#‘we don’t hate jews! just israel!’ they scream whilst invoking antisemitic tropes about AMERICAN JEWS

[thisgingerhasnosoul]

This probably won’t be super coherent, because I haven’t slept in 24 hours and I’m basically 80% caffeine, but I’ve been thinking about how western (usually white, though not always) goyim get mad whenever a Jew says “antizionism is usually a cover for antisemitism.” And how their answer is always, “my problem is Israel! Not Jews!”

Because here’s the thing: the west has a long, long history of culturally ingrained antisemitism. You may not think your hatred towards Israel and the diaspora Jews who have any connection to Israel is because it’s a Jewish state. But society has subconsciously primed you from birth to see Jews as inherently shady liars who have all the power and money and control, and who claim victimhood to hide this. You have been groomed to mistrust us, to see us as oppressors, to see us as intrinsically unethical. And you are aware that Israel is a Jewish state, regardless of whether you consciously think it matters. So when literally anything goes down in Israel/Palestine? Your first thought isn’t that these are two marginalized groups of people who were forced into the situation by both the west and the Middle East, then pitted against each other. Your first thought is that of course the Israelis are evil oppressors. They’re over-privileged white colonizers who have all the power and money and control. We need to make sure they all leave Israel, live under a second age of pogroms, or die (which they won’t, according to you, because they’re rich white people with a mansion in New Jersey). And you may believe that you don’t feel this way because they’re Jewish, but you don’t seem to realize that it’s the subconscious, ingrained antisemitism that not only leads you to all of these conclusions, but that also leads you to independently attach historically diaspora-focused antisemitic tropes—tropes that have existed for thousands of years and have nothing to do with Israel—to Israelis and beyond.

And then you wonder why we don’t trust you.