#if you think posting about antisemitism is an issue

[whitesunlars]

truly believe the greatest strengths of the Jewish people are our ability to question everything and our ability to laugh at everything

[uncanny-tranny]

So often, I see people who treat certain bigotries as being almost... an unfortunate byproduct of the More Important Bigotry. I see it a lot with bigotries that people are broadly willing to put up with as long as there's a Bigger Picture, or if the bigotry in question is subtle.

Transphobia (for example) isn't an acceptable trade-off for combatting sexism. Often, people are willing to put up with or perpetrate the bigotry (transphobia, in this example) because they see it as an acceptable price to pay for what they actually want.

The thing about bigotry that makes it bad isn't just that different bigotries feed into each other - antisemitism feeds itself into transphobia, which feeds itself into sexism, which feeds itself in racism, and this goes on ad infinitum - it's that bigotry actively affects actual, real people's lives. It prevents people from living, from accessing autonomy, and ultimately deprives them of their human experience. I don't think you ought to see bigotry as a "price to be paid" so you can get yours.

[btvs]

.

[angorwhosebabyisthis]

analyzing hermes, emet-selch, the ancients and ascians, how they're written, and the fandom's reaction to them be like hm. emet-selch's role in this fuckery is compounded by the fact that his backstory as a genocide survivor is incongruous with his ruling a huge genocidal colonialist world power in the present da [ANTISEMITISM BLAST]

[izzyizumi]

"Wow, you've been venting a lot about D02 Fan base Issues lately, I wonder what happened???"

"Well you see ever since post-Kizuna dropped, which is extremely suspicious TIMING in itself..." (While DigiAdv 2020 was also airing BUT.....)

In the last section of caps, when I proceeded to politely (hyper-formally) request this person stop harassing me by spamming me with multiple rude comments early in the morning when I wasn't even AWAKE to answer, and mentioned I was away because I was observing Shabbat (noting to them politely what it was), they proceeded to flip out, "turn" on me and start accusing me of "betraying" the pair. "Okay I beyond messed up" was their failed ""attempt"" at an blatantly insincere apology (they since continued to spam/harass a handful more times) and acknowledging they WERE HARASSING ME.

Except here's the thing. a. The Taishiro tag, by all means, is still for a rare pair ship. b. I am very aware of which fans follow me for my O.T.P. and actively post about it and who doesn't (including people who have lurked before). c. When the harassment started up I reached out to multiple other Taishiro fans (and people aware of the ship fan base being active) actively posting at the time and we were keeping aware of the situation in case they went about to target others. d. THIS PERSON WAS NOT AND NEVER A "FAMILIAR FACE" HERE / IN KOUTAI OR ADV+02 TAGS and posted fully and competely mainly on Anon (before "de-anon"ng using multiple account names; this was just before A.O.3 introduced comment blocking as a feature almost immediately after I began contacting them about it.) e. The timing of this is STILL highly suspicious to me considering the harassment mainly began in 2k20:

What was happening in Oct. 2k20 (aside from it also being my bday month, which was fantastic timing to harass someone??)

It was around the ending of DigiAdv 2020 Ep 18, when a lot of long-time fans would have returned to (if briefly) see the end of the Devimon arc involved, including past long-time Stans who dropped off partly keeping up with "canon" post-Tri (also especially if they hated ALL said new canon since...)

Kizuna was already out, but hadn't debuted in some countries (however, long-term Adv-02 fans were pretty aware of Kizuna developments due to notable leaks) and a lot of Stans also came back to actively "talk" / rant about Kizuna and the ""timeline"" since.

The person started out using a handle referring to a well-known N.S.F.W trope that I have absolutely 0 interest ever engaging with, and they likely knew that I might be semi-aware of it if just due to its sheer popularity. This was the first clear "hint" something was immediately wrong with the persons' commenting style, but I humored them at first by responding seriously and politely, giving a simple answer to the question ("plrease read all author's notes and tags clearly before reading".)

They since moved on to create multiple accounts and handles to spam / harass me ("Tales" might have been a reference to "Tales of" fan base, which I'm not involved in but was also suspicious in itself), pretending to be ""different"" people each time but using the exact same speech patterns / ~~accusations~~ and basically failing massively at "obscuring" / hiding themselves, almost to the point all of this was INTENTIONAL. (Also failed at making me take them seriously once I realized their intent to spam.)

