Some salient points but it isn’t necessarily social media that is driving the younger generations to increasingly see Israel as an oppressor, it’s them growing up in a world where Israel is increasingly an oppressor.
I wonder how many people answered “are Jews as a class oppressors” as if it asked about Israelis.
I also thought it was interesting that it only presents either “Israel as a homeland for Jews or no Israel at all” without a “Israel as a state where it’s a self evident truth that all people are created equal blah blah blah”.
Apparently caring about Palestinian children is “extremism” if you put the title of the post next to the bit about TikTok hashtags.
Given that the IHRA definition of antisemitism includes comparing the actions of the far-right government of Israel with Nazis, plenty of legitimate discourse is easily written off as “antisemitism”.
Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.
Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.
The article conflates three things:
- the Jewish people, regardless of government that one pays taxes to.
- the population paying taxes to the State of Israel and living in the territory controlled by it.
- the State of Israel itself.
And someone might argue “ackshyually, the answerers are the ones conflating them”, but in no moment the article bothers to tell those three things apart. On the contrary, it capitalises on the answerers’ conflation (or decontextualisation of their answers) to [mis]lead the reader towards a conclusion.
we see a huge trend towards a large number of (not all) younger people seeing Jews as oppressors (18-24 year-olds column in left panel below).
When you ask “oppressors where?” you notice the conflation between #1 and #2+#3: “Jews” here is not being used to refer to Jewish people, it’s specifically about Israelis and the State of Israel.
Do you think [that] Israel has a right to exist as the homeland of the Jewish people or that Israel has no right to exist?
There are multiple possible answers for that, and the very lack of an “other” category in the pie chart shows that the poll was already rigged from inception, through the usage of a false dichotomy that sounds as stupid as the following [made up] dialogue:
- [Alice] Bob, did you ever stop beating your wife?
- [Bob] But I nev…
- [Alice] Yes? Or no?
- [Bob] I never b…
- [Alice] YES OR NO???
This one. from Economist, shows the same age trend:
And that one is the only one that backs up the article’s claim. Or at least would, if properly explored instead of lost in a sea of red herrings.
A December 14 article in the Washington Post by Will Oremus reports that “Bigots use AI to make Nazi memes on 4chan. Verified users post them on X.” and that“AI-generated Nazi memes thrive on Musk’s X despite claims of crackdown.”
The same article in the Washinton Post says “Water wetting things” and “when you kill people, they die”. /s
Seriously, antisemitism in 4chan is a common occurrence. And it was always like this even before the recent events.
Relationship between platform usage and Anti-Semitic/Anti-Israel views
Are you noticing the implication from that bar? That antisemitism and Anti-Israel views are the same.
I wish that the author was being simply disingenuous, but Hanlon’s Razor keeps me pessimistic.
Bloody nationalists conflating a state, a population and a people, as if it was the most natural thing ever.
If somebody asked me about the holocaust at such an inappropriate time I’d probably give them their least wanted answer too.
This one is easy to answer. With one word. “YES”
