I’ve seen a lot of posts on this site that are leaning into anti semetic tropes while criticizing Israel. I want to point it out so that folks can recognize it.
First, because I have to say it:
Israel is a colonial outpost of the United States. It was created by Britain and inherited by the US. The US gives Israel ~3,000,000,000 USD in aid every year. As a colony, it should be the goal of every socialist to destroy it, just as we seek the destruction of the US, Northern Ireland, South Korea, Canada, the Phillipine state, etc.
But! Israel is also a safe haven for Jews. This is seperable from the colonial nature of the state. Israel could have been created in Germany or Siberia or frankly Florida for that matter (in fact, annexing Florida to create a new state of Israel is what I mean when i refer to “the one state solution”). In many ways, the US with its civil rights act serves the same purpose, and in fact, most Jews live in the US.
Many of us had ancestors in Germany or Poland during the holocaust who did not stick around after the war. They saw Israel as their best shot at safety in the wake of the holocaust. Many Israelis are liberals, hoping to vote out Likud, stop supporting settlements, and negotiate palestinian statehood. These people are advocating half measures, sure, but they are not our enemies.
So I wanted to point out some anti-semetic tropes I’ve seen on this website and call them out so you can recognize them.
Conflating Jews in Israel with Zionists.
This can be done through omission. If you aren’t clear whether you’re talking about jews or a specific institution (for example, the I"D"F or the settlements or Likud), many people will read your statement as being about Jews. Be careful with the word “they”
erasing the ambivalent position of jews within colonialism / conflating jewishness with whiteness
The zionist entity is not a Jewish colonial project, but an Anglo colonial project. It was created by the British and now is funded by the US Americans. Jews are an oppressed minority whose oppression is leveraged against other oppressed peoples. Similarly to how the US uses Kurds to Balkanize Iraq or The Hmong to wage counterinsurgency in Laos, it’s uses Jews to destabilize the Levant.
Outside of the US, jews are largely understood as a racial group and oppressed on that basis. Especially in the Arab world where the Islamic hyper nationalism has gained ground in response to colonialism and been funded further by colonialists to their own ends (google “the safari club” or “Israel funds Hamas”)
Blood Libel
This one is the assertion that Jews are uniquely bloodthirsty / murder non Jewish children. The classic example of this myth that people are familiar with is Runplestiltskin.
It is true that the IDF under the direction of Likud and the US state is murdering many Gazans, the majority of whom are children. but! be careful to specify. When people talk about “jews” or “israelis” generally as perpetuating the murder of children, they are engaging in the blood libel trope. Again, be careful with the word “they” and specify which entities you’re talking about.
calling for ethnic cleansing
Okay, wtf ya’ll. It’s not jews as an ethnicity that are oppressing Palestinians, it is US imperial power. Jews have always lived in Palestine and the occupation only began in the 40s as part of a British initiative.
Jews will always be part of a palestinian state, and frankly need protections as ethnic and religious minorities. We do not seek the expulsion of Jews from Palestine, but their integration into it as citizens.
Jews are safe in the US not because its a colonial state but because of civil rights protections and generational wealth. If we can create civil rights protections in Palestine and a social safety net (ideally communism but I’ll settle for social democracy), then jews will be safe in Palestine.
Jewish control of America / protocols of the elders of zion
America controls Israel and not vice versa. APEC is not a cabal brainwashing otherwise Nobel Christian politicians. US politicians support Israel because they’re colonial politicians and Israel is our colony. APEC exists because lobbying is how power is exercised in the US, but if we had patronage instead, APEC’ functions would be carried our by a governor or an ambassador or whatever.
conclusion
Recognize the role of the US empire in Palestinian oppression. Recognize that jews are in an ambivalent racial category and are an oppressed people. Be specific when criticizing Israeli colonialism. Name who you’re criticizing, is it the settlements? The IDF? Likud? The US military Industrial Complex? Stop calling for ethnic cleansing of jews if you’ve been doing that. Don’t equate jewishness with whiteness / the Nazis. White people are white people, the US is the Nazis.