The second (literally right the nights when I posted it, showing they actively WATCHED ADV-02 SECTIONS) I introduced more Daisuke into the storyline, (I had already finished the thing a bit earlier on, it just wasn't on A.O.3 yet...) they "turned" and "flipped" on me, "pretending" like they actively hated him and disregarded him, but my suspicions are really high that this was all an ACT. Because THE HARASSMENT DID NOT RAMP UP AS MUCH UNTIL I BEGAN "TOUCHING" DAISUKE / USING HIM IN MY THINGS AT ALL. (Very Suspicious)

I have seen similar long-term behavior from certain 02 Stans in this fan base who act like they have ownership over Daisuke head-canons and interpretations or something... including from a former person-I-briefly-interacted-with who used to (and STILL, as recently as the last weeks, though I won't name names but...) often acts really possessive over him and their interpretations. (You know, there's no rhyme or reason for why these kinds of things happen, right???) I long since hard-blocked the person on all DigiAdvs related accounts over it.

^ The conclusion made by A.O.3. was that it WAS harassment.

So, I'm just saying.

But you know what pissed me off the MOST? (MORE THAN THE FACT I WAS BEING ACTIVELY HARASSED AND SPAMMED ABOUT MY O.T.P WORKS AND FAVS?)

When I very formally informed this person (during the time they attempted fake-"politeness"/creepy fake "praise") I was (mentally) away noting Shabbat during the time they sent like 6 harassing comments in a morning, they proceeded to make the "turn", accusing me of multiple times (since) of being a "traitor" and INSULTING SHABBAT TO MY FACE AND ACTING LIKE THEY DIDN'T KNOW / ""GET"" WHO JEWS ARE, EVEN WHEN I SPECIFIED IT WAS A HOLIDAY.

Which IS ANTISEMITISM. Regardless of any fan base involved things it's to the point of antisemitic hate speech and religious harassment. I'm not even sorry to point it out but it IS.

{I finally let them know I was aware of the kind of spam tactics they were using against me. They proceeded to say this and continue acting "clueless" about what they were doing, while also half acknowledging it all the same} (Like seriously????) Anyway, if you (anyone posting in Adv or 02 sections, especially Koushiro or Daisuke involved fic!) ever get harassing spam comments from any of these user-names, REPORT THEM TO A.O.3.

I also don't mean to ~~call out~~ another "response", but...

When I brought these concerns up with people who I suspected may be involved in the (or possibly aware of similar) active harassment but was INITIALLY genuinely giving the benefit of the doubt, I intentionally left out about half of the comments since A.O.3 was still handling the case. One of the people I asked about if they were aware of such things actively going on in 02 sections commented very oddly and almost vaguely to me

"Maybe they're using an A.I. generator? They're getting more advanced {with text} (!!!!!) these days." (Summarized response)

A response I still find highly suspicious to this day.

Because this was blatantly NOT the work of an A.I. This person KNEW which characters they were talking about (despite trying to make it seem like they were "clueless" or "~~couldn't read~~" the MASSIVE amount of author's notes and summary and tags I left all over the fics and making a blatant show of "not actually reading" / absorbing it).

Also, in between, they NOTICED(!!!) immediately when I began up-loading my old A.M.V.s to other non-DigiAdvs sections(!!!) and began spamming those comment sections TOO (all with the same type of comments). (I did NOT give these any attention or response at the time)

So I'm Just Saying. Yeah?

This is unacceptable.

{Mocking Shabbat after I got after them for spamming me.}

So yeah, to anyone who MAY have been involved in this?:

(Kizuna spoilers!Koushiro moment Commence):

I'm still NOT amused.

(DO NOT copy or re-post my gif.)

It's been just about a year since the harassment-spam began last year (to eventually be squashed by A.O.3). All I'm saying is, yeah I'm still ticked and there were reasons why I wasn't actively posting other works, including for other not-O.T.P things...

(While it may change {with my postings} with the coming year I'm not going to deny that I'm not still majorly pissed off at the sequence of events at all.)

[toytulini]

The nasty goop that seems to make up The Jons, Lex's PR team that he foists upon Ivy as a "gift" in The Harley Quinn Show, thats the fucking ooze that covers the feeds of instagram and fb to make them unfuckingusable, and probably tiktok too

[luanna801]

In addition to the obvious antisemitism, it used to surprise me how many prison abolitionists were vehemently in favor of vigilante killing as a form of "justice". It made no sense. If you consider even prison too harsh a punishment, let alone the death penalty, how can you support extrajudicial murder where a person isn't even given a trial or any sort of chance to prove their innocence before being killed?

