Disgusting comments like this normalised

[jerkorperk]

I see countless UK run accounts like this. Hundreds of comments just like this.

Why? It's horrendous. How can we let this be said in Britain without any consequences?

You couldn't start conversations about other communities and not end up reported to the police.

And clearly, 'Zio' is being used as a thinly veiled cover word for Jew.

I think Zionist not Jew?

Yes and zionist has never ever been used as a dog whistle for Jew before...

Why are Jewish communities being physically attacked?

The "Zionist not Jew" bullshit is a boring trope now.

I don’t really know what “a dog whistle for” means in this context. Are you saying you think Zionist and Jewish are the same thing? Or that you think these people think there isn’t a distinction? Either way these aren’t the sort of people I would read on-line so I expect you know more about it than me.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/dog-whistle-political-meaning

Either way these aren’t the sort of people I would read on-line so I expect you know more about it than me.

Why would you assume that these are the type of people I'd read online? Except from when they're posted on this board of course. The zionist dogwhistle is older than the Internet.

In all honesty @Vittuunterroristit I’m not going to read a long explanation of terminology used here. Thank you for the links but I think this is derailing a thread in which @jerkorperk wanted to focus on freedom of expression (I think?). I appreciate that being anti-Zionist is seen as more acceptable than being anti-Jew (obviously!) but I felt an early nudge away from that terminology might make a more interesting discussion.

You're the one who brought up that they meant zionist and not Jew. A dictionary entry is hardly a long explanation. But suddenly it's "stop derailing the thread".

If yoy want to believe that they purely meant zionist and its all innocent then fine. I doubt anyone can convince you otherwise, especially given some of your previously stated views on what yoy want to happen to Israel and Israelis.

Even the most vile anti semites knows they can't say certain things...like racists and islamophobes too.

You insert ethnicity xxxxxx. is socially unacceptable as well as illegal. So they need to find more subtle ways of expressing their repulsive views and thus giving them some deniability.

It's utterly horrendous, I assume you reported it and it should be taken down. This is simply not true though:

You couldn't start conversations about other communities and not end up reported to the police

I've read this line so many times on here, and it really makes me wonder if the people saying it live in some sort of vacuum. There is nasty, online, vile stuff spewed constantly about many communities and people not only don't report it, but they join in and add fuel to the fire, and it is normalized. This is racism/xenophobia, and it's everywhere unfortunately.
Some time ago there was a (brilliant) AMA about being an orthodox jew, and posters were falling over themselves to thank the OP and to be polite and not wanting to offend. A muslim then did one as a spin off, and the tone was completely different from the outset. The same with the Traveller one.
I live in a predominantly white area and on our local facebook group the constant shit about "You have to be Muslim/Black to get social housing" is horrendous. I could literally count on one hand the amount of muslims/black people there are, but yes of course all 120 houses are going to all 4 of them . Then people jump on to call them all dirty/thieving/immigrants and of course go on to say they aren't racist but they are sick of "our own not being looked after". Muslims around the world were murdered post 9/11, and they are still being attacked for it 23 years later. This is everywhere, it's not a problem reserved for jewish people.

ETA that social media platforms need to step up to the plate and moderate, as the more people write bile like this the more it does become normalized.

There was also an AMA recently from a Jewish poster who lives in Israel. it was such a shitshow it ended up get taken down. Some of the posters who made the most blatantly antisemitic comments are still around. One of them even then went onto the Jewish Mumsnetters board to post their antisemitism there. So no, people aren't more polite to Jewish people.

Oh no, was that the Israeli lefty one?

You couldn't start conversations about other communities and not end up reported to the police.

Yes you can. You really don't have to search too hard to find horrible comments about any group of people. It's the internet. The police don't have the time or resources to investigate every nasty comment besides which the person making it could be from any country in the world not nexessarily the UK.

No, a different one.

Social media is generally a cess pit. Never fails to amaze the things people write.

What I think is interesting and different about anti semetism is that the left wing are often the ones indulging in it, in a way they wouldn't dream of doing when it comes to other forms of racism. I find this particularly irritating as the left wing tend to frame themselves as having the moral high ground and that it's simply a manifestation of their superior humanitarianism. If you object to them, you are then portrayed as some sort of genocidal maniac.

Whether it's just about Zionists or Jewish people in general, it's equally unacceptable as a slur. Zionists are people who believe Jews should have a homeland. The state of Israel exists, so this is simply believing that an internationally recognised nation should continue existing. We don't usually have a special word for people who want a country to continue existing, much less one that is used as a slur or written on signs saying "not welcome here".

You’re right we don’t usually have a word like that and yet many Jewish people would describe themselves as Jews but not Zionists and of course there are many states that are not recognised by some but are by others. As I said upthread I was simply pointing out that the slang “zio “ was likely to be a shortening of Zionist. As you were.

No form of racism, religiously motivated hate or other forms of hatred should be considered acceptable. I hope that whoever posted that was reported to the relevant social media platform and had their comment removed.

I mean you could start conversations about other communities. There was a 1000
post thread just last week on mumsnet about how people don’t like Muslims with loads of people chiming in as to why they don’t like them. I can hardly imagine any other community being subject to that.

And to be honest a Zionist is a political identity - plenty of people identify as Zionists who are not Jewish and it does imply a political stance. Just like people can’t stand ‘Tories’ or ‘Lefties’ or ‘evangelical Christian right wingers’ or ‘Islamist’s’ they can’t stand ‘Zionists’. Probably because many who identify as such ascribe to the idea that Israel should be allowed to annihilate Palestinians and continually take their land and arrest their children and run torture and detention camps. So it’s pretty understandable that people are going to dislike you if you ascribe to that ideology.

No one is disputing that zio is short for zionist. Just what zionist really means. But any explanation of what it might actually mean is too long and derailing the thread apparently.

Probably because many who identify as such ascribe to the idea that Israel should be allowed to annihilate Palestinians and continually take their land and arrest their children and run torture and detention camps

This is really not the case.

All the term Zionist means is that someone supports the state of Israel to exist.

I doubt it, I've seen worse on social media in recent months.

Many? Really? Most Jewish people are zionists, you think most of them want that?

At what cost?

This is just white washing.

That's an entirely separate discussion. If someone considers themselves a Zionist the only conclusion you can reasonably come to is that they support the existence of Israel. Trying to portray a Zionist as a bloody thirsty genocidal maniac is a ridiculous interpretation