6d ago

Not an excuse

134 comments

Repeat after me, antizionism is not antisemitism
- Yes, but I'm also anti-religion. So does that by extension also make me an antisemite?
  
  This gets into a WHOLE problem. Jew refers to the religion, and the ethnic group. They often take the benefits of both, and people will switch which definition they are using actively during a conversation.
  I can say I hate Christianity because membership is a choice. I cannot say I hate black folks, or gay folks.
  Antisemitism is a hating of Jews. That's not ok.
  As OP implies, it's better to say you hate Zionism. It's a more specific belief that someone chooses.
  That is exactly why these groups CHANGING THE DEFINITION of antisemitism to include anti Zionism is alarming and overtly evil. They've learned the protections of having the word Jew refer to both, and are now trying to bind Zionism in there too!
  
  No
  
  Only because you chose the nuance must you die by it

Antisemitism will truly be defeated when Jews can live anywhere in the world without fear of persecution, not when they've carved out their own ethnostate.
- Unfortunately, I feel like these times call for explicit clarification in what should be obvious.
  "...when Jews can live anywhere in the world without fear of persecution.. for being Jewish" (but like everyone else can be held accountable as individuals for crimes including war crimes; that being Jewish doesn't turn prosecution into persecution)
  
  The fact that this needs clarification is evidence that we do not deserve a future as a species.
  JFC are we fucking idiots that this needs to be spelled the fuck out.
  
  Valid distinction thanks to Israel.

Another truth that must be addressed is that most Jewish people either actively or passively support the genocide of Palestinians. Therefore we need people like me within Judaism to call it out and people outside of Judaism to agree it's a problem.
- most Jewish people
  Whether or not that's true, I don't think it's the sort of claim that should be made without supporting evidence. Bear in mind that the Zionist lobby is powerful, vocal and ruthless, many people may be afraid to speak out against it. If a group can be made to feel like they are the minority, it can seem as if they really are.
  
  I dont think there are any trustworthy statistics so ill be honest, I mostly went off my personal experience as a Jewish person and having interacted with my community extensively
- This certainly appears to be true.
  My government, and Israel, have made it clear that my opposition to the genocide in Gaza makes me an antisemite. I have maybe only once read of a Jewish person or group opposing this view.
  So be it, I know which side of history I want to tell my young nieces and nephews I was on, so I have no problem whatsoever with any of legal issues this might cause me.
  Of course, the price for Israel (and silent Jewish people) making the judgement that I and most socially liberal people are antisemites, is Jewish people are on their own, other than the far right/nazi aligned groups who support their actions in Gaza, in terms of international support from people not governments.
  Edit - and as an aside, I think this new alignment indicates that a lot of the 20th century Western notions of political 'left' and 'right' are dead, 'liberalism' is a political double-speak (do you mean economic or social liberalism? Because they are at odds), and it isn't Russia v. the USA, because American oligarchs and wannabe strongmen are in perfect alignment with their Russian counterparts.
  
  Code Pink, Jewish voice for peace, Norman Finkelstein, Gabor Maté, Ilan Pappé, Noam Chomsky, Judith Butler. These are some of the Jewish folks opposing settler colonial Zionism. There is a strong Jewish tradition of being on the right side of history. Sure, Judaism is not a monolith, and sure, maybe (and this is a really big fat maybe, and I'd love to see actual data either supporting or refuting this, which is conspicuously absent from this discussion) the majority of Jews support Israel's actions, but there is a sizable portion of Jews worldwide that oppose settler colonialism, and and even larger portion that opposes the ongoing genocide.
- Better watch out. Lemmy will ban you for saying a majority of the Jewish population. Support a genocide because they are blood thirsty. Just be careful. Zionists control the subs and site.
  
  Conspiracy much?
  
  You're thinking of Reddit, I was banned for saying "Israel murders children" on three accounts, after the third they had enough of my non genocidal talks and perm banned me.
  
  "Lemmy" doesn't ban people, but certain instances might.
  aka, if I get banned from Lemmy.world, I am not banned from Lemmy, just from lemmy.world.
  
  Ok fed
  
  The mods and admins here arent zionists, they're zionist sympathizers and genocide apologists

Kind of reminds me of the brainwashing the media instituted about how covid was somehow a China thing and shortly after, people were attacking Asians because somehow or rather if you're Asian, suddenly covid was all your fault. It was also just another excuse for racists to act out. Humans really are just that dumb.