Then I realized that's the part they wouldn't say out loud when people ask "Okay, but what about the really dangerous people? If we can't lock people up, how do we keep people safe from them?" They're actually not against death or violence as a punishment at all, they just think it should be in the hands of random individuals - implicitly in their hands, and the hands of people who think like them. And then they can just get rid of anyone they think is too bad a person, and let the rest go free.

They'll claim to love the idea of restorative justice while celebrating the murder of people they don't like, and they'll claim to love empathy while never showing a drop to anyone they've decided is in a "bad" category of person. And it's surprisingly easy to land in one of those categories.

There are many people who have these ideals and aren't hypocrites about it, of course. I'm not criticizing the ideals themselves. But this is an incredibly common attitude I've seen, and I'm saddened but not surprised to see it turned against Jews. (So many people barely need an excuse to turn against us anyway, even supposedly "progressive" ones.) They've decided that all ""Zionists"" are in the unredeemable category of person whose deaths can be celebrated, and "Zionists", like most of those categories of people, can be defined so broadly that no one is innocent enough for them, even the literal babies who were murdered.

it's interesting how many leftists claim to oppose the death penalty while supporting killing israeli civilians

[sorrymyrabbisaidno]

I was thinking about a post I reblogged about how the impact of goyim trying to "cancel" (I guess?) zionists and how it ends up being antisemitic even if the intent is not.

And I just want to say. The intent *is* antisemitic. Zionism is a movement by Jews and for Jews and it should remain a discussion primarily had and led by Jews. This is an intracommunity issue and the attempt to isolate, cancel, destroy, remove, etc anything that could possibly be related to zionism is antisemitic to its core because it's saying "I get to decide what Jews have community. I get to decide what Jews have rights and safety." And that's fucking bullshit.

Goyim are not not understanding that their impact is larger than intended. Well, maybe they are. But the bigger issue is that they think they get to decide which Jews get to have community. Which Jews get to feel safe. Which Jews get to tentatively exist as Jews in public.

Another issue is that when we decide some category of Jew is okay to do that shit to, the goalposts will move. They always fucking move. Someone said the Shema is zionist! Hillel (the sometimes only Jewish resource on college and university campuses that students have) so that has to go. Jews speaking Hebrew are zionists so we need to stop speaking that, then Jews being visible in public are suspect like. It doesn't stop at the true definition of zionism.

Again, the intent is to isolate a group of Jews you view as undesirable. That intention is inherently antisemitic. And the impact is just as bad as the intention.

[jewish-sideblog]

The herit/ageposts "Zionist blocklist" isn't even an attempt at detailing actual Zionists on tumblr btw. hp literally just went into the notes of the posts on one satire blog they didn't like and copy/pasted the results in alphabetical order. with absolutely zero regards to what content is actually on the blog, or what any of those people actually think and feel about the issue.

Which means you could literally be a Jewish person who runs a blog about cats, be fully anti-Zionist, and be fully pro-Palestine. But if you like one meme about the rampant antisemitic disinformation on the internet rn, you can get labelled as an untouchable Zionist by one of the biggest blogs on this website. Remind me again how this is anti-Zionism and not antisemitism?

[menlove]

honestly i think a HUGE part of the issue is that most of the left doesn't really understand antisemitism

after wwii it became wildly Unpopular to be blatantly antisemitic. obviously, it still happened. but the result of this is that instead of antisemitism being studied as a historical and pervasive form of oppression that has been around for thousands of years & has many many precedents BEFORE the holocaust.... it became:

something just simply Rude to say or do. if you're a polite liberal/conservative or a leftist, it's just something that is socially unacceptable. there is no real weight to this.

