Does feminism have an anti-Semitism problem?

[Fantasyanswer]

https://www.timesofisrael.com/spotlight/does-feminism-have-an-antisemitism-problem/?fbclid=IwAR2Peotm8PwNdTpDdzgW1KXUOCD1YuQ6jiSY2LpBfNMlqcz9hQzq0rYmGgc

I've not had a change to listen to this yet, but thought this may be of interest to some.

I've put this here following on from the previous thread on Sex and Gender about the sexual abuse of Israeli women and girls by Hamas on October 7th.

I agree with you

See:

https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/international/europe/180794-180802-corbyn-backed-motion-to-rename-holocaust-memorial-day

This is my own suspicion that the name change was an attack on Israel. The "never again for anyone" name was connected to a tour that Corbyn had to apologise over.

Islamist ideology and oppression existed a long time before Hamas or the modern state of Israel.

Hamas openly admits that their own side stole the land, and this is their sick "justification" for violence.

I'm not sure why we keep bringing up Jeremy Corbyn. He's not in the Labour Party any more, nowhere near power, plus this was over ten years ago.

I'm sure he was antisemitic and under him the LP certainly had a problem but that's pretty irrelevant to a debate about todays situation.

Unless your aim is nothing to do with feminism, Israel and Gaza and more to do with pushing a certain narrative around the left wing.

Seems like an odd question tbh. You might as well ask if nudism, tennis, flower arranging or Buddhism has an antisemitism problem. Are there some feminists who are antisemites? Undoubtedly, but it's not an inherent feature of feminism.

I'm not sure why we keep bringing up Jeremy Corbyn.

Any discussion about left-wing politics and anti-semitism will mention him because he is people's most recent and most famous reference point.

I read this article and was going to post it on the general conversation thread because i found it quite interesting, but as it covers a lot of ground, it'll fit here too. Or bits of it will

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/grovelling-to-wokeism-has-tipped-our-universities-into-an-ethical-void-0dxjpb9w7

https://archive.ph/G1bT0 archive link

I've just deleted a great long essay about how hamas has squandered aid money and time to build a society in Palestine that would earn the respect of the world's goverments. Respect that they could have used to push back peacefully against Israel. Instead of the usual commit atrocity, collective punishment, rinse repeat.

I'm not sure I would consider anyone woman who didn't condemn 7th October a feminist. Perhaps feminism has a problem with infiltrators who call themselves feminists but seem to prioritise the actions of men.

Hamas broke the last ceasefire. They need to get back to the negotiating table and release the remaining hostages so Israel will stop the bombs.

I also saw an article that a bunch of rabbis are helping to protect the olive harvests in the West Bank from Jewish settlers who are trying to destroy it. Brave men, especially in the current climate.

Your behaviour on that other thread was disgraceful. You called 'Me too unless you are a jew' a right wing culture war issue. You accused everyone who disagreed with you as suffering group think. On a thread that Jewish women were using to support each other after the horror of the attacks and all the horrendous aftermath, you posted a 'crying with a laughter emoji'' in response to a Jewish woman's post and when challenged on this said ' I can respond whatever someone's religion is' which completely justified other posters' accusations of your complete lack of empathy. You called talking about the women giving witness to the the sexual abuse of Israeli women, which was being largely ignored at the time, 'ghoulish' .

You were awful, really awful. So much so that multiple posters were so disgusted by your behaviour they refused to engage further with you.

Considering all it takes to be considered anti-semitic when leftwing is to not hate Corbyn then I can see how some would have arrived at the conclusion that some leftwing feminists hold anti-semitic views. Apart from anything else it's really the feat of mangled logic that seems most concerning.

Not read the thread, just responding to the title, which I find very annoying.

What is this entity ‘feminism’ which can have a ‘problem’ of overlapping with another nebulous entity ‘antisemitism’? It doesn’t make any sense.

