#by claiming any criticism of israel comes from anti jewishness

[witchglaive]

fuck Israel btw

[nicklloydnow]

“May I be permitted to say a few words? I am an Edinburgh graduate (MA 1975) who studied Persian, Arabic & Islamic History under William Montgomery Watt & Laurence Elwell Sutton, 2 of Britain ‘s great Middle East experts. I later went on to do a PhD at Cambridge & to teach Arabic & Islamic Studies at Newcastle University . Naturally, I am the author of several books & 100s of articles in this field.

I say all that to show that I am well informed in Middle Eastern affairs & that, for that reason, I am shocked & disheartened for a simple reason: there is not & has never been a system of apartheid in Israel. That is not my opinion, that is fact that can be tested against reality should anyone choose to visit Israel.

Let me spell this out, since I have the impression that many students are absolutely clueless in matters concerning Israel, & that they are, in all likelihood, the victims of extremely biased propaganda coming from the anti-Israel lobby.

Hating Israel

Being anti-Israel is not in itself objectionable. But I’m not talking about ordinary criticism of Israel . I’m speaking of a hatred that permits itself no boundaries in the lies & myths it pours out. Thus, Israel is repeatedly referred to as a “Nazi” state. In what sense is this true, even as a metaphor? Where are the Israeli concentration camps? The einzatsgruppen? The SS? The Nuremberg Laws?

None of these things nor anything remotely resembling them exists in Israel, precisely because the Jews, more than anyone on earth, understand what Nazism stood for. It is claimed that there has been an Israeli Holocaust in Gaza (or elsewhere). Where? When?

No honest historian would treat that claim with anything but the contempt. But calling Jews Nazis and saying they have committed a Holocaust is a way to subvert historical fact. Likewise apartheid.

No Apartheid

For apartheid to exist, there would have to be a situation that closely resembled how things were in South Africa under the apartheid regime. Unfortunately for those who believe this, a day in any part of Israel would be enough to show how ridiculous this is.

The most obvious focus for apartheid would be the country’s 20% Arab population. Under Israeli law, Arab Israelis have exactly the same rights as Jews or anyone else; Muslims have the same rights as Jews or Christians; Baha’is, severely persecuted in Iran, flourish in Israel, where they have their world center; Ahmadi Muslims, severely persecuted in Pakistan & elsewhere, are kept safe by Israel; or anyone else; the holy places of all religions are protected by Israeli law.

Free Arab Israelis

Arabs form 20% of the university population (an exact echo of their percentage in the general population). In Iran , the Bahai’s (the largest religious minority) are forbidden to study in any university or to run their own universities: why aren’t your members boycotting Iran ?

Arabs in Israel can go anywhere they want, unlike blacks in apartheid South Africa. They use public transport, they eat in restaurants, they go to swimming pools, they use libraries, they go to cinemas alongside Jews — something no blacks were able to do in South Africa.

Israeli hospitals not only treat Jews & Arabs, they also treat Palestinians from Gaza or the West Bank. On the same wards, in the same operating theatres.

Women’s Rights

In Israel, women have the same rights as men: there is no gender apartheid. Gay men & women face no restrictions, and Palestinian gays oftn escape into Israel, knowing they may be killed at home.

It seems bizarre to me that LGBT groups call for a boycott of Israel & say nothing about countries like Iran, where gay men are hanged or stoned to death. That illustrates a mindset that beggars belief.

Intelligent students thinking it’s better to be silent about regimes that kill gay people, but good to condemn the only country in the Middle East that rescues and protects gay people. Is that supposed to be a sick joke?

(…)

I do not object to well-documented criticism of Israel. I do object when supposedly intelligent people single the Jewish state out above states that are horrific in their treatment of their populations.

(…)

Israeli citizens, Jews & Arabs alike, do not rebel (though they are free to protest). Yet Edinburgh students mount no demonstrations & call for no boycotts against Libya , Bahrain , Saudi Arabia , Yemen , & Iran. They prefer to make false accusations against one of the world’s freest countries, the only country in the Middle East that has taken in Darfur refugees, the only country in the ME that gives refuge to gay men & women, the only country in the ME that protects the Bahai’s…. Need I go on?

(…)

Your generation has a duty to ensure that the perennial racism of anti-Semitism never sets down roots among you. Today, however, there are clear signs that it has done so and is putting down more.”

[matan4il]

I'm gonna share a few thoughts.

>>> People who are very insistent (rightfully) that Hamas and the Palestinians are not the same, because it de-humanizes the latter, are the same people who take every quote an Israeli official makes about fighting Hamas, and attribute it as if it was said about fighting the Palestinians. It seems they're the ones who are conflating Hamas and the Palestinians, but only when it can be used to de-humanize Jews.

>>> The same people who rushed to provide the "context" that the Islamist terrorists massacred over 1,400 people in Israel on Oct 7 due to occupation, were very silent when two Swedish soccer fans were murdered by an Islamist terrorist in Belgium on Oct 16. The last time I checked, Sweden had never occupied any part of Tunisia. For that matter, Hamas murdered and kidnapped many foreigners working and studying in Israel. I'm also pretty sure Thailand, Nepal, China and the Philippines had never occupied Palestine.

>>> I've seen many people screaming that the number of aid trucks being brought into Gaza since Oct 7 is insufficient, because so far it has been less than 100 a day, and before Hamas' attack, it was 500 daily. These are the same people who have been comparing Gaza to a ghetto or concentration camp. I can't remember a single day when the Nazis allowed 500 aid trucks into the Warsaw Ghetto or the Dachau concentration camp.

>>> I've seen many people claiming that Israel warning the Palestinians to evacuate parts of Gaza is forced transfer. I did not see these people so much as acknowledging the existence of well over 500,000 Israelis, who have been evacuated due to Hamas and Hezbollah's on going attacks against Israel.

>>> These same people criticize Israel so much, did not post a single condemnation of Egypt, which refuses to allow Gazans a temporary refuge within its borders. Egypt has also used the "forced transfer" excuse to deny Palestinians a safe temporary shelter. When Ukrainians needed to leave their bombarded cities, I don't remember their neighboring countries refusing to accept them temporarily, because it would be "forced transfer."

>>> IDK if this anti-Israeli post has the worst take yet, but it is def a strong contender:

The same people who can't bring themselves to condemn Hamas without reservations, to admit that it's a terrorist organization, with the stated genocidal goal of killing ALL JEWS, are the ones invoking the memory of the genocide perpetrated against Jews to try and get others to come out against the only Jewish state, and one that was very much a needed refuge place for about two thirds of Holocaust survivors after what they had endured. When Hamas has literally kidnapped and murdered Holocaust survivors and their family members. When countless Jewish people have pointed out that Hamas' massacre was the deadliest assault on Jews since the Holocaust, and made many of them be reminded of its horrors.

