#antisemitism for ts

[reconditarmonia]

(cw: antisemitism)

Here's a comment thread I saw on Facebook the other day. (redacted for my protection, not that of the writer)

I guess I can't specifically articulate what I'm trying to illustrate with this. Something about how even if you (a general pro-Palestine you, and let me add as well the should-be-unnecessary caveat that I'm also pro-Palestine) even accept at all the existence of people who are pro-Palestine for malicious, antisemitic reasons, there's a sort of implicit or explicit assumption that of course our positions and the way we articulate them are progressive and anti-racist and have absolutely no overlap with anyone who's just here for the hate. No one would want to repost stop-genocide this-is-the-new-Holocaust Hind-the-child-martyr images if they weren't on our side.

Except oh wait you keep reading the guy who shared these posts and he's a fucking neonazi claiming that Zionists are ethnically cleansing white people to pay reparations for crimes against Black and Indigenous people and also corrupting America by inventing porn. I recognize I'm probably mostly preaching to the choir here anyway, but at what point in the thread did that become obvious to you? I've had to message people on this site before pointing out that the cool anti-Zionist post they'd shared literally bore the logo of the Goyim Defense League. Would you recognize all these comments as neonazi talking points before resharing them or internalizing the rhetoric?

Oh, and was anyone curious about what post this comment thread was started on?

[fanchonmoreau]

Woke up to someone calling me the k-slur in my inbox but out in the world someone complimented my Magen David. Life is not the internet, I am happy to confirm.

[hellsbellschime]

it's so heartbreaking that there's so much antisemitism in the pro palestinian movement. whenever you bring this up, people will gaslight you, but people are literally cheering on the deaths of innocent jewish people and trying to silence jewish people??? how is that not antisemitic??

Yeah it's extremely unsettling and I am not happy to be proven right on the obvious issue of people using a just cause as a means to convince people that actually antisemitism is totally justified too because Jewish people are actually evil. I try to take comfort in the fact that brain-broken weirdos on social media don't represent the entirety of humankind, but there are actually people IRL harassing and attacking Jewish people and Israeli people and it's disgusting, and it's being way exacerbated by antisemitism that is baked into world culture that people don't recognize or want to acknowledge. People are falling for and repeating dangerous propaganda that ironically will also make the lives of Palestinian people even shittier, and they're falling for it and repeating it because of internalized prejudice.

Plus, real talk, aside from antisemitism being obviously morally wrong, antisemitism has been cyclical for literal millennia, and when we've reached the point where people of any political POV can at least agree that the world would be fine if we could just deal with those evil Jews, that usually means the world is careening towards an absolute catastrophic shitshow that will destroy the lives of millions. So it would be nice if some people, especially leftists, could confront their internalized antisemitism.

[fanchonmoreau]

Please understand that this moment is scary for American Jews because the antisemitism is coming from all sides. Yes, the Trump administration is talking a big game about antisemitism while simultaneously giving notorious antisemite Elon Musk an alarming amount of power while Trump rages on about (((globalists))). Yes, leftists are refusing to say shit about antisemitism in their movements, attacking anyone who mentions it with dogwhistles and slurs, and supporting those who do the worst of it as people advocating for justice and human rights.

It's so isolating. We look around and there are so few allies. We are 2% of the American population, and we are overwhelmingly concentrated in specific places. Many Americans have never met a Jew, and simultaneously, America is home to the largest diaspora community by far. It's six million in America, and then the second largest is less than 500,000 in France. Less than 16 million worldwide. That's what happens after thousands of years of ethnic cleansing, targeted violence, and genocide.

We can't do this alone. We need you right now. We need you to see antisemitism everywhere it is festering. Speaking up against antisemitism is advocating for justice and human rights, and it's not anti-Palestinian to do so. The people who say otherwise are lying to you.

Please listen to us.

The Trump administration is cracking down on student protests because it serves their anti-woke and anti-education agenda and that's extremely gross of them. That does not mean the protests aren't hotbeds of antisemitism. Please believe Jews when they say protesters have used antisemitic rhetoric or called for violence against Jews. Please believe them when they say protesters have called them slurs or spat at them or even assaulted them. Nothing can be gained by letting this slide.

[bilgisticallykosher]

Following a bunch of Jews and allies like I have no idea what these fandoms are or what you're talking about, but at least I can trust that you don't want me dead, or won't cross-examine me to decide if I'm "one of the good ones" or not.

[eternalgirlscout]

i haven't seen anyone talk about it probably because all my comics mutuals of old are fellow longtime mcu haters but breaking news the beloathed marvel cinematic universe managed to turn up the dial even MORE on the maximoff-related antisemitism. somebody get my boy out of there please i'm on my knees here

[reconditarmonia]

The Dutch article is paywalled (so I can't even google translate it to confirm specific details), but the headline itself confirms the "Jew hunt" language.

[halfgood-halfbad-badboy]

Oh my god every time I lot onto this app there’s a new insane take. I can roll my eyes at the Thomas dick suckers who think he’s done absolutely nothing wrong but the fucking nazi headcanons????????? What the fuck????????????

[hellsbellschime]

Its really weird that people think being pro-Palestine in general means "antisemitism" when it's not. We're just against genocide. And the ones who are, are terrible people for that. But most are not. And it's also weird when people claim that the protests being done in and around college campuses are anti even though the vast majority of those organizing it are actually Jewish students.

