Rising anti swmtism in the UK....do we really need to crack down I n the Iran regime Hamas supporting mobs?

[mids2019]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwyxxjgdn94o

It is now being increasingly reported that there are multiple threats against Jews in this country as a result of wars in the middle east. How do we go about defusing tensions? Should the police take a more active role? Should we look at social media more closely for stirring up hate? Maybe we should be educating children more about anti semttism in schools as well as importantly saying the right of Israel to exist as a state. The tide needs to turn.

Why would we yea he that Israel has the right to exist without teaching that Spain, Germany, Madagascar etc all have the right to exist?

If you want it added to the national curriculum that Isreal has the right to exist, you also have to teach why there is any question of it not existing, and from there student have to be left to make up their own minds about the rights and wrongs of the creation of Israel.

Teaching blanket statements as fact without evidence and without considering the context or controversy is brainwashing, not teaching.

Talking about annexation in this context would not be a fact though. It would be political propaganda.

You would have to place it in the context of a time where redrawing of countries boundaries and creation of new countries was happening in many places.

There is a lot of other context here, such as the expulsion of over 800,000 Jews from Arab countries in the 1950s.

Israel is exceptionalised by those who are against Israel. It is held to standards other countries are not held to.

This argument is about as facetious as those who responded to the BLM movement: don't ALL lives matter?

there doesn’t appear to be another country who has to suffer as part of its existence ideological foes whose objective is the destruction of that country per se!

yes, in so far as all nation-states that have a right to self-determination exist, they have that right to exist. So all nation-states have a “right to exist”. The only reason that anyone ever asserts the Israeli right to exist (as opposed to Spain, or whatever) is because Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah and a number of others have sworn to destroy Israel.

See some familiar faces here!

British nationals can serve in other armies. There’s thousands fighting in Ukraine and even some in Russia. There is nothing illegal about it. Israeli citizens who live in Israel as adults will almost always be in the IDF for a few years - as per any other country with compulsory service.

My father is an IDF veteran. My Jewish American parents met on a trip to Israel, married, had me and he served 6 months in an immigrant division. They then moved back to the states so I grew up American. My husband and I immigrated to the UK 20 years ago and had our kids here - they are British / American / Israeli citizens but obviously feel and act British first as they’ve never lived anywhere else.

Every Jewish family has generations of stories about antisemitism- my great grandparents fled the pogroms in Russia, my grandmother wasn’t allowed to go to the local school until her parents fought for her, my mother wasn’t spat at, my grandmother’s care home had a mass shootinf, my father’s synagogue had another, my brother’s school has lockdown drills and bomb threats… and my 11 year old daughter was surrounded by teenage boys yelling Free Palestine in the hallway at her high school. This stuff isn’t new, it’s not surprising, and the Jewish community can’t fix it by doing xyz in Israel or being polite or waving a banner around. It’s a frightening time, but we’ve survived worse.

The absolute best thing anyone can do is just believe us when we speak. If we say ‘these hate marches are terrifying and bringing out the worst in people and now my daughter is afraid to go to school’, don’t tell me I’m overreacting or that the intention wasn’t for that to happen. I don’t care about intent, I care about impact. And the impact on my family in the last 2.5 years has been massive.

The rise in antisemitism in the UK is something that could be covered in Philosophy & Ethics ( which used to be called Religious studies when I was at school).

This subject encourages students to think about other cultures so the issue of other forms of racism would also be covered, such as racist beliefs and actions in UK society against Muslims.

It would be a good thing in my opinion for youngsters to get formally educated about, they are particularly vulnerable to online influences that encourage antisemitism or other forms of racism.

Some familiar faces some totally predictable name-changing for a thread about antisemitism 🙄

When people say Jewish people have a right to self determination, this statement is within the two millennia long context of Jews being persecuted, murdered and/or being expelled from other countries across the world.

History has taught, and the years since Oct 7th 2023 have reminded, Jews that they cannot rely on the societies or governments of other countries ( than Israel) to keep them safe. They are constantly cast as ‘other’ in the societies they live in. The sign I saw a Jewish man holding at the last March Against anti-Semitism in London put it well. ‘I used to think I was a British Jew. Now I realise I’m a Jew who happens to live in Britain.’

Jews are, yet again, again being attacked and murdered and othered in the West.

Israel gives Jewish people a right to self-determination in their own homeland where they are able to defend themselves, rather than rely on others to defend them as citizens. Because relying on that, has led to terrible massacres and expulsions for two millennia.

This debate on this thread on whether Israel has a right to exist is utter nonsense.

Israel does exist. It already exists.

If you think it shouldn’t, you are calling for the destruction of a nation of people who already exist.

There’s a word for that.

It really is this simple. And people should listen & try to hear the experience of people like @PurpleThistle7.

there doesn’t appear to be another country who has to suffer as part of its existence ideological foes whose objective is the destruction of that country per se!

Theres Palestine, a country and a people which is being slowly eradicated by very powerful countries. Israel is very open about wanting to destroy Palestine and has taken several active steps towards that happening.

Why do you think people who have no affiliation with either country should care more about Israeli lives than Palestinian lives?