To take the memory of the Holocaust and use it to attack Jews, including Holocaust survivors and their families, and most of all, to do it based on a narrative that is completely ignorant or deliberately dismissive of Jewish native rights in Israel, is unconscionable. This person and those who agreed with them, they're guilty of exactly what they accuse others of. They've bought into the anti-Israeli propaganda that allows them to look at kidnapped Jewish babies and tear down their posters, to ignore Jewish students having to hide from anti-Israeli mobs, and to explain that the murdered Holocaust survivors deserved it, de-humanizing and victim blaming them a second time, just as the Nazis and their collaborators did.

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[probablyasocialecologist]

When we speak of Israel as a settler colony, we refer to a very specific phenomenon. Settler colonialism differs from classic colonialism, in that settler colonialism only initially and temporarily relies on an empire for their existence. In many situations, the colonists aren’t even from the empire supporting them, and end up fighting the very sponsor that ensured their survival in the first place. Another difference is that settlers are not merely interested in the resources of these new lands, but also in the lands themselves, and to carve out a new homeland for themselves in the area. The obvious issue here is that these lands were already inhabited by other people before their arrival. This is when the settler “logic of elimination” comes into play. Coined by scholar Patrick Wolfe, this means that the settlers needed to develop not only moral justifications for the removal of the natives, but also the practical means to ensure its success. This could take the form of ethnic cleansing, genocide or other gruesome tools of ethnocide. If you’re at all familiar with Zionist talking points, you can see this logic of elimination in motion. “A land without a people for a people without a land“, “there is no such thing as a Palestinian“, “Israel made the desert bloom” and many other talking points illustrate this perfectly. For example, you can immediately see how denying the existence of Palestinians resembles the Terra Nullius argument used by colonists all over the world. All of these talking points are aimed at justifying the dispossession of the Palestinians and legitimizing Zionist claims to the land they wished to colonize. As for the practical means to remove the natives, the Nakba remains a testimony to such crimes. The claim that Zionism is merely Jewish self-determination also conflates the Jewish people with Zionism, an ideology finding its origins in Europe in the late 1800s. At the time, the Jewish people were largely uninterested in Zionism. As a matter of fact many Jewish groups were fiercely anti-Zionist. The attempt to conflate the two is an attempt to give legitimacy to self-professed settlers from Europe, and portray any criticism of the Zionist project as inherently antisemitic.

[joyejoyu]

Some sensitive stuff but if you care about current going ons in Palestine I encourage you to read:

I am genuinely devastated by the cognitive dissonance world leaders and celebrities are exhibiting re: Gaza. As a Levantine Arab whose parent’s homes were destroyed in war ignited by Israeli occupation, I am vehemently Pro-Palestine and sincerely encourage people to be critical of Pro-Israeli propaganda. Israel has been recognized time and time again by the United Nations and several human rights organizations as a colonial-settler state that has and continues to commit apartheid. Israel has always been a white supremacist and Zionist project financially backed by America and Europe solely for the benefits of keeping Palestinians oppressed while utilizing the land as a makeshift military base in the Levant. World leaders are lying through their teeth in order to retain all the benefits that come with subjugation. It is not a ‘conflict’ nor is it ‘complicated’. If you don’t support what Russia is doing to Ukraine, you should not support what Israel is doing to Palestine. There is never an excuse for massacre at this scale for this long.

I will be adding many resources below while also reblogging many informational posts. I know this is just my art Tumblr but I am incredibly passionate about this situation and it effects my family directly.

Links:

How ‘Israel’ came to be and how it was on the blood of indigenous Palestinians and a white supremicist project funded by the UK and America:

What has been happening in Gaza for almost 80 years:

The sheer amount of carnage that Israeli officials hide from the general public and claim is ‘less’ than Israeli casualties:

How Americans are brainwashed into helping with and advocating apartheid and ethnic cleansing:

How Israelites and zionists hide behind anti-semitism when confronted with the reality of Palestinian genocide and any critique on Israeli apartheid. As well as how utilizing this term as a shield dismisses the actual meaning of anti-semitism and diminishes it’s value during genuine critique:

Human rights resources

There are many more but this is enough to start. Please don’t stay silent and don’t blindly believe the overwhelming (and very calculated and intentional) wave of pro-Israeli sentiment.

[jewish-vents]

It scares me to see “death to Israel.” I have never seen leftist outlets report on Israeli anti-war protests. I have only ever seen Israelis be painted as unilaterally evil and complicit in evil. Why is this okay to do with Israel, and not any other nation? And if I point this out, even alongside my criticisms of Israel, I get viciously accused of Zionism.

I remember even during the Obama era how goyische leftists would dismiss and undermine the threat of antidemitism. When N*sis marched openly, they questioned “how could this happen? Where did they come from?” But never listened to Jewish voices. We are seen as claiming victim, and blamed for it. Even college deans feel this way about their students. How can no one see how hostile the world feels to us?

.

[lexivass]

what changed your mind about the Israel/Palestine conflict?

Hello, anon! I got this ask this morning, and it took me some time to respond to it because this is a delicate issue and I wanted to measure my words the best I could. As I was writing this I realized many of my beliefs were rooted in antisemitism, so I apologize in advance. If any Jewish person reads this, please feel free to correct me, and again, I’m sorry. Some of the things below really make me feel ashamed.

I wouldn't say I "changed" my mind about the conflict, but that I've begun to see things in a wider perspective, especially when it comes to the October 7 attack and the veiled (but not really) antisemitism that’s been growing lately (I don’t mean to say it didn’t happen before, but that people are getting more comfortable doing it now under the guise of being pro-Palestine. Many people aren’t even trying to sugarcoat it anymore, they’re straight up saying “the jews are to blame for everything and they control everything”).

It’s clear that the government of Israel has been conducting brutal attacks in many parts of Gaza and killing innocent civilians since October 7 - no one can convince me the 20.000+ people who died were Hamas terrorists and that every single building bombed was a Hamas hideout, and that a ceasefire is not the best solution.

But at the same time there has been a lot of misinformation (and insensibility)  going around, and the way people react to it shows that antisemitism is still very present, it is still very easy to look at jewish people with distrust or to ignore what they say because we think that after the Holocaust their troubles ended forever, and they shouldn’t complain about anything. Basically, that they are not a minority, therefore what they say shouldn’t be taken into consideration. But that is not the case.

The government of Israel has done terrible things in the past decades, no one is denying that.  But a government doesn't always represent its people. It’s a very old saying, one that we preach so loudly but when it comes to the people of Israel we tend to forget about it. Like many others, when October 7 happened I thought Hamas was a resistance group, and that the hostages were not being hurt or murdered. I believed it without even running a background check on them. And whenever I saw Jewish people saying that a new wave of antisemitism was growing I simply didn’t believe it. It’s not something I’m proud of but I genuinely believed that they were only saying this because they didn’t want people to criticize the government of Israel. 

