Genuine concern

[Jujujudo]

I made the mistake of getting too involved in a few voraciously anti Israel threads on here. And I have to say that there were several posters writing things that are seriously concerning regarding the way they talked about Jews.
Of course we are all used to the Israel/Zionist/Jew arguments - I won’t discuss them with people who try to explain to me the difference, how fkn DARE a non- Jew try to explain to a Jew what is or isn’t antisemitic???
But it goes deeper than this: the hypocrisy of being liberal, fighting for human rights and freedom of speech, yet demonising and dehumanising Israelis and pretending it has nothing to do with Jews.
Whatever your opinions are of what’s happening in Gaza, why do Jews have to openly say they are against it to be respected? Why does literally nobody give a shit about the hostages? Why do they justify Oct 7th “yes it was terrible, but…..”?
Why does nobody think about life for Israel children? Running daily to bomb shelters? Losing family members? Why are we called baby killers when Kfir and Ariel were returned in coffins?? It’s all so one sided, blank and white, hateful.
I am genuinely concerned for the Jewish people. I think it’s only a matter of time before Israel proper is targeted seriously with true intent to kill all of them. Their defense systems can be overridden, and there is an enormous and growing Muslim community very much part of society, trusted and loved by Jews who live and work alongside them.. maybe they will turn on them all?
Im just horrified by the level of obsession and hatred in the UK. We are told they don’t hate jews, we are gaslit into thinking we are over sensitive or victimising ourselves. But it’s out of control.
Just this forum is an example. I’ve had posts reported and deleted for calling out antisemitism - as if it’s me being inflammatory and offensive for telling someone they offended me!!!
Ive been flabbergasted by some of the posts I’ve read on here. How the hell do they get away with it?

OP I could have written a lot of this post, I have very similar feelings. It’s awful at the moment, I’m so worried for the future. The gaslighting is on another level.

So sorry that you are experiencing a rise in antisemitism. Unfortunately, those with the loudest voices make the most noise.

All of life is a miracle – and we are not truly alive unless we grasp the miracle of our being.

"What drives them instead is to bring Israel down ... " This makes interesting listening, esp from 16:22 :

the hypocrisy of being liberal, with a black-and-white liberalism: "X has my sympathy, therefore anything X does is justified and anything Y does is wrong".

why do Jews have to openly say they are against it to be respected? While Israelis who disagree with their government are ignored, are equally demonised.

Why are we called baby killers when Kfir and Ariel were returned in coffins? Arithmetic matters more than human rights. The Gazans were not all over-stricken refugees huddled in camps, dependant upon UNWRA. They had resources and opportunities that Hamas diverted into Gazan destruction. But our liberals don't like to consider that. Arithmetic is more emotive.

I think it’s only a matter of time before Israel proper is targeted seriously with true intent to kill all of them. You're behind the times on this. This has been the reality for Israel for decades. The purpose of Hamas's pogrom was bring Israel's standing down in the international sphere. The current danger is that Netanyahu and his extremists are enabling this.

there is an enormous and growing Muslim community very much part of society, trusted and loved by Jews who live and work alongside them.. maybe they will turn on them all? Jews were German citizens, well-integrated, respected. They had served in the Great War, many being decorated. Few believed that German society would turn against them, or how.

I’ve had posts reported and deleted for calling out antisemitism Ditto. And people claim to see no anti-semitism, yet when I've requested that an anti-semitic post remain up so that it can be refuted, it gets deleted. Of course people then claim it doesn't exist - they have been 'protected' from seeing it!

Yeah I stepped away from the board a year ago for these very reasons. It's all incredibly worrying, but if we say so we'll just be accused of "making ourselves the victims as always" because antisemites will always antisemite. They can't help themselves.

Sending love. I'm not Jewish but I will defend when I see fit x

Forgive the intrusion.

I could have written your post and for my own mental health I avoid those boards. I am facing the reality of rockets and sirens in Israel every day both day and night. Everybody I know also knows of somebody who has a friend or family member who has been killed or injured. Maybe if Hamas cared so much for the Gazans they would have sent all the children, elderly, sick and vulnerable into the tunnels

I have had a similar experience on other social media. The answer is simple- antisemitism. People continue to tell us what we should and shouldn't be offended by. When I ask them if they would tell a black or Asian person what is and isn't racist, they never respond. The number of times I've tried to explain that the vast majority of Jewish people are Zionists (in the true definition of the word) so saying they hate Zionists is antisemitic* *or placing other conditions on Jewish people so that they'll like them is alai antisemitic ("I only like Jewish people who speak out on Gaza"). My favourite is "this Jewish celebrity thinks that this is wrong/right so all Jewish people need to think the same, otherwise they're Zionazis etc etc".

I am so anxious all the time I can't actually think straight. As some of you will know, my daughter has had a couple of issues at school and it's made me either vigilant or paranoid depending on the day. My son's class teacher for next year was just announced and it's a new teacher. Googled her as you do and found out she's in charge of a Palestinian programme in my city's schools. I started spiralling badly until I pulled myself together. I don't like this part of myself and I hate how much trust I've lost with the entire world but it's just been so freaking tiring. For so long.

It is tiring and wearing and I also feel like I don't trust most people anymore.

Half of what people say on boards here (and on other social media) sounds like it is straight out of Ayatollah's speech book.

There are people on Mumsnet defending the IRGC!!

I am told that a lot of the social media comment that we see on every post on social media is bots. I don't quite know how that works but I do believe that a lot of people posting here are just sad, frustrated, brainwashed people with no life outside their screen. The amount of projection and DARVO is incredible, they even accuse us of DARVO while DARVOing themselves.

The way of thinking of some sections of the population is so deluded and brainwashed there is literally no seeing reason. They don't even have the same logical reasoning that the rest of us do.