The thing of it is, they don't. The reason why so many people are seeing antisemitism in the pro-Palestine movement is that a lot of people are repeating antisemitic tropes that have existed for thousands of years. FFS, a fuckton of people in the current "movement" are self-proclaimed anti-Zionists, and Zionism is a philosophy that Jewish people are entitled to self-determination, do you not think that's weird or telling at all? If it's not antisemitic then there's no reason to revolve it around Jewish people, Jewish ideas, and Jewish philosophies, and yet a lot of people's statements and actions are very focused on all things Jewish when they shouldn't be.

And it's interesting, in a lot of the instances where I've seen someone suffer consequences for "supporting Palestine" I've looked into it and that person did something that was blatantly antisemitic. And this is yet another perfect example of the gaslighting that the other anon was talking about, because of course not all pro-Palestine activists are antisemitic, but to act as if Jewish people who are concerned about the abrupt rise in antisemitism are imagining it and act as if it's all fine because you know some Jewish people protesting for Palestine is absurd.

[queermania]

Fucking cunt

are you done or should we put you in time out so you can continue your tantrum?

[notchainedtotrauma]

no name...the superficiality of it all...the violence of it all...Jay Electronica being an antisemitic hateful motherfucker is as surprising to me to as a corpse eventually rotting. What's "interesting" to me is a person that claims to be a communist and has led and created a "radical" book club listening to that verse and still putting it on her album, and then having the audacity to turn off her Instagram comments. Which, as soon as an artist (in any field) shows up with all the right bits of theories and can name all the right thinkers, and can actually define intersectionality, this is when trouble starts. As demonstrated by no name. Also *mimes slicing throat* that dude over there.

[reconditarmonia]

Yeeeeah, I'm not sure that "stop fighting anyone who isn't the Real True Enemy" is going to work out quite that way. I would love to believe that the people posting/reblogging this mean "we're going to stop aggroing random Jews" rather than "we're going to accuse Jews who call us out of being divisive infiltrators," but that would be a bit willfully blind.

I am so serious when I say that now is the time to take your activism offline. I am not spending the next four years squabbling on social media or getting woke points by reblogging posts that my followers already agree with. There are real places in your offline community where you can do good if you seek them out

[lambrinichampagne]

Anon I literally needed to be escorted to and from the train-station by work colleagues because someone in the area found out I was Jewish and waited until the office closed to follow me while shouting abuse. Please don't question my understanding of antisemitism.

[zaritarazi]

Me after seeing all the weird shit dc did with apparently "biblical" "angels" and carter/katar and shayera the past like 5 years: yeah even looking at this is treyf actually i called the big guy and he said "who is this" so it was probably the wrong number but like. Unfortunately in my religion i can't recognize this part of comics canon. But good luck to you

[anghraine]

Tumblr posting isn't the hallmark of activism and no one is obligated to talk about Palestine on here. That being said, it sure is interesting that you never mentioned Israel's ongoing genocide until you decided to make a post about how antisemitic people who do talk about it can be (and provided no example, so it's vague enough it serves no purpose whatsoever, can't be argued with of learnt from).

I did wonder if that would be someone's takeaway (and even that it would likely be on anon), so this response was already largely prepared.

In any case, my fandom account is not the totality of my existence, even online, and particularly not at the moment (I used to talk about politics more here, but don't tend to use this account for that kind of thing these days; I've also barely acknowledged the Trump/Harris election that will directly and drastically impact my own life and which I'm following closely). I mentioned the grotesque antisemitism directed at Jewish people regardless of whether they're Israeli or not, mainly coming from people who have no more stake in what happens in I/P than I do, because it's become so common over the last year in fandom spaces and conversations, and is therefore relevant to this account. There are no genocides happening specifically on Tumblr, but there are people here using Israel to present their pre-existing antisemitic ideas as leftist praxis and to air them more openly.

In addition to that, I don't generally feel the need to Be Seen Having a Take on matters I'm not especially familiar with—particularly as a US American, since we tend to be too quick to share our super important center of the world opinions on other countries' geopolitics regardless of how much we know or understand about them—until I've had time to think, research, and phrase what I want to say. Once I was more familiar, I wanted to be clear that I consider Israel's actions horrific and that, simultaneously, I find the increasingly regular fandom antisemitism I've seen intolerable and unjustified (and I did feel these needed to be in the same post to avoid being misunderstood even in good faith). I kicked my post out of drafts because at that point I'd seen enough to feel equipped to do so and felt it was sufficiently clear about where I stand, and because (as I said in my tags) of a specific and particularly abhorrent display of antisemitism I saw on Tumblr yesterday.

I also did not feel the need to duplicate and broadcast specific instances of antisemitism (much less that one) in order to dunk on it or whatever. Broadly though not universally, I prefer talking about overall patterns that bother me more than litigating isolated instances, even when it's ... like, annoying trends in Pride and Prejudice fanfic or something, but all the more when it's a systemic social problem. And given that I have a number of active Jewish mutuals who would see my post, I didn't want to inflict it on them all over again. If you think I would find something grotesquely antisemitic that's actually totally fine, then you're free to find someone else to follow.

[reconditarmonia]

So the issue is that some people say "the deportations were never about antisemitism" and mean "this is why you should never believe anyone about antisemitism" and other people say "the deportations were never about antisemitism" and mean "stop fucking blaming Jews for them"