What American Jews have experienced in the past year is both a pattern and a warning.
It’s fucking hard - a lot of the jews I know are anti-zionist themselves… it turns out most of the pro-zionist jews moved to Isreal to support zionism - fancy that. But there are bad actors like AIPAC that constantly conflate anti-zionism with antisemitism and that’s fucking bullshit… one of the reasons it’s awful is that if you call everything antisemitism it dulls the term (see “calling wolf”) - and then actual antisemitism gets to skate by under the guise of the fatigue.
AIPAC has directly supported antisemitism and they should be branded a hate organization. Actual antisemitism is fucking awful and we need to crack down on it… but to do so we need to recover the term and clarify that criticism of Isreal (and, specifically, their anti-palestinian actions) is not criticism of jews. And anyone who wants to criticize jews for ethnic or religious reasons can get fucked.
Adding to that, the conflation of Zionism and Jewishness via claiming anti-Zionism = anti-Semitism implies that Israel is the expression of Jewishness at the level of a nation state and thus it’s evils are not the action of a rogue state currently controlled by far right zealots, or even simple (psychopathic) political goals, but a representation of Jewishness.
Also conflating jewishness with zionism makes it so that if you’re not zionist then you must be a bad jew. There is a lot of pressure in synagogues and Jewish cultural societies to support Isreal in word (monetarily Isreal gets enough support that it doesn’t really push the donation angle hard - though settlement societies and natural preservation organizations will). A few of my friends describe it as “making you feel weird” if you don’t support Isreal. It really depends on region though, I heard that from Jewish friends in Vermont but never from Jewish friends in Boston or New York.
Couldn’t have said it better myself
Anyone who is for a two state solution is a zionist. Anti Zionists want to wipe Israel off the map.
That’s just false - I consider myself an anti-zionist and I simply want a secular Isreal. Maybe you wouldn’t consider me anti-zionist then? But AIPAC would.
Where is that two state plan where there is an intend to make Israel secular? It’s a non realistic plan and you want to take away Jewish national self-determination.
There is HUGE gap between Zionism, and Semitism, as this author has no doubt chosen to ignore.
Modern Zionism is an empirical belief that a Jewish state exist by any means necessary - not my words, but the words of the movement’s spokespeople. What this has ended up meaning is that any opposition deserves destruction.
Semitism is just a person’s participation in the Jewish faith. Doesn’t even need to be part of the organized positions of Judaism.
What this author seems to be saying is that being anti-zionist means you’re antisemitic, which is bullshit. There are plenty of Jews around the world who are sick of the Zionist crap, especially from Netanyahu.
Being against one faction of a people doesn’t mean you’re against them al, it simply means you’re against the people you say you’re against. Has nothing to do with history, faith, or politics. I’m against the current actions of the Israeli government, as are a lot of Jews, and it doesn’t make any us antisemitic, just against the Israeli state and Netanyahu.
Semitism isn’t limited to being Jewish. Arabs are also Semitic people
This article is specifically referring to the Hebrew relation to Judaism, and people being against Jews.
The more general terminology is rarely used to describe all groups much anymore, but a lot of that has to do to the Israeli State kind of exclusively co-opting the use of it.
First they came for the Palestinians, and I said nothing because I was not Palestinian. Then they came for the Yemenis, and I said nothing because I was not Yemeni. Then they came for the Lebanese, and I said nothing because I was not Lebanese…
That’s weird. They all attacked Israel in 1948 and you didn’t say anything.
Weirder that you’re not saying anything now, since you’re alive, now. But casual racism against Arabs is deeply ingrained among the worst Americans, so it checks out.
The fact that this thread is being downvoted to hell is really telling. They said it was about genocide and not anti Semitism, yet they’re happy to roll up all Jews into the hate
This author is genocide denier.
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