I have never understood how Israel fails to recognize the parallels between their treatment of Palestinians to the WWII Germany treatment of Jews. Kick people off their property (legally), force them into ghettos (legally), deny them basic needs (can’t let weapons in), and now we’re at the starvation phase. Does Israel want to be vilified? Cuz this is how and why you get vilified. I know there’s more nuance, but the people who are going to hate on all Jewish people for the actions of the Israeli government are not the people listening to nuance or reasons.
Conceptually, yes, Israel has a right to exist, but by international standards, no government is ‘allowed’ commit genocide. Were it any other country, we’d expect U.N. troops in there (sorry Rwanda, we let you down).
At the same time, few Americans would have trouble identifying a violent attack on a mosque or Muslim community event as a bias crime, regardless of the politics of the imam or the community. Nor did we see public arguments that the 2018 murder of 11 Jews in a Pittsburgh synagogue was political, not antisemitic, even though the attacker was motivated by anger at the community’s support for refugees. Likewise, we should have no trouble identifying the recent violent attacks on Jewish community events and spaces as antisemitic.
Sadly most Americans would have trouble identifying a violent attack on a mosque or Muslim community event as a bias crime, some of the MOST POWERFUL PEOPLE in the US would be unable to identify this basic reality if it happened right in front of them. This statement wildly ignores the very recent disgusting history of Islamophobia in the US in the wake of 9/11 (and of course before that too).
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Criticism or public protest of Israel, or any other country, is an essential tool in upholding human rights, especially in a moment when a never-ending war is causing needless death, starvation and displacement in Gaza. But when criticism expresses itself as violence toward Jews and Jewish institutions – including Jews who care about Israel and Israelis – that’s antisemitism.
Something that is not mentioned in the article here is clearly the final twist of the knife with using judaism as a cloak to disguise base colonial, imperial politics that are necessary to sustain the empire materially and ideologically (i.e. Genocide must continue there or we will begin to question if it should continue here) will be blaming Jews for all the violence being done supposedly in the name of protecting them.
When this happens it will be brutal, it will result in mass violence of anti-semitism, clearly my society is being primed for this whiplash to happen, up until recently not even centrists in the US would talk rationally like an adult about the Palestinian Genocide. The conditions have been set for USians to have a baby-like understanding of what is happening, so that when rich conservatives turn around like Microsoft and Google executives and say “The Shock! The Horror! Listen to me your friendly local billionaire/oligarch, I trusted these Jews and look what they have been doing this whole time!” those people in the US will loyally fall in line and become raging anti-semites when they really didn’t give a shit before.
We must remember the CEOs of Microsoft and Google have blood on their hands, not Judaism as a category, this is a product of colonialism necessitating racism to retain and rationalize its power through the lens of Judaism.
The fact that conservative jewish people don’t see this coming is nauseating, I hate being on the precipice of mass violence while being scolded for being anti-semitic because I don’t want a genocide to happen using weapons FROM MY COUNTRY in uncomprehensible amounts on innocent children…
My vocal opposition to the Palestinian Genocide is because I know that in the same way a defense of Judaism is being used to rationalize genocide so will be the inveitable manufactured corrupted response the public has too when they finally decide to look up and witness the genocide being committed supposedly in the name of defending Judaism. Rich conservatives will convince centrists to say with them “Yes, the Jews have betrayed us again!”. I fear that future for everyone, jews, palestinians, me, other humans it doesn’t matter.
To emphasize, it isn’t really the conservatives that scare me in my society, it is the way the people around me willingly lean into a baby-like ignorance so that violent conservatives can periodically shatter their reality and place them purely into states of emotional reaction where they don’t have to examine their actions and beliefs critically they just have to say yes and nod their head to what the fascists around them are doing when they aren’t looking. This is how fascism is enabled, it is the only way fascism is enabled.
This isn’t just an Israel thing, the implications extend all the way out to the entire world… immediately from what happens in the Palestinian Genocide and how we choose to react to it as the US. So far we have chosen to ignore genocide, and not only do we have to stop doing that (here do we need to hold your hand New York Times? come on slowly take a first step there you go), we have to now reckon with the force of evil that has been launched out of the breach by the intensity and unwavering fevor we clung to our ignorance and unwillingness to contend with the reality of the Palestinian Genocide being a direct result of US imperialism and weapons shipments for so long. “Stop criticizing Biden!!!” Blue MAGA screamed through their spittle at progressives…
Reckoning with that as someone from the US means recognizing that the form this violence will soon take is conservatives flip-flopping on Israel and becoming as a demographic much much much more anti-semitic virtually over night because it is the obvious play the billionaires and oligarchs profitting of their useful idiocy and hate are going to make to try to sidestep complicity in the Palestinian Genocide… and I see no indications it won’t catastrophically work because the appeal isn’t lost on the centrist mind, sleeping as it may be…
This is how the dance with oligarchs must go.
The future is coming very fast, prepare for it.
When everything is antisemitic, nothing is.