It was only after I swallowed my own arrogance that I realized this was not an exaggeration. There are people who frankly think jews are subhuman, that Hitler was right, that the Hamas hostages deserved everything they went through. I saw a post with a link to an article about the victims who were violated by Hamas terrorists. I did not read it because I heard it was extremely brutal, but I saw the comments and the insensitivity in those comments was disturbing. I saw people saying it was pure propaganda, that nothing happened to them because they were just “lying jewish women”, that even if it happened it was “resistance against oppression”. I cannot say if it happened or not, but it’s not normal to look at someone who was kidnapped, kept away from their families for months and put through God knows what and claim publicly and out loud, with 100% conviction, that everything that comes out their mouths is a lie.

Why is it “believe the victims” until they’re jewish? Or “listen to minorities” until the minority in question are jewish people? Why is it that we wave an anti-nazi flag over our heads but still treat jewish people like shit? We, and by we I mean people who believe in social activism, don't do this to black, queer, indigenous people, so why do it to jews?

As I began to read more about nazi rhetoric and antisemitism I came across a reblog from one of my (now former) favorite poets, in which the OP was basically preaching for the “ruin” of Israel. They didn’t say “I hope Netanyahu leaves office”, “I hope the army soldiers who were filmed practicing brutality towards civilians are punished”. They said Israel as a whole, forgetting that there are people there. Civilians who are against violence, protesting in the sake of Palestine, people who do want Netanyahu out of the office, and people who have nowhere else to go. How do you expect to move millions of people to another country? What guarantee that this country even wants them? We see it every two months tragedies that occur involving mass immigration. “Oh, but the US can help them!” Do you think the US gives a shit about jewish people? Do you think the UK put Israel in the middle east because they wanted jews to have a home? Look me in the eye and tell me you believe that.

Palestians have the right to recover their seized territories and to live dignified lives. Israelis have a right to have a Jewish state. Both peoples deserve better, it’s not a competition about who suffers more. I’m not a diplomat, expert or judge of an international court of justice, but it’s clear that the minute people start to take sides one of the sides will be seen as the victim and the other as the villain. When people preach for the “ruin” of Israel they are no better than the people who say Palestinians deserve to die.

[feygaleh]

I'm a currently reconnecting reform Jew who was raised completely Secular and Acultural... I was anti-Zionist for a long time and I consider myself to still be but in my journey through reconnection I became more involved in Jumblr and it's hard to not fall prey to the Zionist rhetoric people keep spreading on here. I need to read the words of an actual Jew and not just another goy on why Israel is bad because otherwise I fear I will actually be gaslit. Do you have any recommendations on resources by Jewish people about the topic?? Or even some words you can provide yourself?? Thank you and I'm sorry for bothering you...

hey anon! thank you for being patient with my reply, i was pretty busy the other day and wanted to put real care into getting these resources for you

firstly, if you’re looking to find a better hub of anti zionist jews to unlearn any propaganda with, @stoptheantisemitism is a great place to start. from a former zionist israeli(iirc, correct me if not) jew who unlearned propaganda over time. they are a great inspo in the jewish community.

another great source is the documentary “defamation” by yaov shamir https://youtu.be/CTAjc1OSrmY?si=NsRJLOsxjlFPNSWC

ultimately discussing how zionism, israel, and the IDF preys on the “you’re unsafe anywhere but here. only in israel can you be safe to be freely and fully jewish” which is just textbook. textbook. brainwashing. i mean the amount of zionists in the jewblr tag alone treating any public hate moment as a “see! see! this is why we need israel!!” all of the attempts israel does to go above and beyond is not an actual act of care but an act of public manipulation.

not a source but when i went to gather this link for you i saw a comment that phrased it beautifully. they are so convinced that they are so deeply hated and can only be safe here and it is so strange not to mention, i hate to say this because i know its going to be misconstrued, very identical to cult indoctrination and brainwashing tactics

theodr herzl himself literally said antisemitism will be our greatest ally and he described israel as a colonial project. like the entire foundation of this place is so clearly propaganda

ie the recent “”””pogrom”””” in amsterdam began with zionist jews being publically and loudly racist to a group of people who eventually attacked back. they of course were being antisemitic in their words but the actions would not have happened if they weren’t provoked. but israel of course “comes to aid” these “poor victims” so NOW everyone’s like “see this is why we need israel!!! we aren’t safe anywhere not even europe” which is so exhaustingly ridiculous

it’s all curated. it’s all on purpose. israel wants the people who support them and get shit for it to hit the news. they want these attacks to happen so they can swoop on and “save” them and “prove we need them” but this was NOT a pogrom this was NOT provoked by antisemitism.

not to mention how conservative/orthodox they all are. many orthodox groups won’t even acknowledge us reform jews as jewish. they won’t recognize our interfaith relationships as decent, our kids as actually jewish, our identity as jewish, converts as jewish. etc. i’m not saying this from a place of bias. it is something my rabbi often openly discusses. the first thing he told me when i told him im a lesbian with a catholic girlfriend is “orthodoxy and the local chabad will never recognize your marriage as a jewish marriage. will never recognize your kids as jewish kids. same sex marriage is not legalized in any of the 15 marital courts in israel because of the way the country operates” so on so on. israel claims to be so pro lgbt but can’t even bend any of their rules to allow gay marriage? it’s just insane. this has nothing to do with israeli propaganda it is just a criticism i have on parts of judaism

several kinds of interfaith marriages aren’t recognized in israel.

never again. for anyone. the ISJN (international jewish antiozionist network) https://ijan.org as a very good program they run.

with multiple chapters in multiple countries they also provide a wordpress they compiled on the israeli attemp at worldwide repression

that INCLUDES testimonies against israel predating 2023. in their education programs they detail being anti-racist details the NEED to be anti-zionist

zionism and american politics are very intertwined so i dont understand why nonamerican zionists always attack nonzionist american jews. it’s very odd. much of our government lobbies for israel as often as they can. the veterans at my shul often argue in defense and against israel just depending on where their morals lay. it permiates american political cultures, especially jewish american political cultures. though most of the time im greeted with “bold words from someone who has never been in the middle east.” and that is so odd considering they know nothing about me. no i haven’t. i have absolutely no money to travel. israel offers birthright but why would i ever take them up on the opportunity for indoctrination? that’s what it’s for. the more people who come to israel and like it the more israeli citizens they have. the more citizens they have the more they can make my countries politicians lobby for “antizionism DOES equal antisemitism” which is so factually and morally untrue on so many levels.

