US President Joe Biden said Wednesday he still believes Chinese President Xi Jinping is a dictator, even as the two leaders made progress in their relationship during a meeting outside San Francisco.
“Well, look, he’s a dictator in the sense that he is a guy who runs a country that is a communist country that’s based on a form of government totally different than ours,” Biden told CNN’s MJ Lee. “Anyway, we made progress.”
When asked about Biden’s latest comment at a Chinese Foreign Ministry briefing on Thursday, a spokesperson called it “extremely erroneous” and an “irresponsible political maneuver, which China firmly opposes.”
Seems a bit disingenuous to use a phrase co-opted by antisemites as your example here. I don’t believe most people say it with that intent, but that doesn’t change that Hamas and company use it to refer to ethnic cleansing.
Wikipedia has a pretty good page that discusses the history of it. My perception is that it was used by proponents for a one state solution, but the opposition to it very purposely boosted the violent groups who used it. It’s like if I talk about the blood and soil in Israel or Palestine or work in the number 88. There are clear antisemitic connotations to those. It’s fairly idiotic to use any phrases like that if your goal is to keep antisemitism completely separate from criticism of Israel.
Anyway, assuming you’re in the US, you did just say it without reprisal too. This is one of those cases where providing an example immediately disproves it, because clearly, you’re allowed to say it.
That isn’t to say that some people haven’t tried to criminalize or have successfully criminalized similar sentiments. But the difference is that if I post about Xi being Winnie the Pooh on Chinese social media, I’m going to see reprisal from the government no matter where in the country I post it from. There are shades of authoritarian disallowance of criticism, and the US certainly has some of that. China is just considerably more.
Edit: I’m thinking of the original charter. The most recent version actually makes it clear that it isn’t directed towards all Jewish people.
Hamas specifically notes in their charter that they do not call for genocide against Jewish people. They specifically note that they do not have a problem with Judaism, and that their fight is only with Zionism, AND they specifically note that “From the river to the sea” is a call for a one state solution, not genocide.
That’s the most recent revision. The original document didn’t make those distinctions, and it’s what people think of.
So what you mean to say is that Hamas doesn’t use it to call for genocide of Jewish peoples, and that you were spreading misinformation in your previous comment.
I should edit it to be past tense, fair does.
It remains true however that they said it in their original charter. My point is just that people are (erroneously) thinking of that previous charter when it comes to this. I’m no longer passing any value judgment. The association is valid, but it’s based on an old revision and new revision doesn’t have that association.
And in the 80s it was illegal to be openly homosexual in most of the US. We don’t judge people based on decades old statements, we interact with them in the real world, now. You are passing judgment, by implying modern Hamas use of an explicitly liberatory phrase (that predates Hamas by at least 20 years) means that they are in support of genocide. Something which “from the river to the sea” has never once in its history represented. It has always been a cry for one party solution, and it will always be so.
I don’t disagree with your first point. The second I still have to disagree – it’s a fraught term. If a substantial group of people find the word to be antisemitic, even if their reasoning is flawed it’s best to just not use it. In most circumstances it isn’t being used in a hateful way, but the connotation still exists.
Look at it this way. You and I may understand the historical context, but the average person doesn’t. They’re going to see it called antisemitic, and believe it too since it is in the original charter. If we’re protesting and demonstrating to the average person, why use the phrase? We need to separate criticism of Israel from antisemitism, and using a term considered antisemitic by many is completely counterproductive to that.