Anti-semitism in the UK

[Lolapusht]

Published yesterday I believe.

Evidence of anti-Semitism in the UK

Not sure if that link will work so…

https://x.com/nicolelampert/status/1944147294917439912?s=61&t=_cKTNp_TyAyzDViEOCJDFQ

The breakup of Yugoslavia isn’t comparable to calls for Israel’s elimination. Yugoslavia was a multi-ethnic federation that split into independent nation-states based on distinct national identities - its people weren’t erased. In fact the distinct groups achieved self determination.

In contrast, Israel is the world’s only Jewish state, established in the historic Jewish homeland after centuries of persecution. Saying Israel shouldn’t exist means denying Jews the right to self-determination and erasing their only refuge and state.

A more accurate analogy would be if Serbia had refused to accept the breakup of Yugoslavia, claimed Croatia, Bosnia, and the rest as Serbian land, and 100% Serbian, then invaded them to destroy their independence and “liberate” ethnic Serbs by actually taking away everyone else's liberation.

That’s actually what Serbia partially did in the 1990s hence the wars. But no one said Croatia or Bosnia “shouldn’t exist” as states. The international community backed their independence because Serbia was pushing for dominance.

So when people say Israel “shouldn’t exist” and call for it to be replaced with something else, that’s not about borders or policy that’s about wiping out a recognised nation with a unique national identity.

That’s not because you’re Jewish - it’s because you’ve publicly come out supporting Israel, who have slaughtered tens of thousands of innocent people. Personally, I know Jewish people who also condemn Benjamin Netanyahu’s reign of terror over Palestine, and I have nothing but love for them.

I wasn’t comparing them. I was answering the poster who couldn’t think of a single European country that dissolved in recent history.

The comparison misses key facts. No one is saying Jews do not have the right to self-determination. The issue is that Israel’s creation and continued expansion have come at the cost of another people’s self-determination, the Palestinians. Unlike the breakup of Yugoslavia, where distinct groups formed independent states, Palestinians were dispossessed, displaced, and placed under military occupation. They still have no recognised state or equal rights.

This is not about denying Jews a homeland. It is about how that homeland was created and how it is maintained. In 1948, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were expelled. Since 1967, millions have lived under occupation. Today, both international and Israeli human rights groups say they are living under apartheid conditions.

Calling for a single democratic state where Jews and Palestinians live as equals is not the same as calling for Israel’s destruction. That argument assumes Israel’s current structure, where one group is privileged over another, must remain untouched. But no country is above criticism, especially one that denies basic rights to millions of people.

This is not about wiping anyone out. It is about ending a system that dominates and oppresses Palestinians. The demand is not for Jews to leave. It is for Palestinians to live freely, equally, and with dignity in the land they call home too.

Is that two questions or three? Because in no. 1 you've conflated systemic action in Gaza by the Israeli army with isolated and individual instances of violence in Judea.

It's more of an issue how you express your love and hate actually. Grey rock is fine(ISH), verbal and physical abuse of people, not so much.

@JoyDivision79 - thanks for thoughtful posts. I should point out it's not really a 'religious war' as it is often mischaracterised. It's not about whose religion is better or battling for Israel 'because God gave it to us', it is a fight between two sets of people who claim the land as theirs, and while that started as a religious thing, it isn't now. Surrounding Muslim countries not intervening is a complicated thing I can't claim a strong understanding of... partly it is about some of them opposing Israel's existence and frankly preferring the Palestinians to stay there and be oppressed so they can be weaponsied and radicalised against Israel.

@OpheliaWasntMad I am saying antisemites are the ones who will conflate Jews and Israelis, which makes us less safe although I still believe we're pretty safe in general, as I think people are generally very good about not conflating Israeli government/Jews and there are relatively few people here who would be extreme enough to pose an existential risk.

The only actual antisemitism I've experienced in my life was someone who made wild claims about me and my family online 'supporting Israeli occupation' with no basis other than, it turned out, he assumed that because I 'have family in Israel' - of which I have very little and don't know them very well - I would support everything Israel does.