israel is still actively killing everyone they need to under the guise of hamas. i implore you to go look at the ceasefire agreements hamas has tried to put out for the IDF by the way and see exactly what terms the IDF disagreed to bc it is VIOLENTLY and BRUTALLY inhumane. this is not in agreement with hamas but in disagreement with the IDF.

for further historical and political resources i encourage you check out this page https://ijan.org/resources-2/ i know im linking them a lot but its a great hub of everything i wouldnt linked you anyways

israel and the IDF are actively killing innocents for no good reason outside of colonization. outside of pure genocide. outside of ethnic cleansing. zionist jews’ recent tactics have been to call any mention of this blood libel which i find insane bc it is factually untrue to the definition of what blood libel is

for some odd reason my iphone won’t open this article anymore but go read on this from the new yorker!

if you ever see a bunch of white supremacists/nazis on tumblr being zionists or friends with zionists btw it’s bc the worlds largest zionist organization is made up of christian’s/catholics. just in case you want to know what side of history these people are on. fascists love being racist together <3

blog from more antizionist jewitches on christian zionism WITH sources cited

the difference between the three israels and why “am yisrael chai” is NOT synonymous to zionism or the existence of the state of israel

again with sources cited in the blog

finally i’d watch enduring roots https://vimeo.com/89376847

this is just the trailer as it is a donation based documentary but i did not pay much to watch this on my own. its a documentary put together by the international jewish antizionist fund about accounts from actual nakba survivors

how the fuck am i going to allow myself to believe a country that says it values the safety of my life. a jewish life. which by the way. in judaism we value all life. you can and should break any jewish law to save a life. so tell me then why are these people so comfortable carpet bombing children? murdering women? using HUMAN SHIELDS to get their way

anyways i will add more sources as i remember them but TLDR israels main line of propaganda and brainwashing IS “you belong here. we will keep you safe. we are the only place that can keep you safe” while actively causing so much harm and being founded on racist ideals while they allow tens of thousands of human souls to die when there are many places safe for us across the world

[kosmic-apothecary]

I have some thoughts I'd like the pro-Israel Jewish community to consider with an open mind and open heart.

As a white person who has been fully supportive of calling out the evils white people have done in the past (and to a lesser extent continue to do in the present), I can't come to grips with how so many Jewish people who have been at the forefront of every other social justice movement in American history can be so resistant to recognizing that Jews can commit evil acts too, and in admitting that supremacy and racism are never okay, even when it's your own people who are doing it!

What Zionists have done to Palestine over the last 75 years is a disgrace that should be condemned by every decent person on earth, just like any other instance of colonization, ethnic cleansing, apartheid or genocide. If you expect white people to admit that many of our ancestors had slaves, and ethnically cleansed and genocided native Americans (which I fully support), then you must also be willing and able to recognize that a great many Jews are currently taking part in commiting same horrors in Palestine right now. (I know Zionists claim, and some genuinely believe, that they're "de-colonizing" Palestine and therefore the ethnic cleaning and mass murder of the "invasive arabs" is flipped on its head to be seen as moral and just. To that I will remind you that Zionists openly admired they were "colonizing Palestine" for decades until it became unpopular to do so. Now they claim that same statement they used pervasively is "antisemitic", which is obviously disingenuous and entirely hypocritical.)

Secondly, it wouldn't matter if Israel actually were a decolonization project, the people of Gaza have been trapped there with the vast majority never allowed to leave, for 17 years. Bombing innocent people who have been held captive like animals is barbaric and inexcusable, no matter WHO was there first.)

I never felt personally threatened when people call out white supremacy or white privilege, because I want those things to end. It's not anti-your own race or religion to want it to become more moral and less harmful to others, but for some reason a lot of Jewish and Christian zionists apparently believe that any criticism of Israel or Jewish supremacy is antisemitic and intolerable. This doesn't make ANY sense. All systems of oppression are unjust, no matter WHO is benefiting.

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere, so if you care about social causes and human rights at all and you're not yet loudly and boldly condemning Israel and demanding a permanent ceasefire, a total withdraw from Gaza, and a sovereign and free Palestinian state, then you were never serious about social justice at all, you were simply following trends.

To date over 30,000 people have been killed (a number that’s been static for weeks despite continued attacks on civilians) half of them children. Never again is now. This is another Holocaust, and Jewish voices have the most influence to stop it.

[matan4il]

To the lovely American Nonnie, who told me that all antisemitism is bad, but leftist antisemitism is the worst because "they are being protected and celebrated. By media, pop culture, and academia. With no middle ground," I agree. The anti-Israel type of antisemitism is, without a doubt, the most socially accepted kind. It's the only kind that someone can spew, and get publicly applauded. The only kind where someone can celebrate the massacre of Jews, and either there are no consequences to that, or there finally are, and then that person and their supporters can pretend they're a martyr, being "persecuted" for being "critical of Israel," when in reality legit criticism of Israel is a very different thing to bias against the only Jewish state, and that person is just another Jew hater.

But I don't think it's just that.

I think it's also the fact that most antisemites are at least honest about hating Jews. The anti-Israel type of antisemitism tries to pretend it's not Jew hatred. So you'll get the hypocrisy of wishing Jews a Happy Hanukkah, a Zionist holiday, while attacking Zionism, and claiming it's incompatible with Judaism. Or you'll have people telling you how important it is to them to combat antisemitism, then they'll turn around and spit out leftist antisemitic conspiracy theories, that instead of saying Jews use the blood of non-Jewish kids to bake matzos, claim the Jewish state only sent a field hospital to Haiti after the earthquake, to harvest human organs. Or they'll proudly announce they're not antisemitic, and to "prove" it, they'll tokenize Jews, which is an antisemitic act in itself. And the worst is when they won't even listen to Jews who tell them that they're being antisemitic, or worse, they'll claim Zionism is antisemitic, which would make 90% of Jews, as well as the Bible itself, antisemitic. It's gaslighting Jews and non-Jews on what is Judaism and what is antisemitic. Other types of antisemites don't do that.

I also think this kind of antisemitism is particularly infuriating, because of the deep discrepancy between the values the left is supposed to stand for, and how they abandon those values when it comes to Jews. "Believe all women!" suddenly isn't applied when Israeli Jewish women are mass raped. "Violence is never the answer! Taking a human life is always wrong!" Then suddenly when Israeli Jews are massacred, and we get explanations on why violence is legit if people are occupied, even when it's translated into mass murder.