something when FIRMLY believed is ONLY held by people like nazis and white supremacists. who, as we know, are The Enemy and none of us can ever be like them at all ever by the virtue of... not being them. no need to watch your own behaviors, bc you are not a nazi! only nazis could ever be Actually antisemitic

something that erupted out of the ground in germany in the early 20th century, culminated with the holocaust, and ended after. antisemitism did not exist before that and it was solved after when the saving grace of the united states and england liberated the jews from the nazis out of the goodness of their hearts

however absolutely none of this is true. antisemitism stretches back thousands of years and it has not, for the most part, been only "fringe" conspiracy theorists and white supremacists who perpetuate it

antisemitism has been, by and large, presented as very logical. throughout, again, the thousands of years of history of antisemitism, very regular people have been antisemites. and most of them had reasons they felt were perfectly logical and understandable and most of all just. jews were trying to kill their children, of course they hated them! jews were purposefully trying to keep them poor, of course they hated them! jews believed Wrong Things and were morally and spiritually corrupt, of course there was something wrong with them. jews betrayed their country, lost them a war that ended with their husbands and brothers and sons dead, and now were living among them and taking advantage of social benefits out of the goodness of the hearts of the german people, of COURSE they hated them! and the nazis themselves were backed up by science at the time. scientific racism was THE science at the time. charles darwin was a scientific racist. it was all very logical.

and did jews actually do these things? no. but these people saw enough proof that aligned well enough with their morals and their beliefs and their fears & so to them it was completely logical and justified. it wasn't a fringe theory that only an insane person would believe in, or something impolite. it was true to them. to their morals, to their fears, to their core beliefs. it was true.

and so now we see a LOT. a lot of leftists being dragged ass first into antisemitism. because they don't even think they CAN be antisemitic. THEY aren't nazis and THEY aren't white supremacists, of COURSE they aren't antisemitic. but... well. the jews are doing things that go against their morals. they're doing things that validate their fears. the jews are violating things that go against their core beliefs! so of COURSE it is LOGICAL that they should hate them. of course, it is still rude to say "the jews are evil" so it gets replaced with "zionist". (and before you ask yes i am anti-zionism and do deeply believe what israel is doing is unjust and cruel) but even that is slipping.

it is getting all the more popular to go that one step further and instead of just making posts like "spam the hanukkah tag because the Zionists need to learn what their religion stands for" that are blatantly just replacing "jews" with "zionists", they are logically moving to being mask off. if zionism is wrong and half the world's remaining jewish population lives in israel, what about the rest? aren't they suspect? would they not ALL commit atrocities if given the chance? aren't they all racist for believing they're an ethnicity? aren't they all complicit? aren't they all threatening our deeply held leftist beliefs? it's a little weird and everyone has been too quiet for too long bc it's been rude to say but now you can get 300k notes for posting blood libel so why would you keep quiet anymore?

why WOULDN'T you just say "thank god someone finally said it i was worried about stepping on toes" when someone makes a post full of antisemitic conspiracy theory. why WOULDN'T you say "i don't care if all of israel gets bombed and every single person dies after this lmfao they deserve it"? (which would wipe out, again, half the world's population of jews- many of whom living there are anti-zionist and actively protesting their government. or. you know. children.) why WOULDN'T you make posts about how jewish identity is just nazi aryanism? why wouldn't you make posts about how the jews are privileged in america bc they run hollywood and the economy? why WOULDN'T you say the star of david is a hate symbol to you now and that you mistrust anyone using it? or that you find anyone speaking hebrew suspect?

these are all perfectly logical. to you. and YOU are not a nazi or a white supremacist. so it can't be antisemitic.

[makingqueerhistory]

I have a somewhat odd question. In June, I was part of creating an online Pride Shabbat for queer Jews unable or unwilling to go to Pride in their home area due to the rise in antisemitism, and as part of it, I wrote a memorial/Kaddish meditation about queer people across time and space. It’s fair to say I couldn’t have done it without MQH, which featured heavily in my research of historical queer figures.

I want to share the piece on Tumblr because I think some folks with progressive synagogues might like it, or may simply find it personally meaningful. Here comes the question: in any other time, I’d find it absolutely abhorrent to share it without crediting you for the time, love, effort, and care you’ve put into MQH that made my job so much simpler. But times being what they are, I don’t feel it’s right to do so indiscriminately, because I’m all too aware you may face splash damage for being associated with a filthy Bad Jew who doesn’t disavow all of Judaism etc. etc.

As a result, I feel obligated to ask if you’d prefer I omit your name from the post, especially since you’re trying to make MQH financially solvent. Please let me know, so I can decide how to structure my post.

Okay this is a complicated question. I will admit I was initially quite confused by the second paragraph of this, until I checked your blog. I realized quickly that you are refering to the fact that you're a Zionist.