I’m going to quibble with your claim that Israel is a safe haven for Jews. This attack should have ended this claim forever. There is no way Jewish people are safer in Israel than they would be in the us, Canada, the uk, France, Germany, etc.
Secondly, why do Jews need a homeland to be safe? No other group that has been attacked through history ever has been supported in creating an ethnostate in order to protect them. Where is the demand for Roma to have a state to protect that from racism in Europe? Where are the calls to give the descendants of enslaved Africans to be given a state they can control in order to be protected?
Antisemitism is a real problem, and as leftists we must always call it out just as we do for any other form of oppression. I will continue to my best at this as well, and pretty much agree with the specific arguments you make in the rest of your post
Especially when it came to the Beta Israelites and some of the other non-white jews you’d think Israel’s purpose as a Anglo colonial state would’ve been made obvious. Israel finally allowed them in without reservation (compared their right to return to the right to return of Russian Jews or American Jews), but then Israeli doctors and nurses kept giving them birth control with no informed consent - like no indication that was happening.
Also the Samaritans are treated like shit, and they were there first! The Jews come back from exile and the Samaritans are sitting around being Israelite just fine and are happy to point out some small inaccuracies in their Torah.
And they’re still there. There aren’t a lot of them but they never left.
People love talking about the Samaritans like they are a fictional mythic race created for the “good samaritan” story. Like they are freaking elves
Where are the calls to give the descendants of enslaved Africans to be given a state they can control in order to be protected?
Isn’t that what Liberia is?
Liberia has the exact same problem as Israel. There were already people living there. To be done correctly I think descendants of enslaved Africans would deserve a homeland carved out of the US, Brazil, etc. with the caveat that indigenous peoples of those regions would also have full rights in these hypothetical countries
Edit: this would be similar to the idea that Israel should have been carved out of Germany/Austria but more complicated due the existence of righteous and just indigenous struggles in the americas and Caribbean
This is Haiti, this is Jamaica now that the Taino people were the victims of total genocide. This was the idea of the Black Belt Thesis which advocated for the southern US agricultural heartland to be transformed into a Black nation-state while the rights of Black people were also fought for in the rest of the US.
This is the partial goal of the Kurdish people. While we wait for total revolution and capitalism, the nation-state is one of the best forms available for oppressed nations to actualize their self-determination. As we see in the case of Israel, this can end up as a fascist and genocidal project which is why @Nagarjuna@hexbear.net advocates for the Florida-Annexation bit.
It ended horrible for Liberia. The Americo-Liberian attacked and segregated the natives, they ran the country as a one-party state until 1980’s. When the USA decided to fund a coup, they helped a radical right-wing native military goverment be established that caused more and more ethnical problems.
Just because the Americo-Liberian were starting to have diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union, ended their one-party system, eased the segregation on the natives and they had started to support Palestine.
I think you’re right that Israel is factually not safe. Although, the attacks were mostly against forward settlements and not like, Tel Aviv (although the bombing obviously changes that). I think I should have differentiated more strongly between the motivations of apolitical and left wing Jews who moved to Israel after the holocaust and the reality of Israel not actually being safe. Thank you for your quibble.
I want to clarify one thing though. in my post, I’m critical of the idea that an ethnostate is the best way to secure Jewish liberation. My proposed solution was one secular state with civil rights protections for religious minorities.
apolitical and left wing Jews who moved to Israel after the holocaust
Being a willing genocidal settler-colonizer is neither apolitical or left wing
It honestly gets worse and worse the more modern your “return” is. Cause then you are creating the market for new settlements and doing so in the face of well known atrocities. Its essentially house-hunting and getting whoever lives there killed so you can move in. No sympathy for settlers
That’s very true, but I would also argue that the existence of Israel as a Jewish ethnostate created by displacing Muslim Palestinians makes Jews unsafe everywhere; it serves as an open wound that will understandably (although wrongly when targeted against non-Zionist Jews) create strife and violence between Jews and Muslims worldwide
I also should have been clear that I don’t think you’re arguing for anything but a secular state with full rights for all people who live in it. Apologies for not being clear.