And lastly, there's the discrimination, because the left would never treat any other marginalized group the way it does Jews. "Don't speak over a minority group! Listen to their lived experiences!" Then a Jew tries to explain why anti-Zionism is antisemitic, and suddenly all the non-Jew leftists are bigger experts than us on Jewish history and and hatred of Jews, and we're not listened to when we talk about our persecution in the Middle East pre-modern Zionism (meaning the persecution and repeated massacres of Jews in the Middle East is being denied, in a way no one on the left would dare deny, for example, that the transatlantic slave trade happened), or how much anti-Zionism threatens non-Israeli Jews. "Educate yourself" is a common call, but no one feels the need to properly educate themselves on Jewish history, identity and native rights, or worse, they read propaganda from anti-Israel sources only, and think that's the same as educating themselves, as if when they're about to write about any other marginalized group, they would only take in the "education" of those that the group says hate it. "Ethnic cleansing is the worst!" the left says, while chanting slogans that, at the very least, call for the ethnic cleansing of Jews from the Jewish ancestral homeland, and no one gives a damn about us when we point this out. "None of us is free until all of us are free!" goes the intersectionalist call of the left, but Jews are excluded from that. No one cares about modern Zionism being our liberation movement, and we are sometimes physically removed from spaces that are supposed to be dedicated to marginalized groups, as was done to my friend at the Chicago Dyke March, when she wanted to hold a Jewish pride flag, under the claim that the Jewish pride flag makes Palestinians at the march feel unsafe... How safe did queer Jews feel in that moment, or when learning about that incident? But no one cares.

Sending lots of hugs from Jerusalem to you, in the US! xoxox

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[frida-kahl-of-the-rocky-horror]

Antisemitism is evil

Genocide against the Palestinians is evil

If you disagree with either of these, please leave my page

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Further Reading:

Yes it’s a Genocide

TL;DR: there are many classifications of genocide, and one of such classifications is ethnic cleansing. Israeli military and government forces claim they are doing a Nakba 2. The first Nakba is the definition of ethnic cleansing, by UN definitions, which is a form of genocide. Israel has admitted that they are committing genocide.

No criticizing Israel is not antisemitic

TL;DR: if criticism of Israel or being pro Palestinian equates being antisemitic, then here is a list of raging antisemites (direct quotes included): Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, Malcolm X, Fred Hampton, Nelson Mandela, Albert Einstein (is Jewish), Stephen Hawking, Frida Kahlo (is Jewish), Noam Chomsky (is Jewish), DJ KHALED, Muhammad Ali, Jimmy Carter, Ben and Jerry (the ice cream people), Bernie Sanders (is Jewish), and Susan Sarandon.

Why Israel hates Palestinians (and why it’s unjustified)

TL;DR: Early post Zionist radical philosophy was to get back at the Germans and kill 6 million Germans senselessly for their systemic murder of Jews. This was rejected by Israel, but this thought process and reaction to historic European antisemitism was channelled into mistreatment of Palestinians. Europe is to blame yet Palestinians are the ones suffering,

I am very well read

TL;DR: Someone called be a slur and told me to pick up a book, I responded with a list of books which I read, a good chunk of which are from pro Israel Zionists and anti Israel Jewish and Palestinian academics

Antisemitism Post #1

TL;DR: a critique of white leftists who thing all Jewish people must categorize themselves as “good Jew” or “bad Jew”. Ethnonationalism like Zionism is dangerous but so is bigotry such as antisemitism. I also use my personal story of hating Belgians.

Antisemitism Post #2

TL;DR: if you replace “Israeli” with any other ethnicity or nationality and it’s bigoted, then your statement is antisemitic. If your statement isn’t bigoted and a rightful criticism of government or military positions and actions, it’s not antisemitic. It’s not antisemitic to criticize a genocide.

Patriotism vs Nationalism vs Jingoism

TL;DR: A Patriot loves their country, she celebrates when it does right and criticizes it when it does wrong. A Nationalist loves their country, she celebrates it when it does right and ignores when it does wrong. A Jingoist loves their country (or at least a specific version of it), celebrates when it is right and when it is wrong, because their country is unable to do wrong in their eyes. Everything can be justified.

Antisemitism Post #3

TL;DR: the Jews don’t control Hollywood.

Rebutting the “It’s Complicated” Claim

TL;DR: it’s not complicated, it’s apartheid

Antisemitism Post #4

TL;DR: Israel is Antisemitic, non Ashkenazi Jews frequently face discrimination, especially in Netanyahu’s Israel, but it’s always been this way with Yiddish language bans, forced sterilization of Ethiopian Jews, and European supremacy in all corners of government

Extremism is Sometimes Justified

TL;DR: one person’s terrorist is another person’s freedom fighter, and if you claim all extremism is bad, you support European colonial control of Africa, Haiti, the USA, and so many other evil regimes.

Yes Israel is a Colonial Project

TL;DR: Direct sources from the founders of Zionism calling the creation of Israel a colonial project and referring to Palestinians as the indigenous peoples who are in the way

Continued:

In a few months more journalists have died in Gaza than in WW2.

Gaza: Israeli company plans luxury beach side Apartment on the ruins of Gaza

A Message from a Palestinian Friend

People who are not Israeli or Palestinian are allowed to engage in discourse on this issue, especially Americans

Goat Jewish Boi Slays

The Post that Blew Up

Debunking idiotic Israeli arguments

Where’d you Come From, Where’d you Go

USA is the most diverse country on earth

Direct quote from an Israeli cabinet minister calling this conflict a war on Gaza not a war on Hamas (what happened to the plot??)

I love Jewish men who love humanity

Israel doesn’t care about peace

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Andrew Doyle

Published: May 16, 2024

In his memoir Hitch-22, Christopher Hitchens considered “why it is that anti-Semitism is so tenacious and so protean and so enduring”. Many of us in the west have grown complacent, assuming that the horrors of the Holocaust would prevent this ancient prejudice from re-emerging. But as the conflict between Israel and Hamas escalates, few of us can be in any doubt that antisemitism has once again goose-stepped into the spotlight.

Of course, criticism of the Israeli government and its military strategy is entirely legitimate. So too is our profound concern for the innocents of Gaza and the many thousands of non-combatants who are losing their lives. But there is no denying the explicit anti-Jewish hatred that has accompanied these discussions in certain quarters. Criticise Israel all you like, but don’t try to tell me that Monday night’s daubing of the Shoah memorial in Paris with handprints of red paint was anything other than antisemitic.

Social media has opened our eyes to the prevalence of such sentiments. The other day I posted a link to my Substack piece about the Eurovision Song Contest on that hellsite now known as X. My focus in the article was on the narcissism of the “non-binary” performers, but one feminist activist decided to make it all about Israel. Underneath my post, she added an image of Eden Golan, the Israeli entry to the competition, with bloodstains photoshopped onto her dress. She went on to dismiss the victims of the October 7 pogrom as “silly ravers” and to blame the massacre on the IDF. Whatever else one might say about such views, it is clearly evidence of a complete absence of basic humanity.