I feel like I have been very public about the fact that I oppose Zionism, but in case I haven't been obvious enough, I want to say it clearly:

I learned about anti-Zionism and the movement to free Palestine from almost exclusively Jewish voices. People who have been referred to as "self-hating" when I post about them. They are voices I didn't seek out for their opinions on Palestine, but who shared their opinions with a level of love and passion that I admire deeply. They have gifted me with time and education, and they are the only reason I believe what I do today. Without these Jewish voices, I do believe I could have lost myself in the deliberate obfuscation that happens around this issue.

All of this being said, yes, please do share that I was able to help share queer stories that informed what you have created. But know, that everything I have made comes from a deep love and passion for justice that includes the Palestinian people.

[jewish-vents]

I think the reason the Miku thing is so grating is because it represents a bigger trend in fandom. Everyone can have religious headcanons, except Jewish people. Spider-Man can be any ethnicity, nationality, etc. except Jewish or Israeli. MCU characters can be AU'd into being different races or having different powers, but don't you dare say Captain America is Jewish in your story. Digimon says there's heroes in every country but if you make an Israeli one or say one in one country is Jewish, you support genocide now. Miku has no canon ethnicity and people from over 60 countries have drawn her as their ethnicity or nationality or both, but don't you ever imply Israeli Miku is okay.

And the real, very clear subtext underneath all of that is clear: you don't get to be in fandom spaces. You don't get to relax and take a break from the world. You can't sit back and dream up any character who is both heroic and Jewish. You don't get to have fiction as a fun escape from day to day life. Your being Jewish makes you ineligible for that kind of joy, even in fandoms where the source material was written by Jews in the first place.

It doesn't help that so many Vocaloid fans are kids so with Miku in particular, we're seeing kids as young as 11 or 12 get bullied out of fandom spaces by adults. Hey, Pro-Pals? Hamasniks? Let me let you in on a secret: ZERO PALESTINIANS ARE HELPED BY THIS! You think someone living in a warzone is helped by you yelling at a child for daring to draw a fictional singer as Israeli? Do you honestly believe that someone somewhere is one step closer to liberation because you tore into a 14 year on Twitter over a doodle they posted?

No. No, you don't honestly believe that. This is not about helping Palestinians. This is about punishing Jewish people - and in this case in particular, Jewish children - for existing in public. This is about penalizing people for acknowledging that Judaism exists, for imagining themselves in fiction instead of imagining worlds in which they don't exist, for interrupting your fantasies of a Jew-free Earth.

The issue is not Miku, it's that the Miku debacle is part of a nearly year-long trend of goyim yelling at us for existing Jewishly and unabashedly. And all that hate and constant anger is a lot to take. Especially when so many people lie to us, saying it's not about antisemitism, it's about [buzzword here].

Yeah, no. If you're yelling at children for imagining Jewish characters existing, you're being antisemitic. It's not about anything else. Stop lying.

.

[unbidden-yidden-deactivated20240]

I'm not 100% sure how to articulate this, but something that has been bothering me about I/P discourse (especially in the last month, it's gotten so much worse) that I haven't seen talked about in a productive way is the "yoking" effect that the extremist ugly takes create for the good-faith people just trying to talk about their issues. And I see it on both sides, and have felt compelled to act this way myself.

Essentially, when I talk about antisemitism (especially the significant spike in the last month), my goal is focused on educating people about the antisemitism and urging them to do something about their own behavior, help groups that are working on it, and/or become part of the people working on advocacy to that effect. I just want to talk about the antisemitism, and have that stand as a topic on its own terms. But the problem is, I'm a Jew and extremists on both sides have made it so that anything I post about this requires disclaimers that I also support the rights, freedoms, and care about the lives of Palestinians also. And I do! But that's not the point. The point is that Jews facing antisemitism should be able to talk about this without bringing in a whole separate topic to prove we're worth listening to. And I saw this with Israelis trying to talk about the grief they were feeling after the Hamas pogrom; they couldn't do it without either including some kind of statement about wanting peace, separating Hamas from Palestinians as a whole, etc. or face relentless antisemitic abuse.

And this effect comes both from outside people [supposedly] supporting Palestine being awful unless the Jew in question attaches sufficient disclaimers, as well as [supposedly] pro-Israel people who couldn't help themselves from spouting off dumb racist shit in their posts on otherwise valid topics.

But as I've watched things play out, and Western outsiders become more and more antisemitic in their [supposed] support of Palestine, I've noticed Palestinians and their not-antisemitic allies having to couch their [valid] criticisms of Israel with caveats about how antisemitism is not okay, or else face harassment when talking about their legitimate issues - even ones that aren't about Israel at all.

