a one state solution, and in so many ways, the Palestinians have been consistent in that desire as they have remained committed to the cause in their demands to this day for Israel to be destroyed entirely.

I also believe anyone who marches alongside those who they know to be anti semetic are complicit. If you were at any other form of protest and the KKK or EDL appeared you wouldn’t stand alongside them, you’d expel them or leave.

Im so sorry to hear you have been the victim of racism. It makes me feel really sad that people who have experienced that wouldn’t be more open to listening to those who are trying to explain why the marches are such a threat.

If you told me that something I was doing was encouraging or inciting hatred or violence I would initially feel extremely defensive (as I’ve no doubt made you feel), but I would stop to reflect because I would feel horrified at the risk of that ever being true.

my intention is not to personally attack you, I just disagreed strongly with what you said.

You're right, probably not. Catholics received a bit of bad press but nothing close to hate or violence directed at them.

I think that’s a really good approach.

There was more than a bit of bad press - there was definitely a lot of anti Irish/ anti Catholic sentiment around the time of the Birmingham pub bombings ( and earlier) but I agree I don’t think it was ever as bad as the abuse targeted at Muslims and Jews at the moment . Maybe because Middle Eastern ethnicity is more visible than Irish ethnicity?
Any kind of racism is abhorrent but if it is based on visible differences ( whether clothing or skin colour ) it must make individuals feel terrifyingly vulnerable.

The poster was talking about child sex abuse in the Catholic church and no backlash against Catholics.

Yes there was a lot of anti Irish abuse in the 70s and 80s in England. People weren't visibly Irish but many did hide their accent when out and about.

EXCELLENT post @Muthaofcats im going to copy and paste your Zionism explanation into my notes to use in future because it’s absolutely spot on (I shall say it is not my words!)