Feminism is broad, and is being increasingly broadened to even include the hatred and blaming of women for men’s actions and efforts to erase and unperson women - it’s very opposite.

So what kind of feminism is this question addressing?

Antisemitism is also really unclear as a concept, ranging from brutal murderous hatred of Jewish people to mild criticisms of Israel, Jewish traditions, etc - surely feminism has grounds to criticise the Abrahamic patriarchal religions?

What kind of antisemitism?

The huge uptick in obscene and overt antisemitism we are witnessing at the moment after Hamas’ brutal attack seems to be a form of social-media stoked mass-hysteria, mainly running rampant among a demographic which would be close to a circle, in a Venn diagram of ‘young’, ‘left wing’, ‘black or white’ thinking, ‘followers of causes’. The fact that this demographic dragged feminism into its pet ‘causes’ to justify its feelings of moral superiority and punitive fervour, doesn’t mean that feminism, or any other rights movement that could exist quite well without its ‘help’, have ‘a problem’ such as the chilling antisemitism that belongs to this group.

He sounds a useful advocate for anti-semitism. What a misogynist. What a racist.

So it was fine, to you, for israelis to steal Plestinians lands and homes and to occupy them for all this time?
And now carpet bombing civilians is fine?
To leave them without food and water, again 20 000+ dead is fine to you? Thousonds of pregnant women now without medical help, hospitals bombed away?
Because they are Palestinians?

Their suffering is on-going, non-stop and we see it all day, everyday. And greedy/coward US just veto’d a ceasefire.

And you feel nothing?
But call yourself a feminist?
Why? You don’t care about women, or at least doesn’t sound like you do.

‘Steal lands’ what tosh!

@Grammarnut Well quite. And here he is: an outspoken, elected and permitted misogynist, enacting misogynist policy to ‘protect the modesty of girls’. Not repress the capability and free will of women.

To frame, as some do, Israel’s society as some sort of middle-eastern utopia for liberated women, Jewish or Arab, straight or gay, is simply misleading and certainly not a ladder to moral high ground over Palestinian society.

There are leftwing antisemites, and there are also rightwing antisemites. Antisemitism should not be attributed specifically or particularly to the left. I do not think that Elon Musk is particularly leftwing.

As for someone supposedly being antisemitic because they thought that Holocaust Memorial Day ought to commemorate other genocides and not solely the Holocaust. Well that's also the position of the UK government. So is the UK government antisemitic? Possibly, but again it shows that it's foolish to associate this position with the left (as the left isn't in power), much less with individual activists etc.

The Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, https://www.hmd.org.uk/, a charity funded by the UK government, states that: "We promote and support Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD) – the international day on 27 January to remember the 6 million Jews murdered during the Holocaust, alongside the millions of people murdered under Nazi persecution of other groups and during more recent genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur."

No, I said it looked to me like some on the right wing had coopted Jewish rape victims via that hashtag to fan the flames of a culture war/right v. left debate, and to attack feminist groups for doing the wrong kind of feminism.

I think its disrespectful to the rape victims and really unhelpful to the Israel/Gaza debate generally. The situation is too serious to be used for political positioning and yet thread is already going down the same "left wing = antisemitic" path.

I'm not responding any more on this as i don't want to be accused of "derailing".

It sounds like you don't think the left wing has a problem with antisemitism. Perhaps you should do some reading.

I absolutely believe that anti semitic feminists exist but to imply that this means that feminists are collectively anti semitic is wrong. Leaders of a country or political party can issue official statements, as Biden or Sunak have, but who could legitimately speak for all feminist women?

Prime Minister Netanyahu has said that feminist groups have not highlighted the treatment given to the Hamas hostages but we know that he is no feminist. He is trying to counter his critics who wonder why the attacks came as such a shock.

To me, Hamas' treatment of the women hostages is profoundly misogynistic. We should concentrate on this, not create straw women to take the blame.