This is sadly not uncommon. Recently we have seen protesters openly supporting Hamas, or even praising its acts of barbarism. A new poll has found that 63% of students currently protesting at US universities have at least some sympathy for Hamas. There have been overtly antisemitic statements, and Jews have been harassed on campus. It has been reported that at Columbia University, one protester cried out “We are Hamas” while another shouted at a group of Jewish students: “The 7 October is about to be every fucking day for you. You ready?” These are the very people who have spent the last few years calling anyone who dissents even slightly from their worldview a “fascist”, and yet they are blind to actual fascism when it emerges within their own ranks.

All of this has taken me by surprise, which perhaps reveals the extent of my naivety. Antisemitism is nothing new, and has assumed myriad and outlandish forms over the centuries. Our own country has not been immune; Jews were deported from England in 1290, only to be readmitted in 1656. Before then, only those who had converted to Christianity were allowed to remain; specially, they were able to reside at the Domus Conversorum in London, established by Henry III in 1232. Anti-Jewish sentiments were reignited by a plot to poison Elizabeth I in 1594, which was blamed on her physician Roderigo Lopes, a Portuguese man of Jewish ancestry who was executed for treason. This is the context in which the forced conversion of Shylock at the end of Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice ought to be understood.

Unpleasant myths about Jews have abounded throughout history, some of which still linger in Islamic regimes and the darker crannies of the internet where neo-Nazis gather to wallow in their bile. The poisoning of wells by Jews was thought to have initiated the Black Death epidemic in 1348. This notion was still pervasive by the time Christopher Marlowe wrote his play The Jew of Malta in 1589 (consider Barabas’s mass extermination of an entire convent of nuns by means of “a precious powder”, or his boastful claim: “Sometimes I go about and poison wells”).

The hate-filled fantasies didn’t end there. The seventeenth-century preacher Thomas Calvert speculated that male Jews menstruated and murdered Christian infants to replenish their blood. In a 1656 pamphlet addressing the question of readmission, the puritan polemicist William Prynne stated that “Jews almost every year crucify one child, to the injury and contumely of Jesus”.

Those who have been paying attention will have noticed new forms of these blood libels recurring online in recent months, with many activists claiming that Israel is specifically targeting children in the conflict. For whatever reason, many opponents of the war cannot resist veering into antisemitic tropes. Most examples are coming from those who identify as “left-wing” and “progressive”, which just goes to show how antisemitism is not specific to any one political mindset. Its tendency to rematerialise in unexpected guises means that we ought to be eternally vigilant. I had never been able to grasp how Holocaust denial could be so widespread in the face of such unequivocal evidence. But having heard so many denials of the October 7 massacre, including scepticism from prominent left-wing commentators over whether rapes actually took place, I can see that such revisionism is more common than I assumed.

The unique horror of the Holocaust shows us that human civilisation might at any point collapse into the abyss. In Anthony Burgess’s novel Earthly Powers, the narrator Ken Toomey witnesses the immediate aftermath at Buchenwald, what he describes at the “lowest point in human history”. His newfound sense of humankind’s capacity for evil leads him to conclude that we cannot possibly have been created by God. This is the essence of despair.

The novelist Mervyn Peake was one of the first to see Bergen-Belsen after its liberation by allied forces. He visited the camp in the role of a war artist, and what he saw there haunted him forever. His final novel Titus Alone is a fragmentary and bleak affair, a consequence partly of his degenerative illness, but also of his psychological need to reckon with the evil he had glimpsed. It appears in the novel in the form of the “factory”, a chilling place of shadows and death, where identical faces stare out of countless windows and macabre scientific experiments are conducted within its walls.

One of Peake’s sketches from Belsen depicts a young girl, looking directly at the artist as she lies dying from consumption.

As he drew the girl, Peake was overwhelmed with a sense of helplessness and self-reproach. In the final stanza of his poem “The Consumptive. Belsen, 1945”, he tried to make sense of his feelings:

Her agony slides through me: am I glass That grief can find no grip Save for a moment when the quivering lip And the coughing weaker than the broken wing That, fluttering, shakes the life from a small bird Caught me as in a nightmare? Nightmares pass; The image blurs and the quick razor-edge Of anger dulls, and pity dulls. O God, That grief so glibly slides! The little badge On either cheek was gathered from her blood: Those coughs were her last words. They had no weight Save that through them was made articulate Earth’s desolation on the alien bed. Though I be glass, it shall not be betrayed, That last weak cough of her small, trembling head.

As Peake sketches the girl he struggles with the sheer futility of it all. He is troubled that his pity is fleeting, that even in the moment he is too focused on his task and not on the human being who lies dying before him. But is this really a lack of empathy, or a natural human reaction to the knowledge that there is nothing he can do to remedy the cruelties of the world?

The evil of the Holocaust serves as a reminder of what can happen when fascism prevails. We cannot afford to be complacent while antisemitism is on the rise and supposed progressives are cheering on those who openly wish to eliminate an entire race of people. If nothing else, we should do our utmost to ensure that the lessons of history are not forgotten.

[disappointingyellowhighlighter]

I know nobody needs to hear my opinions about the Israel Palestine conflict but I have a lot of thoughts and nowhere to put them so here goes:

1. What Israel is doing is wrong. Israel as a state should not exist, especially in the way it does now.

2. Innocent Israeli citizens exist. Jews do have ancestral ties to the land and should be allowed to exist there without having to be conflated in belief with a genocidal government. Not all Israeli citizens are Jewish, and they, too, deserve to exist there without having to be conflated in belief with a genocidal government.

3. Hamas is a terrorist organization.

4. If Israel puts down its weapons before Hamas does, innocent Israeli citizens will die.

5. Every country on earth should be calling for a ceasefire. From both sides. Yes, the sides are not on equal footing. But BOTH must put down weapons for peace to be an option.

6. Western leftists do not understand how to be anti-zionist and anti-israel without being antisemitic. It is not a fine line, but it is one that is easy to cross and many do not listen when they are called out for it. Please listen when this comes up. Please check the biases of the sources you consume media from. Check how they are funded, check where they are located. By all means read the articles but be aware where they are coming from. I know it's easy to disregard this argument, and it may even be made erroneously, but please evaluate what has been said and think about why a Jewish person may have found it offensive. If it is TRULY just because there was criticism of Israel and/or Zionism, disregard the argument. Additionally, please understand the conditional whiteness given to white Jews. Telling us we have white privilege without understanding conditional whiteness and the history of whiteness as a classification, especially in regard to how it affects Jews, is ignorant at best and antisemitic at worst. Yes, many of us have white privilege. Until we are openly Jewish.