That's what I mean by "yoking" - this inability to talk about ourselves and our own issues without bad faith actors coercing us to address the other and "prove" that we're worth listening to. It's dehumanizing, because it means that our legitimate issues are always and only ever able to be discussed in the shadow of the other. They aren't allowed to stand on their own without risking harassment.

Anyway, I think the reasons we got here are complicated, but I lay most of the blame at the feet of uninvolved westerners using this conflict as a proxy for their own problems. I don't know that there's a way to fix this at this point, either, because the discourse has become so unbelievably toxic. I think the closest thing I've got is just the suggestion that if you see a Palestinian (or ally) talking about Palestinian issues and not being antisemitic about it, don't derail what they're saying even if they don't specifically denounce Hamas outright and/or antisemitism in their post. And if Jews (including and especially Israelis) are talking about antisemitism and/or legitimate issues and aren't being racist or Islamophobic about it, don't derail what we're saying even if we don't offer caveats denouncing the Israeli government and/or Islamophobia/anti-Arab racism in that specific post.

We can support each other in the face of danger and want peace without having to constantly be forced to talk about other issues and divert focus from our own issues.

[ara-line]

Stop glorifying the suicide of that US airman.

He grew up in a cult and never really left behind the mindset of that cult, even if his beliefs on the political spectrum shifted. According to a former member of the cult, it was common for members to leave and end up in the military. She described it as "going from one high control group to another" in the WaPo article linked.

In short, he never got help that he clearly needed. And from what I've heard about the military, his time in it may have worsened whatever issues he already had.

His suicide is a bigger reflection of this very strange pattern on the left to glorify self harm since others are suffering. It's one thing to see children in a playground and think about how there are children in refugee camps who don't get to enjoy those freedoms. This is another thing. Bushnell, unlike many other cases of self-immolation (ie the self immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi, the man whose death kickstarted the Arab Spring) was not directly affected by the bombings in Gaza. Yet he chose an extreme route that even those affected by the situation, whether through being related to the Israeli hostages or through having family in Gaza, would not go to. This is a reflection of a larger trend on this website of self punishment and forcing every last gory detail of horrific events on yourself because of a) this feeling of powerlessness over not being able to do much about the situation and b) wanting to show how much of a good leftist you are because you will subject yourself to horrific violence to show how much you care. In reality, it is mental self-destruction. I've seen this behaviour in true crime communities as well.

I think a lot of the leftists on this site grew up in conservative environments where it's all or nothing right wing extremism. Thus, much like Bushnell, their political beliefs have shifted, but not their mindset. That's why so many people on this site are glorifying his suicide.

The reason newspaper headlines aren't mentioning his name is because we already know many school shooters do what they do for infamy. Therefore, by not mentioning their names, the media wants to avoid copycats. It's the same line of thinking here. It's got nothing to do with Zionism, according to some people who probably had no idea what that is before Oct 7 and not now, controlling the media. No, Zionists do not control the news cycle. You're perpetuating antisemitism when you say that.

Inevitably, since people on this site have piss on the poor reading comprehension, I expect this post to go over well. If you're going to tell me to kill myself, just know that you will be blocked and reported. Any dialogue ended the moment you decided that was acceptable.

[creekfiend]

I've had something in the back of my brain percolating the concept of Jewish Materialist Anti-Zionism for a while now.

It is our task to oppose Zionism without denying the material conditions under which Jews live, and have lived, globally. Zionism is a response to the material conditions of Jews in the global diaspora. It is a response influenced heavily by 19th and 20th century European nationalist movements, and it is a response that has resulted in an absolutely unacceptable level of violence and oppression of Palestinians.

That does not mean that the material conditions under which diaspora Jews live are not of concern or meriting response. The state of Israel has addressed a non-zero number of problems for Jews globally.  It has addressed them at a cost that I do not find acceptable.

The right of return policy has indeed resulted in many many Jews who would have otherwise been killed having somewhere safe to go with no questions asked. It has *unquestionably* resulted in many many fewer deaths of Jews globally than there would have been if it did not exist.

Some of those Jews are my family.

And, the cost in order to found and maintain the nation-state of Israel to justify the policy is an unacceptable cost. Jews should not hold our lives more dear than the lives of anyone else. The right of return policy of the modern state of Israel is not an acceptable solution to me. The violence innate to the founding and maintenance of Israel as a nation state is unacceptable as a price for Palestinians to pay. I do not and will not ever accept it. I understand that the policy, and Zionism, are responses to a problem that is real. I demand a different response.