@Hotchocolatebuns
Yes, need to end the apartheid in Israel. Anyone who’s spent any time there knows government policy enforces an unequal society for Palestinian Muslims and Christians, even those with Israeli citizenship.

(By ‘apartheid’ I am deferring to the advisory ruling of the International Court of Justice that published a legal opinion stating that Israel is currently practising apartheid)

The comparison misses key facts. No one is saying Jews do not have the right to self-determination. The issue is that Israel’s creation and continued expansion have come at the cost of another people’s self-determination, the Palestinians. Unlike the breakup of Yugoslavia, where distinct groups formed independent states, Palestinians were dispossessed, displaced, and placed under military occupation. They still have no recognised state or equal rights.

That is an outright lie. The state of Israel was founded on land bought and paid for by Jews. And in its declaration of independence Ben Gurion explicitly called for the Arab population to stay on the basis of equal rights.

Any Arab homes that were lost was in context of an unjust and unnecessary war the Arabs started.

well said

Thats not a lie, it is historical record. Israel was not built only on land that was bought. The majority of the land that became Israel in 1948 was taken by force or abandoned during the Nakba, when over 750,000 Palestinians were expelled or fled from their homes. This was not a war that Palestinians started. It was the result of a UN partition plan they were never consulted on and a military campaign that led to the destruction of more than 400 arab villages. That is why hundreds of thousands of Palestinians remain stateless refugees to this day.

Ben Gurion may have written about equal rights, but in practice Arab citizens of Israel were placed under military rule until 1966 and remain second class citizens in many areas of life. Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza are not citizens at all. They live under military occupation with no vote, no civil rights, and are subject to different laws based on ethnicity. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and B’Tselem all call this apartheid. Thats not a political slogan, its a legal designation backed by years of documented evidence.

Denying this reality does not make it go away. Equal rights do not exist when one group controls the land, the airspace, the borders, and the lives of millions of people while denying them freedom and statehood.

1. I’ll take these as separate questions as they are separate issues.

a) Not everything, no but every option was a Hobson’s Choice. Israel always gets its hostages back, usually by releasing a large number of Palestinian prisoners (I did a quick count of about 6 or 7 of some of those released during one of the ceasefires and they were responsible for killing over 250 Israelis). I disagree with that tactic as it encourages the taking of hostages but they want there people back so it was always going to be how they proceeded. There was no option where they could take out Hamas and rescue all the hostages. Negotiating with Hamas isn’t going to go anywhere as their starting position is basically “We would rather every last man, woman and child were martyred than be in a world with Israel”. They don’t want a two state solution. Western ‘allies’ seem to think that they can be negotiated with. They can’t. These allies also seem to have no understanding of the cultural differences of the region. They see Israel as western and expect them to behave in an appropriately western democratic society fashion while Hamas is on the other side of the table coming out with completely unrealistic demands.

Hamas hides in civilian infrastructure and uses the hostages as shields. It’s not even just Hamas. The other terrorists groups that have hostages know how valuable the are so they’re not going to give them up. They don’t care if they’re alive or dead as they know Israel will take back bodies. These are people who beheaded people then offered the h*ads for sale. The entire population was offered $5 million & safe passage out for information about hostages and no one took up the offer. What would your negotiating position be?

b) no I don’t agree with settler violence in the West Bank. The government has massively failed by not stopping the violence. I don’t know as much about the West Bank as Gaza, but similar principles apply. For every report of violence against Palestinians there’s a report of yet another terror attack and Israelis being killed. Again, what would you do to keep your people safe when they’re regularly under attack? Have open borders with no controls?

2.Which organisations/people would those be going around muddying the waters? Are they actually doing that or are they pointing out anti-Semitism? Your implication there is that there’s some sort of campaign to paint everything as anti-Semitic. I don’t believe that criticism of the Israeli government is ipso facto anti-Semitic unless it’s anti-Semitic in how it’s been said. I know you’ll probably just say “See! You can’t say anything without being called anti-Semitic”, but before you do just take a moment and think. I find it’s similar to older guys complaining that you can’t even compliment a girl for looking pretty these days without being accused of sexually harassing someone. Of course you can, but if you do it in certain ways it’s not acceptable and you will be sexually harassing someone.

