Comment by rushingcreek
2 years ago
It’s obviously true that criticism of Israel isn’t inherently antisemitic.
But that’s also a convenient excuse used by people who are actually antisemitic.
Both of these things can be true at once.
2 years ago
It’s obviously true that criticism of Israel isn’t inherently antisemitic.
But that’s also a convenient excuse used by people who are actually antisemitic.
Both of these things can be true at once.
One could say the same for "the other part": being pro-Palestinians doesn't mean being pro-Hamas, but that's also a convenient excuse used by people who are actually pro-Hamas.
The problem happens when nobody is given the benefit of the doubt about being in group 1.
I thought you were going to say:
"One could say the same for "the other part": being pro-Israel doesn't mean being a anti-arab racist who wants to ethnically cleanse Palestine, but that's also a convenient excuse used by people who are actually just that".
It's obviously true that calling out or implying anti semitism where it doesnt exist doesnt automatically make the accuser an racist.
But it usually does.
They are, while doing this, implicitly or explicitly endorsing Bibi's "exterminate the palestinians" Amalek trope, Ben Gvir hanging a portrait of Baruch Goldstein on his wall (shot up a mosque, considered to be a hero by ~10% of Israelis) and Isaac Herzog calling race-mixing a "tragedy".
(i dont think it's too controversial to suggest that those 3 people essentially represent Israel)
This practice of calling all and sundry racist in defense of a state founded upon an ideology of racial purity is, of course, probably mostly racist projection.
Indeed, it's hard to be a dedicated anti-racist these days without being accused of being an anti semite at some point.
Don't forget Smotrich, a leader in the current government, who said it was a "mistake" that the first Israeli government didn't "finish the job" of expelling all the Arabs from Israel. https://www.timesofisrael.com/smotrich-at-knesset-ben-gurion...
The current Israeli government has espoused their views that Palestinians should not have their own state, that all Arabs are terror supporters who are the enemy of Israel, who should be exterminated or removed. And this was happening regularly long before October 7th. I wonder why some Palestinians don't see Israel as a viable partner in peace or that they feel their only option is to destroy Israel before they are destroyed themselves?
This is getting into the internal politics of Israel, which are a mess. No party has anywhere near a majority. Netanyahu has had over 16 years in power, and he stays there by trying to hold together a coalition whose parties don't get along at all. How he's done that is not pretty.
(Imagine the US with Trump in his fifth term of office. Now you have roughly the right picture.)
It's only convenient when we refuse to expand our counter-narrative. I call that lazy.
We could continue to bundle every criticism of Israel together, or we could confront each criticism directly.
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This.
I have always been very very skeptical of the motives and intentions of various BDS groups over the years. Lots of issues with hypocrisy, propaganda, and double standards.
But that doesn't excuse the murder of thousands of civilians in collective retribution for the murder of a few dozen.
It's possible for both things to be true: Hamas is bad and committed a heinous act of terrorism, and Israel is committing a horrifying atrocity against Palestinian civilians in retaliation.
> But that doesn't excuse the murder of thousands of civilians in collective retribution for the murder of a few dozen.
1,200 Israelis were killed, not "a few dozen". 250 were kidnapped and held hostage, of those about 130 are still being held.
Second, Israel isn't "murdering" civilians in collective retribution. It's fighting a war against a neighboring "government" that has just invaded it, slaughtered thousands of its citizens, and has promised to do it again and again.
Many civilians are dying in this war, which is a horrible tragedy, and is unfortunately true of every war, which is one reason wars are so terrible. But it's hard to say this war isn't justified given the promises of Hamas.
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As far as i understand, the main goal of the Israel operation is to remove Hamas capability to launch another Oct.7-style attack in the future: prevention, not retaliation (though one can argue if there is a way to achieve this goal with less cost on civilians).
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Without looking it up, how many people do you think Hamas terrorists killed on October 7th?
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1200+ Israelis, mostly civilians, were brutally murdered on 10/7.
There have already been real-life anti-semitic attacks on people and property. There have been synagogues and cemeteries burned, people murdered, shot, and stabbed, businesses trashed. [0][1][2][3][4] You can find hundreds more sources of recent, very real, physical violence against Jews and Jewish places worldwide.
Jews have been subject to thousands of years of very real pogroms, genocide, and conspiracy theories. These are not "possible" bad outcomes, they actually happened, we're seeing some of it now, and we have every reason to believe that it will happen again.
0. https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/04/world/an-existential-threat-a...
1. https://www.timesofisrael.com/historic-synagogue-in-tunisia-...
2. https://www.timesofisrael.com/armenia-opens-probe-into-arson...
3. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-antisemitic-incidents-up...
4. https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2023/11/05/i...
What is happening now worldwide in terms of anti-semitism is absolutely irrelevant in comparison to the mass murder in Gaza. I come from people who were the recipients of anti-Semitic violence in Europe for centuries. What Israel is doing has only and will only make it worse.
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Suppose they are both true, what does this imply? That it's fair to suspect people of racism because someone else hypothetically uses an excuse?