• @[email protected]
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    -16 months ago

    Yeah, but you’ve acknowledged that antisemitism charges in the media are often being used disingenuously to discredit antizionism/support Israel’s genocide. So in some cases it is less worth talking about: when it’s disingenuous and the impact is to support the genocide.

    Like do we really think this change in belief is mostly due to people out talking to their Jewish neighbors about rising use of slurs or threats rather than well-publicized accusations from mainstream newspapers and the president of the United States, often with questionable accusers and/or little evidence? Is the most likely outcome for a campaign to highlight antisemitism going to be increased public awareness and intervention, or just to turn public sentiment against antiwar protesters and enable more brutal responses?

    • Flying Squid
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      36 months ago

      So in some cases it is less worth talking about: when it’s disingenuous and the impact is to support the genocide.

      That is not what the person I am talking to is saying. They aren’t saying it is a some cases issue. They are saying it shouldn’t be discussed at all and there reasons are that other people get treated worse than Jews are treated and that Palestinians are the victims of genocide. Neither of those are a reason not to discuss actual bigotry that happens against Jews and all other minority groups.

      Suggesting any form of bigotry can just be ignored because something more important is going on in another place is ludicrous- unless you mean to suggest that the reason it can be ignored is that the people who are the subject of that bigotry deserve it because they are responsible for that more important thing. I assume you don’t think that. I can’t say the same for the person I was replying to.

      • @[email protected]
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        26 months ago

        But the issue is we’re rarely discussing actual forms of bigotry in the news stories that then feed into these poll numbers. We’re hearing that Joe Biden or the ADL says there’s rampant antisemitism at protests, but then they don’t detail what they’re actually referring to and the college paper actually on the ground interviews some Jewish protesters who are unperturbed by “from the river to the sea”, explain that they were blocking all students regardless of faith or ethnicity, and just find the accusation confusing.

        Their comparison point for the poll was 2003, but would you expect a poll held in the aftermath of Tree of Life to be lower or higher than the current time? And what percentage of those poll respondents would say antisemitism is worse on college campuses or conservative Facebook groups? I think we’re getting a true and correct belief (“antisemitism is a problem”), but due to propaganda campaigns for the genocide, not actual increased awareness of bigotry.

        If the media is tacking on “antisemitism is rampant” on every news story reporting on anti-Israel protests, but don’t feel it’s necessary when Republicans welcome in proponents of the Great Replacement Theory with open arms, it’s hard to say the effect is actually increasing the awareness of bigotry. FFS, Elise “Great Replacement” Stefanik was the poster child for the Republican antisemitism task force and I only saw it mentioned in the most progressive media. And if the primary effect isn’t raising awareness (one my say making people more “woke”), it’s entirely appropriate to measure the limited or non-existent pro-wokeness impact against the very visible pro-genocide impact.

        • Flying Squid
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          26 months ago

          And yet, long before Israel started this genocide, I have been told that about every news story about antisemitism no matter what has happened.

          Even after Tree of Life, which you brought up, I was told that the news was talking too much about that when Palestinians were suffering as if you couldn’t talk about both.