7. A lot of people who are calling to free Palestine have not thought past that. I agree. Free Palestine. But what happens after? Are former Israeli citizens expected to leave? If so, where? If not, do you expect the two groups to work out their own peace? Or should other nations be involved? If former Israeli citizens are not given a place to go and start getting attacked by the new government, what then? How will you respond if that is what happens? Please consider these questions. I know you don't think anything bad will happen, but think about what hamas already did, think about how Jews are treated historically, and think about what the plan would be going forward after the dismantling of Israel.

8. A lot of people think violence against Israeli citizens is justified. A lot of people think Hamas is in the right. I cannot change your mind. But this IS antisemitic. If you believe that Hamas was in the right for what they did to civilians because they are citizens of Israel, the only country in the world that's national religion is Judaism, you are antisemitic. If that statement upsets you, re-evaluate your position and why you feel the way you do.

9. Israel is indiscriminately bombing Gaza under the guise that they are somehow taking down Hamas. They are lying. Israel will claim any man killed by the IOF in Gaza is Hamas. They are lying. Israel is actively committing a genocide and if you are not against that genocide you are wrong.

10. Many diaspora Jews, because of this conflict, feel unsafe. We would be crazy not to. Any move on Israel's part always results in a rise of antisemitism worldwide, because people conflate Israel with Judaism. They are not even close to the same. I've seen appalling images of IOF soldiers using a combat knife as a yod, holding it up to a Torah. That is disgusting. But enough people conflate Israel and Judaism that diaspora Jews are affected by anything Israel does. Almost always negatively. If you are calling diaspora Jews selfish or saying we are claiming false victimhood, you are being antisemitic and you are using a genocide to justify it. If that statement bothers you, re-evaluate.

13. There is nuance in this situation. And if you refuse to acknowledge that nuance, I can assume it is for antisemitic reasons. And if that statement bothers you, re-evaluate.

11. I implore people to study Jewish history. See WHY Israel exists in the first place. You do not need to have empathy for Israel, I suggest you actively have none, but please please have empathy for Israeli citizens and diaspora Jews alike.

12. American support of Israel comes from a place of antisemitism.

14. All of these opinions can and should exist in tandem. Palestinians are being oppressed by Israel, Gaza is an open air prison, and Israel needs to stop bombing Gaza immediately. Innocent Israeli citizens and diaspora Jews should not be blamed for the actions of the Israeli government.

15. Free Palestine.

[yourtoradorasextendedwarranty]

Recently saw that annoying anarchist in my reblogs again. Still refuses to admit he hates jews. Still says he's just "Anti Zionist". While claiming I am one because I criticize Islam.

I'm sorry sir but just because you refuse to admit the wrongs committed by Islamists and the broader Arab world, does not make your hate of Jews any more justified. And going to bat for countries like Iran? WOW you must have a boner for that faith. And why go straight for the "Boner" comment?

Because nothing else gets across your obsession with defending and dismissing wrongs committed by middle eastern countries.

And since I HAVE TO SAY IT, this is not an implication of all Arab people, or ALL of Islam. However Arab nations have had a particularly violent history. And part of their own faith doctrine calls for the killing of all jews. As in "The end of days and the muslim promised land will come when all of the jews have been killed".

But sure. Harp on about every anti semitic stereotype. And have fun making out with Milo Yiannopoulos while you are at it because he believes in jewish space lasers and thinks the whole of all jews are "the issue" with the globe. Basically calling them all gay marxists. Which I'm sure you ascribe to.

Really. Just fucking stop. Your ignoring of the atrocities of one side is VERY transparent. No nation is perfect and many of them often do wrongs. Israel screws up just like every other nation. But kindly inform me one thing. Why did the Jews have to flee from all the Arab nations? Oh must be because of some bullshit Hamas fed to you to say. Since you believe every fucking word of that terrorist cell.

Frankly? I hate covering this topic because honestly? I could give two shits about that conflict. Sure maybe it makes me seem heartless but it's their fight. A fight that you Hamas worshipers seem dead set on kissing the feet of. Because I can promise, even IF Israel was gone tomorrow, you'd still be blaming all the world's problems on "Zionists". And you'd still defend all the atrocities committed by the Arab world. Fuck you and your worship of those cultures. Try being normal and just going, "Oh these things about X culture are kinda neat". And stop licking their fucking toes. I love how I get called a Zionist because I don't think a tiny ass country in bum fuck nowhere is controlling the world. But oh fucking well I guess.

[qqueenofhades]

Bon soir. Do you have resources/recommendations for understanding the Israel/Palestine conflict as it related to American media coverage and American anti-semitism?

I do not have any particular content resources, but as I said on WhatsApp, I am willing to write you a brief (ha) primer of this whole mess, its historical context, and the political issues/positions that inform how it is currently covered and talked about in America and the West. Obviously this will not cover everything, but it will hopefully give you some sense of where this is all coming from and why.

The modern state of Israel was founded in 1948, on territory that is historically associated with the ancient/biblical "Israel." Obviously, this took place in the immediate aftermath of the Holocaust and the attempt to wipe out European Jewry. It was felt that the world at large owed reparations to Jews for that "yet again, we tried to kill all of you, our bad" thing. One might say, understandably so.

However, this was controversial because there were already people living in that territory, and overnight they found themselves stateless, or otherwise long-term/deliberately excluded from the new Israeli state apparatus. The Israeli government has long since promoted an image of the (secular) Israeli citizen as also (religiously) Jewish, even though there are many Middle Eastern Christians, Muslims, Arabs, etc etc., who may not identify with this particular ethnic-religious model of Israeli citizenship.

The Middle East has long been a geopolitically/militarily contested area (dating all the way back to the crusades) due to its huge symbolic importance to the three major Abrahamic faiths (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, exemplified by the incredibly sensitive issue of who gets to lay claim to the city of Jerusalem and how). In the nineteenth century, European colonial powers also occupied and exploited the region, particularly Britain in Egypt and Syria, France in Lebanon, and others.

The Ottoman Empire was also in conflict with its European imperial rivals, further increasing the instability and resulting in the development of various nationalist, religious, separatist, and other proxy groups. This all informed the situation at the time Israel was created in 1948, especially as the Middle East and Northern Africa entered the postwar period of decolonization/independence in the 1950s/60s. Pan-Arab nationalist leaders like President Nasser of Egypt portrayed the creation of Israel as yet another crass imposition of European colonial/imperial interests, rather than any kind of merited settlement/feeling bad about the Holocaust. Many Arab states still refuse to recognize Israel, or have any diplomatic relations with it, as a result.

Because Jews have experienced political, religious, and genocidal persecution throughout history (the manifestation of anti-Semitism), the idea of having an actual territorial homeland, where they can be safe from that, is obviously an important protection. There is a very big difference between religious Judaism and political Zionism, defined as the state of Israel's political activities and agendas. However, legitimate criticism of Israel as a nation-state, the same as any other nation-state in the world, is often coded in implicitly (or wildly explicitly) anti-Semitic dogwhistles. Zionism and Judaism are also often deliberately conflated, used interchangeably, or without any attempt to separate them.

