The video shows Michael Yon making false claims regarding so-called “terrorists coming across the border being funded by Jewish money.” Yon was speaking at a “Take Back Our Border” convoy in Texas.
In the video posted on X, formerly Twitter, the man can be heard claiming that HIAS, a global Jewish nonprofit that works to protect refugees, is responsible for funding terrorists coming to America.
I am one of those people and as a Jew I cannot disagree more. People need to know what is and is not bigotry against Jews. They need to know the difference between calling out Israel for its genocide and blaming an American Jew for that genocide. It is absolutely vital for people to understand that there is nothing antisemitic about criticizing Israel because it is vital for people to understand that American Jews are not Israelis. You have no idea how many people essentially consider us to be foreigners in our own homelands. On my mother’s side, my Jewish ancestors in America go back to the 19th century. Many decades before Israel even existed. I have absolutely no affiliation or association with Israel. I am American. I was born in Indiana. I’m completely steeped in American culture. I know almost no Hebrew or Yiddish. And yet so many people, both pro-Israeli and anti-Israeli assume that because I am a Jew, I must hold allegiance to Israel. And a big reason for that is because Israel wants it that way. What you are suggesting still gives them what they want.
Edit: Needed to add ‘in America.’
The number of American Jews I know that are backing Israel in this are not insignificant. There’s a lot of I stand with Israel out there It like to throw around anti-Semitism when people disagree with them.
The muddying of the term is deliberate and political. And I agree that it is important that people know the difference, which is why I’m against leaving it muddied. If you walk up to a thousand people screaming it’s anti-Semitism and scream back at them that’s not anti-Semitism there’s no movement. You’re telling them that you don’t think what they’re doing is right and they’re telling you you’re a Nazi.
How do you fix that?
People used to claim all kinds of things like blackface weren’t racist when they are racist. Meanwhile, there are black writers who claim hip hop is racist., which implies that you’re a racist if you listen to it. Such writers are wrong and ‘but they’re black’ is not a justification. Blackface is racist because it’s white people pretending to be black. Hip hop is not racist because it is part of black culture. And the way you fix that is you keep insisting one thing is bigotry and the other isn’t. Which is why people do not accept blackface today but do accept hip hop.
You have a fairly large group of people here that are making every argument possible to validate genocide. If someone calls me a racist for listening to hip hop there’s nothing really hurt in the balance. The one person in a minority view or even the 000 1% wouldn’t bother me.
25% of the Jews I know on social media are still flying the I stand with Israel flag. These are not normally sociopaths. If you get into an argument with them they say you just don’t get it they did this and they did that and they do this and they do that. They start quoting scripture, You say yeah but none of that validates genocide, then they change their argument back to what are the white man do to the Indians.
The term anti-Semitic is being flown as a flag and watered down. I think it would be useful to have a secondary term that means I’m against supporting the genocide of Palestine.
How many Jews do you know and how many of that 25% claim that any criticism of Israel is antisemitism? Because otherwise, I’m not sure why that’s relevant.
I always hate fighting with you. It’s tiring.
How many is a good number, 5, 10, 20, 50 where’s that line exactly that makes it right versus wrong? There are certain number that makes it worth it for you?
The industry I’m in has a fair amount of Jewish people. We get a lot of employees from friends and family.
It’s not until this most recent conflict that we’ve had problems in a point of view.
You gave an anecdotal example that gave a statistic which didn’t actually support your point.
Asking you for a number based on that statistic doesn’t seem out of order.
Your claim, if you have forgotten, was that 25% of the Jews you know support Israel, therefore we need to differentiate between two types of antisemitism even though one of them isn’t antisemitism.
So, again, I think ‘how many people is that and how many of them actually believe that critics of Israel are antisemitic’ are fair questions.
If you do mean to suggest that any Jew that supports Israel thinks any non-Israel supporter is antisemitic… well that is an antisemitic stereotype in and of itself. That is real antisemitism, assuming what Jews believe without them making it explicit to you. And I can tell you for a fact that there are Jews who support Israel and accept that others do not and also aren’t antisemites.
Most of the American Jews I know have been protesting against Israel.
Most here too, The most isn’t a very comfortable number.