Third truth, it’s not just Israeli leaders who are promoting the violence against Palestine, and many of those that do use their Judaism as a shield against criticism.
- fourth truth, more White American Protestants defend the genocide than there are Jewish people in America so you gotta be careful
  
  The fuck I do! Supporters of the genocide deserve to be called out no matter their religion, but it also needs to be called out when people support the genocide and utilize the charge of anti-semitism to justify it.
  At this rate, “anti-semitism” is starting to mean anti-genocide.
  Anyone who doesn’t believe in a two-state solution is a terrorist to me.

People using the term anti semitic often fail to realize that the semitic people and culture not only contains Jews, but also levantine Arabs.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semitic_people
- however, the name Semitic is a nazi invention that was originally directed towards Jews. part of their scientific racism.
  it's kind of meaningless.
  like Dwight claiming an Indian coworkers is Caucasian because he claims her people came from the Caucasus.
  but yhea, if we step out of semantics, fuck Israel for this genocide and using the Jewish diaspora as shields.
  
  ^^^Yes, more people need to know about this because it’s a meaningless “gotcha”
- More importantly, it's used inappropriately when talking about violence towards/hatred of the vaaaaaaaast majority of Israelis because they're Europeans...
  
  The people that should be hearing this won't accept it as truth. They actively deny the Eastern European heritage of ashkenazi Jews.

Went to the mall today and one store, a toy store I think, had a big Israel flag hanging by the entrance - like I get that you have an identity at stake here but none of us want to walk under that particular flag to spend our money right now, and you could see that reflected. And that's not anti-semitism, it's just voting with our feet.
Next, it'd be nice to get our tax dollars to do the same thing...
- ✡️ ✅ awesome, lovely, beautiful (even if it’s blue)
  🇮🇱❌ yikes, not great, at best evidence you are privileged and aren’t paying attention, at worst evidence ur a nasty zionist
  and while we’re at it same goes for the old 🇺🇸 😬😧
- Watch out. Lemmy admins and mods will call you a nazi and ban you for pointing this out.
  
  dude stop fearmongering. there’s already been mod action on some comments in this post and it was the truly horrible stuff.
  if you have specific examples of people, words or places where you saw this kind of repression, say it specifically, but saying hazy generic things like this is cringe and unhelpful.
  
  No they won't mate, fuck off.

Can we add a 3rd truth that hamas is a death cult that has no place in today’s world. I like all 3 things equally
- only if there’s a fourth truth held also equally that hamas only exists due to the obscene conditions israel has created which also have no place in today’s world yet have been funded by some of the most wealthy nations, thereby entangling the web of both israeli and palestinian blood across generations decades and borders :)
  
  Nope. Israel and the international community gave the Palestinians an opportunity to build industry and improve their conditions and live peacefully. They gave billions and billions for this purpose without restriction (apart from military - which as history shows, appears warranted). The Palestinian people voted in Hamas who had a mandate to destroy Israel - from what I can tell is based in religious fundamentalism. Instead of building their economy and educating their population they used the money to build tunnels and pay for thousands of rockets to be fired into Israel. This was a terrible choice and there’s no denying it was a gamble on the Palestinians behalf. One that if it payed off and went to plan (as was in their mandate) would have slowly lead to the destruction of Israel. Bad gamble. Didn’t pay off, the Palestinians have to accept voting in a government who said they will destroy Israel and then consistently carrying out that plan, has at least in some large part lead them to their current circumstances.
  On a similar note. Why has there been no talk of how Benjamin Netanyahu was about to go to prison for corruption - then he tried to destroy the checks and balances on government. Then he got caught knowingly funding hamas’s October 7 attack. Clearly all to hold onto power yet no one talks about this anymore?
- And #4 that a people under brutal occupation has a right to resist, even armed resistance?
  
  Which part of Palestinian combatants being joined by non combatants and then invading and murdering and kidnapping 1200 civilians is considered “resisting.”
- Man, someone should have told Bibi that before he funded Hamas for years. That's embarrassing!
  
  Most likely by design. It annoys me that this doesn’t get brought up everyday
- Also not mentioned too much is how Egypt and the other Muslim nations refuse to help or take people in from Gaza.
  
  Why does it have to be Muslim countries?
  
  Ya never ever bring up that annoying little fact. Most of their neighbors would refuse them entrance. And a lot of of them are happy to arm them and fund the extremist behavior. It’s almost like the whole world is involved in this little proxy war! A microcosm of WW3
  
  Why does it have to be Muslim countries?
- Only if we add in recognition that Hamas would not without Israel. You can kill two birds with one stone.
- I got banned from a .blahaj community for saying "hamas bad" for, I quote, "Genocide apologia".
  Some peep here are literal extremists.