Jews of the diaspora, i.e. those in America and Europe, often find themselves ambushed with criticisms of Israel's political and military excesses, and asked to explicitly renounce any allegiance to Israel in order to be seen as "good Jews." Which is a heaping helping of problematic stereotypes all at once. Many Jews in America are liberal, Democratic voters, members of Reform congregations etc, and do legitimately oppose the militaristic and seemingly apartheid-esque actions of the Israeli nation-state. But when your choice is "totally renounce the homeland for your people that was created in the immediate aftermath of the Holocaust and intended to provide very real and very needed shelter against future atrocities of this type, or be subject to more anti-Semitic vitriol," that is... not good.

The U.S. has long supported Israel as a political entity for various reasons. One, because it is often antagonistic or in opposition to the largely Muslim nation-states in the Middle East, and sees Israel as a more natural ally (so yes, institutional Islamophobia does play a role). Two, because the evangelical Christian right-wing wackjobs think that it's important to support Israel because one day Jesus will come back there and start the Rapture (true story).

Right-wing Republicans are often extremely anti-Semitic because they're Christian nutjobs, and left-wing tankies are ...also extremely anti-Semitic, because they paint Israel as just an extension of the American imperial regime and it should therefore be destroyed/delegitimized. (Remember, everything is America's fault somehow and other countries have no agency and never act independently, just as dumb American puppets!) As usual with tankies, they make no effort to understand the sensitive historical, religious, and identity issues around the necessity of a Jewish homeland and why it happened in the first place.

All that said, Israel as a nation, culture, and military (not Judaism as a religion) has often behaved appallingly toward the Palestinians who also live there, and has rejected any idea of a two-state or power-sharing solution. This is where Palestine would also have the right to organize itself as a state and exert the same level of influence/defend itself from what often reads as deliberate ethnic cleansing of Palestinian Arabs and attempts to set up an apartheid state where only religious/ethnic Jews have full citizenship rights.

This is exemplified by the fact that Benjamin Netanyahu took a brief vacation, a few undistinguished caretaker far-right PMs occupied the chair for a year, and then he came back.

Almost every player in this situation has an interest in promoting themselves as fully blameless and their enemies as fully and even demonically in the wrong, which complicates any complete or objective assessment. There are Palestinian militant groups, i.e. Hamas and Hezbollah, who are painted as obvious terrorists and extensions of al-Qaeda, especially in the wake of 9/11 and the start of more U.S.-led wars in the Middle East. This assessment neatly serves the purposes of both American and Israeli political agendas and should be scrutinized, especially considering that all sides are engaging in armed violence at all times.

Israel often engages in the same kind of imperialistic "we're only attacking our enemies defensively in order to preserve our own survival as a state" rhetoric as, say, Russia, and has been notably slow about providing weapons or assistance to Ukraine, in contrast to other western allies. However, unlike Russia, which is not under legitimate threat from anything except Putin's wild revanchist delusions of grandeur, Israel does have plenty of other nations (particularly Iran) that would like to wipe it off the map, if it was at all possible to do. This does not excuse the terrible things its powerful military apparatus has repeatedly done to Palestinian civilian populations, but it, again, makes it more complicated.

As the basic realities currently stand, the conflict does not have any obvious short-term or long-term end. Israeli gives no indications of shifting its extreme-assimilationist political and military policy, there will continue to be violent friction between the political and religious Abrahamic factions that lay claim to Jerusalem and its larger symbolic legacy, and the wider world will continue to be invested in promoting and using particular depictions of the conflict for its own domestic and international purposes.

So yeah.

[anyoldfandom]

Why are you anti-Israel as a Jew? genuine question, I'm just curious as a non-Jewish person bc all my irl Jewish friends are pro-Israel

Okay so normally I don't really,,check my inbox so sorry for the late response anon, but thank you for the genuine curiosity! I'm glad you're coming to the table with an open mind.

I am going to put a disclaimer here, however: Jewish people are not the only people impacted by Israel's actions. We're not even the most impacted. I am going to give my perspective because it was asked for, but my biggest suggestion is to listen to Palestinian voices the most before you draw any conclusions, as they are the real victims in the center of Israel's actions.

As for my opinion, however - quite frankly, my dislike of the Israeli state comes from a few places. Yes, it is true that Jewish people lived in Israel in the past, and yes, it is a holy land - but I genuinely do not believe that the Israeli government has Jewish interests in heart. The common narrative that I've heard in a lot of spaces is that Israel is a safe place should the world turn against us again, but quite frankly...it's unrealistic. Not every Jew in the world can move to Israel. Only the wealthy Jews (and I can tell you, many Jews are not wealthy at all) would be able to flee, and the rest of us would be stuck where we are.

And that would be if Israel was not already filled with Palestinians. A phrase I and other Jews have used is "Not in our name".

The Israeli state is breaking international laws - yes, Hamas has also been condemned for breaking international laws, but the Israeli government is also a state. It is a government. A government that has a history of committing genocide - so much that South Africa is trying to sue them for war crimes.

And, to be frank, and I will admit my language is about to be very harsh - please know my anger is directed at the Israeli government, anon, and not you - but I do not want a fucking genocide in my name. I do not want other peoples to suffer because my people have in the past - Israel is not the answer, fighting real, actual antisemitism is. Making the entire world safe is the answer. I also hate that the government is claiming any criticism of Israel is antisemitic - I've spoken out against antisemitism in the past, consistently. I've written in concerns that people will use criticism of Israel in a way where they simply attack Jewish people, which is absolutely antisemitism, but holding a state responsible for their actions is not bigotry.

And, one more point - I do not think the allies of Israel are the allies of Jews. I can only speak as a US citizen, and not for any other country - but I do not, and have never, believed that my country is an ally of the Jewish people. I am constantly hearing antisemitic conspiracy theories being spread by politicians, and I heard the president claim that Israel would be the only safe place for Jews - supporting another genocidal country over the citizens he's supposed to be protecting, by suggesting the only place we will be safe is far away from America.

So, I don't support Israel. I don't support the murder of innocent Palestinians, the killing of journalists and children. I don't support the removal of people from their homes - and I'm frankly disgusted at those who would imply that I must run from my own home to be safe, because they refuse to be the change to keep my people safe.

I hope I explained my position well, anon. I really appreciate it when people, especially people not in the groups centered in a conversation, try to speak to both sides to at least understand all of the issue - though, don't just listen to me. As I said at the beginning, listen to Palestinian voices, as well - listen to the people living through these horrors. While Jews are centered in the conversation, it's important to remember that there are other victims here, who deserve to be listened to a whole hell of a lot more than me.