I dont think anyone is suggesting they should. People who care about this region tend to be very clear who the main culprits are, the various actors who threaten Israel also threaten any sort of peace process, which would lead to a Palestinian State, and ordinary Palestinians who are pawns in there game. People who align with Hamas, Iran and other terrorists have no concern for ordinary Palestinians.

I don’t believe that Israel has as a statement in its founding documents that it will wipe Palestine from the map, nor do I believe it has a big clock in Tel Aviv with a countdown to Palestine’s destruction.

That’s somewhat different to an ongoing argument about if Israel is trying to genocide Palestine, especially in the context of a military response to the worst per capita terrorist event in the last century, that for any other country would be viewed as a proportionate reaction.

Im not trying to devolve this argument into “what about”- im trying to point out that as we quite rightly recognise the BLM movement as pointing to the unique suffering and death of people who are black it is also quite reasonable to point to the unique threat that Israel faces from openly hostile openly genocidal forces.

Excellent post @PurpleThistle7

Agree with this post.

Well said.

To attend to the elephant in the room - there needs to be more moves to address antisemitism in some schools with a large Muslim population. Let me be clear, this is not because Muslims are inherently antisemitic or because Jews and Muslims hate one another, or because we had some sort of historic beef before Israel. Indeed Islam was far better to Jews than Christianity has been across history on the whole. But I think there is evidence that it's easy for Jew-hatred to spread in communities who may have very little to no contact with Jews as human beings - not because those Muslim communities are insular but simply that there aren't a lot of Jews and Muslim communities are spread out much more across the country.

But kids are kids and clearly nasty ideas take shape when there's nothing to counter it and when they don't know Jews and can't see them as people. For all they know, Jews are a mob of Muslim-haters who all cheer on everything Israel does. I think some people are already doing this kind of community outreach and it's valuable - sadly it's all too easy for people to lose the human face of what they see as they other side. God knows we've seen enough of that with both October 7th and the annihilation of Gaza.

I wouldn't blame Muslim people for being furious at Israel and hating it. I'm Jewish and I'm furious at Israel and hate its government and what they are doing.

I don't think that teaching people 'Israel has a right to exist' is helpful - it has no more or less right than anyone else, and debating its existence is a moot point. It does exist so the question is what we do about that. Sometimes I wish it were as simple as we could just walk away, apologise to the Palestinian people and give them their land back. But it's not that simple because as Jews we would not be fine without Israel, even non-Israeli Jews. I hate what it has become and I feel far safer in the UK than I ever would in Israel but I also have to acknowledge we wouldn't be as safe here without the existence of a Jewish state and it's not helpful or acceptable to replace a disaster for the Palestinian people with a disaster for Jews

Sorry, bit of a ramble, as you were...

it's not helpful or acceptable to replace a disaster for the Palestinian people with a disaster for Jews

Ahreed, but then it is apparently acceptable for a disaster for Jews to be replaced with a disaster for Palestinian people which is why Isreal exists as it does now and why there is and always will be ongoing resistance.

Israel

Absolutely - that's what so frustrating. I totally agree that the founding of Israel was indeed a disaster, the Nakba, for Palestinians. But the Jewish population of Israel can't just all up and leave and be fine either - we've had 2000 years of not having a home and we know what that's like. Which is one of the many reasons what has been done to the Palestinian people by Israel is so awful.

And both October 7th and Netanyahu's response (even more Netanyahu's response IMHO) has just guaranteed another generation of hate and resentment on all sides so it feels like there's zero hope of a political solution and statehood for both Israel and Palestine in my lifetime.

"The absolute best thing anyone can do is just believe us when we speak. If we say ‘these hate marches are terrifying and bringing out the worst in people and now my daughter is afraid to go to school’, don’t tell me I’m overreacting or that the intention wasn’t for that to happen. I don’t care about intent, I care about impact. And the impact on my family in the last 2.5 years has been massive."

This shouldn't be difficult for people to understand.

What happens in the middle east is nothing to do with Jewish people in the UK. Idiots in the UK on marches shouting 'Free Palestine' at Jewish people, or singing ditties as they march near Jewish areas, or out and about spreading anti semitism need dealing with. They are thick, racist idiots. Hatred must not be tolerated. No ifs, buts, whataboutery, it should just be dealt with.

The country is spelt ISRAEL. It's real, it exists.

Reistance? Is that what you think October 7th was?

Bumping again for people who dont hear. Anti semitism has risen massively. Its wrong. It needs tackling.

The absolute best thing anyone can do is just believe us when we speak. If we say ‘these hate marches are terrifying and bringing out the worst in people and now my daughter is afraid to go to school’, don’t tell me I’m overreacting or that the intention wasn’t for that to happen. I don’t care about intent, I care about impact. And the impact on my family in the last 2.5 years has been massive.

I think that people do believe you, but they believe in the Palestinian cause too.

What Israel is doing is so wrong and so horrific that it needs calling out regardless of whether it makes people here feel unsafe or not.

Your children’s right to feel safe is important, but it is not more important than Palestinian children’s right to be safe.

If the government of this country didn’t contribute to atrocity and oppression in Palestine then I would agree with you that protests and marches in this country shouldn’t happen if they were making British people feel scared. But as long as our own government refuses to call out war crimes and human rights abuses, unfortunately the protests are necessary.

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