If it gets too bad I can go back to Israel (I'd rather not because it's too hot and too expensive as a single person), but it's an option.

I feel quite overwhelmed and suspicious of everyone I come across. There’s anti Israel graffiti right near where I live, there’s apartheid products not sold here posters in my local town and I asked my MP what he thought of Hamas asking to be declassified as a terrorist organisation and he did not answer my question but replied with an email that was disgustingly anti-Israel, I was in shock.
I have a ‘friend’ who is very vocally pro Palestine, I’ve distanced myself and muted. I decided I’d see what she said about Iran, hoping she might have turned a corner but no it’s the opposite. I’ve unfollowed and it’s probably the end of the friendship.

It’s awful isn’t it.

The knots certain posters are tying themselves up in, trying to defend the Iranian regime.

I think (hope) that most of the posters are very young and stupid, but there was a time... for about 18 months after 7 Oct... when I honestly worried that Hamas was directly manipulating MN with endless spammy threads. Despite the continued existence of downright offensive content, I'm seeing less of that now. And some of the names have disappeared since I took a few months out - maybe they have changed names, I don't know. For my sanity, I take the CITME threads with a pinch of salt and view them much as you would a teenage incel's trolling.

Yes, I've noticed a lot of those names have disappeared, as well as vulnerable Jewish posters. I guess the latter got sick of reading the gaslighting rhetoric.

Please report your MP to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, Daniel Greenberg. Your MP has violated the code of conduct, in terms of integrity and objectivity.

https://www.parliament.uk/mps-lords-and-offices/standards-and-financial-interests/parliamentary-commissioner-for-standards/parliamentary-commissioner-for-standards/

I thought it would be interesting to ask AI to do a breakdown of keywords used on the CITME forum. This was the analysis.

No surprises that "The Strategic category tends to be quieter, often drowned out by more emotive threads."

It's a losing battle trying to argue with people who look no further than Insta/X for their information and enjoy the echo chamber.

That’s so interesting @Beachtastic. I think there’s a numbers game at play here too - running through the whole world, including the UN. There aren’t very many of us Jews, just 0.2% of the global population, c350,000 of us in the UK and only one Jewish UN member state. The sheer number of bad actors influencing the media, politics and the UN (26% of its membership comprises Muslim-majority countries) means we’re hard pushed to get the truth across to those who are ignorant of Middle Eastern matters and whose opinion can be influenced. The amplification of blatant lies, half truths and bias is terrifying and demoralising to see. Why are those Muslim-majority - or indeed, Christian-majority - countries allowed to exist but Israel’s isn’t?

No need to answer that question; we all know the answer.

@BrinkWomanship I've had my suspicions about some "bad actors" here on MN, some of whom dominated the CITME with an iron fist for a very long time. I'm sure I wasn't the only one who gave up even venturing onto MN. (I'm not even Jewish, but fuck me, I recognise bullying and gaslighting when I see it, and find it hard to stomach!) So far I'm seeing the usual naive (or faux-naive?) ignorance, but am not sure it's in quite the same league as what used to be going on here. Of course, if I find myself once more being stalked around the forums and seeing my posts automatically deleted right, left and centre, I'll feel a little suspicious again. Hamas excels at propaganda, and liberal Western social media unfortunately seems to play right into their hands.

I agree with that. Our pluralist society naively doesn’t seem to think that nations can actively work against others due to foundational differences in philosophy/approach/belief.

It seems to be easy to ignore the fact that there was a clock in Tehran to countdown to the destruction of Israel. Or Hamas’ stated intent - the destruction of the Jews and Israel. Or Egypt turning a blind eye to the building of terror tunnels across its border so Hamas could smuggle in arms to kill Jews and destroy Israel. Or news footage (but admittedly not from the major sources) of Hamas stealing aid and killing its own people so Israel looks bad and it keeps making money on the black market. I could go on but it’s just too depressing.

There was one particularly unpleasant poster, who showed up again on a recent thread about Jewish persecution. This thread was in AIBU. I refused to engage because , I remember some of the dark content that was posted on this board, from them. How interesting, that after I advised them I wouldn't engage, I had another poster, personally attack me, which MN quickly deleted.

Thank you for responding. If SM had been around in 1936, I imagine that this is what it must have felt like. The fact that the holocaust is literally weaponised/denied or questioned shows us how fragile a minority is in the face of overt propaganda combined with a society so frightingly easy to persuade.

It's getting worse on here. Don't even look at the Diane Abbott thread x

Just to add some very recent experience of some groups and pages on Facebook. There are a lot of non-Jewish people out there who refuse to accept that they know nothing about the Jewish people. I've had an argument today about whether Jewish people constitute a "race" even though I said we're an ethnoreligion and I know Jewish people who I would describe as mixed race. I've seen again and again people say that Israel attacked its own people on 7/10 just to start the war. I can't even look on anything about Diane Abbott. She's been subjected to some awful racism but she can't speak for the Jewish people in their experience of antisemitism any more than I can represent black people's experience of racism. I was called a "dirty Jew" at school by this one ignorant girl and have had more ridiculous conversations as an adult about "why do Jews..." than I care to remember. At least people understand that racism against BAME people is bad, they don't seem to understand that antisemitism is bad also.

my family is mixed race. My husband is a brown Jew who most people think is black and my kids are very brown skinned. Jews are all colours but they are all Jews. I’ve given up on comments on most platforms, because the only fact is that there is never any excuse for racism/antisemitism/islamophobia whatsoever. No justification no excuses. If you have to give justification for being one of those things then that’s unacceptable. I horrified at how antisemitic people are. I don’t care what’s happening in Israel or anywhere else, there’s simply no excuse.