If you want to understand the current Israeli government as a western antizionist, and you should, I think it is important to understand that it is a far right fascist movement that arose (somewhat inevitably) from the violence (and nationalist mythologies that arose to justify it) innate to the founding and continued maintenance of the state of Israel. In this respect it is almost indistinguishable from the far right fascist movements in the United States that arose (somewhat inevitably) from the violence (and nationalist mythologies that arose to justify it) innate to the founding and continued maintenance of THIS country.

The thing is, when far right fascists in the United States say "white people are oppressed globally!" they're lying. But when far right fascists in Israel say "Jews are oppressed globally!" THAT'S TRUE.

The response is different. The response is "yes, and that does not justify this."

The only way to defeat Zionism is to come up with a better response to antisemitism than Zionism is. I honestly do not think that this should be very difficult considering that many Jews have had deeply Anti-Zionist philosophy is for as long as Zionism has been around so there are a lot of alternative ideas out there. I think there are a lot of arguments to be made that Zionism has not done a whole lot to address the issue of global antisemitism! It is not a difficult argument to make that it is a failed project.

Making people complacent about fascist rhetoric is so much easier if you can make them afraid. Jews have a lot to be afraid of and that includes Jews in Israel. The point is not that the fears are not valid, the point is that the fears do not justify the violence.

I'm going to turn reblogs on for this post (provisionally) later when I can keep an eye on it.

[starwikia]

so like are we done with the idea that james is a victim of the internet harassment mob or whatever you guys like to call it when in reality no one like forced him to be part of the public eye again. he had multiple times to disengage but he threw himself head first into the spotlight with some half assed apology where he used his dead mom, illiterate dad, and like 293 mental illnesses that he was in the right to do a widdle plagiarism but it’s not his fault! it’s everyone else’s fault for not being nice to him about it!!! how dare these people bring these issues to the public not thinking how james would feel about it! like ppl are forgetting there was notable period of time james went off air entirely. and every time he’s jumped back it’s always attempts to paint himself as the victim.

like be real for a second if anyone was weaponizing the internet harassment machine it was james somerton. he knew what he was doing when he posted that note. he knew the shit his victims would get for having the crime of (checks notes) voicing out their issues with him. he knew there’s people out there who are foaming at their mouths to use anything they can get their hands on as a “gotcha!” at hbomberguy (right wing people yes, but don’t act like it’s just them i’ve seen plenty of lefties trying to prove they’re superior to harry). they don’t give a shit about james, not really. he’s the dude who hbomb did a “hit piece” (yes that’s a term i’ve seen people use) and that’s what matters.

not to mention the writing that’s also very clearly targeting nick who’s basically cut ties with him at this point. james pushed all the burden on nick by saying it’s their fault, actually. he’s one of the co-writers and everything going to shit was nick’s fault when they had the audacity to move. james is faultless! with james still trying to monetize stolen content on the blatant lie that he’s doing this for nick’s sake as a portfolio. acting as if nick isn’t an sentient human being who could upload their own content, as if nick would even want to be associated with james at this point. this isn’t a teenager being harassed for an honest mistake, this is a 35-year old con artist who’s stolen hundreds of thousands and peddled the most vile shit as actual history but realized he was in deep shit and weaponizes very serious mental health issues as a “i’m just a poor little gay baby!! my alter ego did it!!!”

for the record if you’re among the people who tried to wash down james’ crimes as “he just did plagiarism!! it wasn’t that bad of a crime!” fuck you, man. i’m not kidding.

the fact i’ve witnessed people whitewash his acts of racism, sexism, transphobia, homophobia, antisemitism and misogyny (in fact i’m probably still missing a few things here), and say he’s being harassed by the internet just because he stole articles makes it so clear they have no fucking idea what they’re talking about. his shit isn’t fucking erased just bc he realized that he has to handle the consequences. he’s grasping at anything he can at this point to make sure that even if he’s not coming back, he’s sure as hell trying to take anyone he fucking can down with him.

he doesn’t get a second chance to be a content creator at this point. he doesn’t get to show himself to do better. he needs to fucking leave. and if he tries to publicly make himself the victim then he better know that he’s going to get public backlash.

if anything situation proves to me that he can never be trusted with a public platform ever again because he will immediately guilt people into feeling sorry for him.