Also, I want to thank you for your post, antisemitism is such an insidious form of hatred and the way colonialism has utilized it is disgusting and incredibly harmful. We as leftists have to always be outspoken and vocal in our opposition to it. I also hate that Jewish leftists get caught in the crossfire of anti-Zionism. This is one area where I think things actually are complicated and nuanced, but I expect more of leftists, even though I’m sure I sometimes fail at recognizing and explaining them myself
I’ve seen a lot of posts on this site that are leaning into anti semitic tropes while criticizing Israel.
This is a pretty strong claim to make without presenting any evidence. In fact, is an extremely common thing reactionaries will say, and if any evidence is eventually presented, 99% it’s something inanely unoffensive like a lot of words for “free parking” or “plz no murder”.
For anyone who choose to read my comment but not the rest of OP’s post, the rest of OP’s post does have good points about not using terms that can be interpreted as antisemitic dog-whistles.
IMO rephrasing this as an educational PSA instead an accusation would be better.
I didn’t say “if you’re criticizing Israel, you’ve been doing it antisemetically” I said “a lot of people have been leaning on antisemetic tropes while criticizing Israel.”
I’m not going to dig up every post I’ve reported, but I’ll encourage you to look out for it the next time you’re in the news thread. You’ll see what I mean.
“I’m not going to provide any evidence of the incendiary claim I’m making.”
Perfect, assertions made without evidence can be dismissed without thought.
i’m not going to go digging for stuff i saw in the news mega 3 days ago, but i can be a little more specific about what I saw than OP https://hexbear.net/comment/4116393
Just dig up one then. Not that I don’t believe you, but the “its so prevalent that it’s not worth my time to show a concrete example” is a common tactic of people arguing in bad faith.
https://hexbear.net/comment/4096717 here’s one. I agree with this post but have been wary of calling it out specifically because of this response btw.
@CARCOSA@hexbear.net could you trawl up nagarjuna’s reports and make sure actions were taken? it seems like a serious accusation
i don’t know what “a lot” means but i’ve seen some suspicious use of currency symbols like we used to do with micro$oft and some “israel hypnotizes” which would be fine except for the tropes.
You mean like people titling posts with “Isr*el” instead of just saying it, or did I misunderstand?
I think I saw someone using a dollar sign in “Israel” on the first few days this latest flareup started but they were called out on it
Israel is also a safe haven for Jews
Maybe some specific strands of Jewish people. As long as they are white or European or American or however you wanna categorise them. Ethiopian jews are ghettoised and forcibly sterilised.
Legit my fav question to ask people that make this statement conflating Israel with the entirety of Jewish peoples (a exceedingly diverse grouping of various ethnic and religiously distinct traditions/peoples). Also there’s the fact that Israel has a lowkey hate towards Eastern European ethnic Jews as well as also despising the use of yiddish language (legit goal of the Israeli state to ensure yiddish was never spoken). Also yeah never forget what happened to the Jewish ethiopeans that moved to Israel as refugees.
the many cultural developments of the diaspora go against the ethnostate desire for a single volk. for zionists, all of jewish history after the destruction of the second temple was a mistake that jews allowed to happen because they were too weak to resist their oppressors.
Recognize the role of the US empire in Palestinian oppression. Recognize that jews are in an ambivalent racial category and are an oppressed people. Be specific when criticizing Israeli colonialism. Name who you’re criticizing, is it the settlements? The IDF? Likud? The US military Industrial Complex? Stop calling for ethnic cleansing of jews if you’ve been doing that. Don’t equate jewishness with whiteness / the Nazis. White people are white people, the US is the Nazis.