Happens all the time on these threads. Someone will say “It’s not anti-Semitic to criticise Israel…” then spew out all sorts of tropes and blood libels in the course of saying how awful Israel is. Maybe it’s because people don’t understand or see the context of what they’re saying, I don’t’ know, but there’s a lot of it around.

True if the people who shouted JEW JEW JEW at her toddlers stopped to ask their political views before spitting on them.

"No one is saying Jews do not have the right to self-determination".

Literally everyone is saying that
Hamas
Every Arab state
Most Gazans according to polls
All the people chanting "from the river to the sea"
The entire "anti zionist" movement.

Thats just not true. Criticising a state or a political ideology isnt the same as denying a people’s right to exist. Hamas does not speak for all Palestinians, obviously. Many Palestinians and their allies call for equal rights in one democratic state, not for Jews to be expelled. Thats not erasure, its a call for equality.

Most Arab states have either already recognised Israel or are normalising relations. Egypt and Jordan have full peace treaties. Saudi Arabia was close to formal recognition before October. Even the Arab Peace Initiative offered recognition in exchange for a Palestinian state. Thats not rejection, its negotiation.

The phrase “from the river to the sea” means different things to different people. For some its about ending apartheid and military rule, not about removing Jews. You cannot strip a slogan of context and apply the worst possible interpretation to everyone who says it.

Being anti-Zionist is not the same as being antisemitic. Plenty of Jewish groups and individuals are anti-Zionist, like Holocaust survivors, Israeli academics, and Jewish religious communities. Are they denying Jewish existence too? Of course they're not.

Shouldnt come as a suprise, but most people oppose a system built on inequality and dispossession.

Over 80 per cent of British Jews afraid to display their identity - The Jewish Chronicle https://share.google/VFkBGuMMGflD4hdqT

So the vast majority don't share your experience and feel afraid to be recognised as Jewish. The other Jewish posters experiences were shocking, but unsurprising.

Over 850,000 Jews were subsequently displaced from their homes in a range of Arab countries.

The resident Palestinians were told by the Arab forces to move out while they got rid of the Jewish population the they could move back. Unfortunately the Arab forces lost the war. Palestinians were offered the chance to live in “Israel” and many did and accepted citizenship.

Your second paragraph makes it sound like Palestinians aren’t allowed to vote anywhere but they’re not allowed to vote in Israeli elections as they’re not Israeli. It’s not up to Israel to say Palestine is a country. Why hasn’t it been designated as a fully independent state since 1948? They can vote etc in Palestine as much as they have elections. I do not have the same legal rights in Saudi Arabia as I do in the UK.

Israel has to control its borders because they didn’t used to then the first Intifada happened.

“What are the origins of the slogan?
Upon its creation by diaspora Palestinians in 1964 under the leadership of Yasser Arafat, the PLO called for the establishment of a single state that extend from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea to encompass its historic territories.”

From here:

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/11/2/from-the-river-to-the-sea-what-does-the-palestinian-slogan-really-mean#:~:text=What%20are%20the%20origins%20of,to%20encompass%20its%20historic%20territories www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/11/2/from-the-river-to-the-sea-what-does-the-palestinian-slogan-really-mean#:~:text=What%20are%20the%20origins%20of,to%20encompass%20its%20historic%20territories.]]]]

(Bear in mind Aljazeera may not be entirely impartial)

I'm so sorry that you have to put up with the hatred of some people in the UK.

Sadly, some people are very thick and don't seem to be able or willing to see that Jewish people in the UK are not responsible for the conflict in Gaza. Those people need calling out every time they speak their hatred. Every act they show their hatred needs reporting. Every song they sing supporting terrorists, needs calling out. This is slowly happening, too slow. The government are slowly realising that enabling thugs and letting them get away with their actions makes it worse. Showing support for a proscribed terrorist organisation is illegal. The clowns that march with Palestine action are being arrested for their terrorist activities and their support for terrorism. It's very slow. Sadly, some people are unable to just march for people of both countries, for peace, for release of hostages, without spilling into hatred. Antisemitism is rife in the UK and elsewhere. It's disgusting.