Those are both true. Respond to that lie by criticizing the Israeli leaders who are propagating it.
There are more Jews outside of Israel than within. My family emigrated from Poland to the US to flee persecution by the Bolsheviks, prior to the founding of the state of Israel. I’ve protested with JVP against the Palestinian genocide in Grand Central. My story is not unique.
- ❤️🤝
- Also not mentioned too much is how Egypt and the other Muslim nations refuse to help or take people in from Gaza.
  
  People in Egypt are dirt poor and can hardly stay afloat themselves. Why expect them to take the burden for a crisis that they didn't cause and don't support? (Is Egypt corrupt as fuck and is are the people running the state rich as fuck? -- yes.)

I don't advocate adventurism, but important to note that violence against jews is different than violence against Israeli state actors.
Just in case this meme is referencing the recent shooting of two Israeli Embassy workers. Again, I don't advocate adventurism, but it's important to recognize a distinction between violence directed at an ethnic group and violence directed at government officials.
- other violence than those two victims going on unfortunately. both preceding and since, and civilians.
  
  Like the time that Israeli shot those 2 Israelis in the US.

I'm so tired of being trapped in the middle of this psychotic Jewish psychodrama. Can we just agree to stop killing, starving, orphaning and mutilating kids?
- US religious fanatics say no. Sorry.
  
  best we can do is arrest and brutalize college kids while appointing real antisemites to high places in the white house apparently
  
  Germany's government is also one million percent behind the gaza genocide.
  
  Which is wholly ironic when you think about it. Jesus was born in Bethlehem, which is modern day Palestine. Israel is basically spawn camping the second-coming.
- It would seem that most of the world's leaders are super into that, actually.

This is so true. I remember hearing about the two Israeli officials who were shot and I was stuck thinking: " was this motivated out of antisemitism and he just happened to hit legitimate targets instead of some innocent folks, or was the guy actually acting out of rage and sadness for what he's seen in Gaza?". Nowadays it seems like you can't even tell immediately - like you've gotta wait for more info. It was a relief to find out that everyone who knew the shooter agreed that he was not antisemitic, and chose to platform justice for Gaza when asked about the shooter.

I hate that these cunts are starving children supposedly in my name. Fucking diabolical.
- wdym by in ur name?
  
  in the name of the Jewish identity

All the "buts" in this thread are reflective of why these Israeli government arguments work.

Hooray, someone meme-i-fied the only proper take on this subject!
- yayyyy i hope thats genuine i like when my memes are helpful :)
  
  Sometimes the shape is as important as the content, especially about "sensitive" subjects. So yes, thank you! 🙏

I wouldn't say israeli leaders are antisemitic, but they accuse their critics of antisemitism to pursue their authoritarian and colonial agenda with impunity.

hi spujb did u know the jews invented hash browns https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latke
- yes! shoutout jewish ppl
- They also created the bagel, no? Love me a plain bagel as the buns if a breakfast sandwich. God. Now I'm hungry.

This would be perfect just if you would put zionists in the place of isreali leaders

I vote for the wise frog.
- amen bruv

So so many people forget two things can be true
- many such cases!

Fuck Israel, genocidal scum!

No, the only solution clearly is to light up the gas chambers again.
/s

What about all the Jewish people in Israel and around the world actively contributing to, relishing in, and celebrating what's happening? Can we talk about them?
- What about all the non-Jewish people in Israel and around the world actively contribution to, relishing in, and celebrating what's happening? Can we talk about them?
  What about all the Jewish people in Israel and around the world actively protesting against, writing against, and decrying what's happening? Can we talk about them?
  There's idiots and great people in all ethnicities, and not understanding that fact is being incredibly simple-minded.

I don’t care anymore, antisemitic, antiarab, nothing in that part of the world is of any concern to me now.
- that’s awesome. do us all a favor and block this community then so we never have to get those two cents again.
- Semites aren’t a religion, it refers to people from the Middle East regardless of religion

How did we stop Nazis in the past? Was it... kindness? Memes? Or violence?
I'm not sure what's that you're trying to say OP.
- Violence against the IDF is very different from violence against Rabbi Moe down the street. Maybe Rabbi Moe is a rabid zionist, maybe when he's done with shabbat he spends Sundays protesting against Israel. Violence against him as a jew is antisemitism and unacceptable, while violence against him as a supporter of the idf would just be bad optics.
- Was it fighting random germans, or fighting the actual nazis? I'm not sure what you're trying to say.
  
  There was literally no random Germans.
  If you read memoirs from that time, or survivors letters, they always talk about Nazis being the milkman, the cobbler, the shopkeeper, the neighbour, and not Gebels or Hitler.

134 comments