This is a good, balanced article about the rapes, the hashtag and particular events in France.

https://www.france24.com/en/middle-east/20231204-metoo-for-israeli-victims-too-gaza-war-drives-wedge-between-french-feminists

Organisers of the Paris march hit back in a joint statement on Tuesday, stressing their “unambiguous condemnation of the sexual and sexist crimes, rapes and femicides committed by Hamas” on October 7. They also blasted an attempt to “instrumentalise” the fight against gender-based violence and accused far-right activists of stoking tensions at the march and seeking to discredit its organisers

An important article

Whether in Afghanistan, Iraq, Ukraine or the Hamas outrage on October 7, for too long the world has turned a blind eye to sexual violence in war. It is time for action, writes Christina Lamb

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/511a2bf4-fef1-461d-8510-cd2e491b0685?shareToken=e2de2189ab90665fa271473318b7485d

This is not helpful.
I absolutely think elements of the left wing have an issue with antisemitism.
What I object to is the black and white characterisation of it as a "left wing" issue. Antisemitism is everywhere.

I also object to the repeated raising of Jeremy Corbyn when Keir Starmer has put so much energy into trying to eradicate antisemitism from Labour and made it clear it won't be tolerated.

Here's some reading for you, including differences in the LP now and under Corbyn.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/11/05/margaret-hodge-left-wing-antisemitism-qa-00125285

An interesting post which raises the question of so much willful blindness and ignorance

twitter.com/TheHarrisSultan/status/1721156958517113075?t=IOzMhtFwJ7Qm5dnb0_R7Ig&s=19

My dad, who is a moderate Muslim, finally expressed his concern and asked me, 'Why are you supporting this genocide?'

He mentioned that he's stopped looking at his phone because he can no longer bear to watch videos of Palestinian children being bombed by Israel.

I replied, 'I empathize with the suffering, and it's not easy for me either.'

Then I showed him a photo, and we both agreed on the gravity of the situation in Palestine.

I then informed him that the photo was actually of a Yemeni child pulled from the rubble resulting from a Saudi bombing in Yemen.

I pointed out that Israel has allegedly killed 7,000 Palestinians, while the Saudis have killed at least 150,000 Yemeni Muslims. Some estimates suggest upto 300,000.

How can we call the current conflict a 'genocide' when what the Saudis did is hardly even discussed by Muslims? Don’t get me started on 200,000 Muslims killed by Bashar Al Asad in Syria.

He responded that if that's the case, he also disagrees with what the Saudis did. I replied, 'How convenient. Nearly half a MILLION fellow Muslims have been killed by other Muslims, and you didn't even know about it. Yet when Israel retaliates against a terrorist organization that has killed, raped, and maimed 1,500 of its citizens, the whole Muslim world reacts?'

It seems to have less to do with preserving Muslim lives and more to do with a religious fantasy of hostility toward Jews.

Thank you for this. It's a brilliant article.

I also object to the repeated raising of Jeremy Corbyn when Keir Starmer has put so much energy into trying to eradicate antisemitism from Labour and made it clear it won't be tolerated.

Why are you conflating Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party when the Labour Party chucked him out? Jeremy Corbyn is still part of the left wing that has an issue with antisemitism. He's still an MP and he's still out there twittering his rubbish. He was on Piers Morgan the other day refusing to call Hamas terrorists.

The ADL list Helen Joyce's book 'Trans' as containing antisemtic tropes.

In her 2021 book, Trans, The Economist’s Helen Joyce claimed that the transgender “global agenda” is “shaped” by three wealthy individuals, including Soros and Pritzker. Though Joyce did not explicitly highlight their Jewish identity, her statements echo the frequent conspiracy theories which portray Soros as the mastermind behind plots to undermine or destabilize societies. These conspiracy theories serve to mainstream the hateful tropes that are propagated by antisemites and extremists.

www.adl.org/resources/blog/antisemitism-anti-lgbtq-hate-converge-extremist-and-conspiratorial-beliefs