Why isn’t “Israel” on your list of OK to criticize groups? The colonialist state of Israel needs to be destroyed and wiped off the face of the earth, and this is not anti-semitic to say. I’ve not seen one person on this site blaming all jews for anything. Can you provide even a single example of this that wasn’t quickly removed by mods? Stop vague posting and concern trolling if you don’t have an explicit example, now is not the time to center the attention on yourself.
I’ve been doing nothing but doom-scrolling the news mega the past week or two and I’ve seen maybe one or two instances of anti-semitism and they got insta-removed by mods within a few minutes. it’s really silly borderline wrecker behavior to sit here, after ~1000 people just got bombed in a hospital, and talk about how hexbear is doing blood libel and calling for ethnic cleansing or some shit.
It is true that the IDF under the direction of Likud and the US state is murdering many Gazans, the majority of whom are children. but! be careful to specify. When people talk about “jews” or “israelis” generally as perpetuating the murder of children, they are engaging in the blood libel trope. Again, be careful with the word “they” and specify which entities you’re talking about.
Also this is incredibly libshit. It’s blood libel to say that Israelis are killing children in Gaza? How about fuck off!
If there is anti-Semitism, I’m not seeing it in the news megathread, proving once again the news megathread is the best part of this site.
I’ve seen basically every comment in the past 2 megathreads, there was like one person who said “maybe Kanye was right” and they got dogpiled by everyone and mods deleted the comment 5 minutes after I reported it.
Well said. I agree with them when it comes to people saying “Jews”, but when it comes to Israel, any part of Israel, then condemnation is correct. Israel IS the settlements, the IDF, Likud, the MIC. It is the outcome of all of them and exists to carry out the MIC and Likud’s will, and uses settlements and the IDF to do so. Israeli Jews don’t get to use Jews writ large as a shield. They don’t get to claim the oppression of others while they colonize someone else’s land, and yes that means any Israeli citizen not actively opposed to israeli ie Neturei Karta.
Israeli also IS a white supremacist state, look no further than the treatment of Ethiopian Jews. Israel has accepted itself as white and framed itself against Arabs and other people of color. It is flat out not an ambivalent racial category. Jewish is, Israeli is not.
Quoting from BE’s video
i object to people singling out zionism not for the reasons that usually state like anti-semitism etc but because it’s just bog standard settler colonialism it still forms a wider part of settler colonialism it’s still a set of actions that are that easily identifiable as settler colonialism
Israel, any part of Israel, then condemnation is correct. Israel IS the settlements, the IDF, Likud, the MIC.
Couldn’t agree more. When we condemn the horrors of America’s drone war, or torture programs, or coups we don’t wring our hands about how it’s only JSOC or the CIA. We don’t excuse the contributing behaviour and support given to those crimes by liberal politicians.
Israel doesn’t deserve special treatment, even if it does constantly demand it.
Many Israelis are liberals, hoping to vote out Likud, stop supporting settlements, and negotiate palestinian statehood. These people are advocating half measures, sure, but they are not our enemies.
Maybe they aren’t your enemies, but they’re mine. Fuck off with this lib bullshit. It’s not only rge recent settlements in, eg the West Bank, that are settlements, ALL Zionists in Palestine are settlers, even those who are heckin wholesome liberals who think Palestinians can have a little of their stolen land back. Your post is soft Zionist apologia, and I think it’s gross
I’m distinguishing between enemies and political opponents. It’s the difference between socialist majority in DSA (our political opponents) and the democrats (our enemies)
The moderates within the oppressing group are a critical part of it with their own specific parts in the functioning of the oppression, and oppression as a whole is our enemy. Of course, we shouldn’t dehumanize them, but we also shouldn’t fool ourselves into thinking they are somehow neutral.
It is essentially a corollary to what Mandela said about Arafat and Gadhafi that people make the mistake that “their enemies are our enemies”, because by extension, just because someone is not your enemy, does not make them not “our enemy”. You might not view AOC as an enemy, but she is the enemy of a hell of a lot of people. She just said she would vote yes for increased iron dome spending, that pretty firmly makes her an enemy of the Palestinians.