It's awful that the UK has become a country where over 80 per cent of Jewish people are afraid to display their identity.

Yes, its true that around 850,000 Jews were displaced or left Arab and Muslim-majority countries between 1948 and the 70s. Thats a painful part of history, but it doesnt justify the forced displacement of over 750,000 Palestinians or the decades of occupation that followed.

There is important context missing here. Not all Jews were forcibly expelled. Some left under pressure, others voluntarily, and many were encouraged or assisted by Zionist organisations to move to Israel as part of the nation building process - and by the way that process still continues to this day with birthright trips and buying (stealing?) plots of land on in the West Bank.

Unlike Palestinians, who remain stateless, most of the Jewish refugees were granted full citizenship, land, and support by Israel. Their communities were absorbed. But Palestinian refugees are denied the right to return and still live under occupation or in refugee camps without rights.

The claim that Palestinians were told to leave by Arab armies has been thoroughly debunked by Israeli historians like Ilan Pappe and Benny Morris, using Israeli archives. Many Palestinians were forcibly expelled and more than 400 villages were destroyed to make return impossible. That was a planned process.

Some Palestinians who remained inside Israel after 1948 got citizenship, but they lived under military rule until 1966 and continue to face legal and structural discrimination. Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza are not Israeli citizens, yet Israel controls their borders, movement, land access, and economy. Thats occupation not a normal international border.

Saying “they can vote in Palestine” ignores that there is no sovereign Palestinian state. Elections are limited or suspended and Gaza is under siege. The West Bank is fragmented by settlements and checkpoints. And comparing this to being a foreigner in Saudi Arabia is nonsense. Saudi Arabia is not occupying millions of people or claiming their land.

Israel has the right to security. But that right does not justify decades of blockade, land theft, and apartheid. International law is clear on this - you dont get to dominate an entire population for generations and then say it is their fault for resisting. Justice applies to all.

As I said, any displacement happened in the context of the unjust war the Arabs started. Which had the knock on effect that it took time for Israel to trust the Arabs who remained.

There was absolutely no reason for the Arabs to reject the partition plan, and to start the civil war in 1947 followed by the actual war in 1948. They only did so because they couldn't tolerate Jewish sovereignty in what they perceived as Islamic land.

Changing the timeline to pretend that Arab displacement predated the war rather than being a direct consequence thereof, is a lie.

Palestinian Muslims and Christians are not Israelis.

If they are not living within the borders of Israel ie not in the West Bank or Gaza then they’re not Israelis, they’re Palestinians and live under the authority of either Hamas or PA.

The claim that displacement only happened because “the Arabs started the war” isnt supported by the historical record.

As I've said, many academics including Israeli historians have debunked that entirely. According to Israeli archives, Palestinian displacement began well before the official war in May 1948. By March 1948, over 100,000 Palestinians had already been expelled or fled, according to Israeli historian Benny Morris, who based his research on declassified Israeli archives. This was during the civil war period following the UN partition plan, not a war started by Arab states.

The clearing of Palestinain villages was outlined in Plan Dalet, a military strategy approved by the Haganah in early 1948 and implemented before May. More than 200 villages were depopulated before a single Arab army crossed the border. This wasnt a reaction to invasion, it was a campaign of forced displacement already underway.

As for the partition plan, it gave 55% of the land to a Jewish minority that owned less than 7% of it. And whats more, it didnt consult the majority Palestinian Arab population. Their rejection was based on real concerns about fairness, sovereignty, and displacement. That context matters.

Calling it a lie to point out these facts does not make the truth go away. Historical records and archives, including from Israeli scholars, confirm that displacement was not just a consequence of war but that it was a central part of the creation of the state of Israel.

Calling for a single democratic state where Jews and Palestinians live as equals is not the same as calling for Israel’s destruction.

Are you sure about that? What would this country be called?