#people are so fucking weird about Jews

[unbidden-yidden-deactivated20240]

G-d being Jewish online is just like a minefield of finding out, at the worst possible moment, that there are so many more people, including people that until now you have liked and respected, who genuinely believe that it's fine for you to be tortured, raped, burned alive, have your corpse desecrated, etc. for the crime of *checks notes* living in a country that has been accused of serious human rights violations.

Bad news for Americans, in that case.

Leftists are really out here showing their whole entire ass about how much they [don't] value Jewish people's lives, huh?

[hindahoney]

Has anyone else noticed the weird appropriation of Yiddish for specifically anti-zionist spaces? It makes me deeply uncomfortable.

[infiniteglitterfall]

Me, looking through books on Palestine: "Ilan Pappé wrote one called 'The Biggest Prison On Earth?!' People in Gaza hate it being called a prison. There's an entire hashtag for it. There's been an account dedicated to collecting pics and videos of #TheGazaYouDontSee for 6 years.

"Is Pappé even Palestinian? oh god wait I can tell already. this is gonna be an 'Israeli apologist' isn't it." Internet: "Yeah, Pappé's Israeli."

Me: "For fuck's--- so people will believe Israelis unquestioningly if they're shit-talking Israel, but in all other situations, Israelis are all liars?"

Internet: "Pretty much. Also, at best, Ilan Pappé must be one of the world’s sloppiest historians."

Me, admittedly in full schadenfreude now: "What?!?!"

Internet: "Benny Morris. That historian who's extremely hard-core about primary source documentation, who wrote that detailed book about how and why each group of Palestinian refugees left in 1947-9. He reviewed three books about Palestine."

Me: "Holy shit. And the book by Pappé is about the Husaynis. The family that Nazi war criminal Amin al-Husseini came from, the guy who fucked absolutely everything up for both Israel and Palestine."

Internet: "That's the one. Morris wrote, 'At best, Ilan Pappe must be one of the world’s sloppiest historians; at worst, one of the most dishonest. In truth, he probably merits a place somewhere between the two.'"

Me: "Why??"

Internet: "He says, 'Here is a clear and typical example—in detail, which is where the devil resides—of Pappe’s handiwork. I take this example from The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine'....

"Blah blah blah, basically in 1947 the UN voted to partition the land into Palestine and Israel, and extremist militias started shooting at Jewish towns and people. David Ben-Gurion was the leader of the Jewish community there, and his journal describes a visit from a scientist named Aharon Katzir, telling him about an experiment codenamed "Shimshon." Morris gives us the journal entry:

...An experiment was conducted on animals. The researchers were clothed in gas masks and suit. The suit costs 20 grush, the mask about 20 grush (all must be bought immediately). The operation [or experiment] went well. No animal died, the [animals] remained dazzled [as when a car’s headlights dazzle an oncoming driver] for 24 hours. There are some 50 kilos [of the gas]. [They] were moved to Tel Aviv. The [production] equipment is being moved here. On the laboratory level, some 20 kilos can be produced per day.

"Morris says, 'This is the only accessible source that exists, to the best of my knowledge, about the meeting and the gas experiment, and it is the sole source cited by Pappe for his description of the meeting and the "Shimshon" project. But this is how Pappe gives the passage in English:

Katzir reported to Ben-Gurion: 'We are experimenting with animals. Our researchers were wearing gas masks and adequate outfit. Good results. The animals did not die (they were just blinded). We can produce 20 kilos a day of this stuff.'

"'The translation is flecked with inaccuracies, but the outrage is in Pappe’s perversion of "dazzled," or sunveru, to "blinded"—in Hebrew "blinded" would be uvru, the verb not used by Ben-Gurion—coupled with the willful omission of the qualifier '"for 24 hours."'

"'Pappe’s version of this text is driven by something other than linguistic and historiographical accuracy. Published in English for the English-speaking world, where animal-lovers are legion and deliberately blinding animals would be regarded as a barbaric act, the passage, as published by Pappe, cannot fail to provoke a strong aversion to Ben-Gurion and to Israel.

"'Such distortions, large and small, characterize almost every page of The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. So I should add, to make the historical context perfectly clear, that no gas was ever used in the war of 1948 by any of the participants. [Or, he later notes, by either Israel or Palestine ever.] Pappe never tells the reader this.

"'Raising the subject of gas is historical irrelevance. But the paragraph will dangle in the reader’s imagination as a dark possibility, or worse, a dark reality: the Jews, gassed by the Nazis three years before, were about to gas, or were gassing, Arabs.'"

Me: "Uuuuggghhhhhhhhh. Yeah, it will."

Internet: "He does say, 'Palestinian Dynasty was a good idea.' Then he does some really detailed historian-dragging about the lack of primary sources and reliance on people's interpretations of what they say instead.

"'Almost all of Pappe’s references direct the reader to books and articles in English, Hebrew, and Arabic by other scholars, or to the memoirs of various Arab politicians, which are not the most reliable of sources. Occasionally there is a reference to an Arab or Western travelogue or genealogy, or to a diplomat’s memoir; but there is barely an allusion to documents in the relevant British, American, and Zionist/Israeli archives.

"'When referring to the content of American consular reports about Arab riots in the 1920s, for example, Pappe invariably directs the reader to an article in Hebrew by Gideon Biger—“The American Consulate in Jerusalem and the Events of 1920-1921,” in Cathedra, September 1988—and not to the documents themselves, which are easily accessible in the United States National Archive.

"'Those who falsify history routinely take the path of omission. They ignore crucial facts and important pieces of evidence while cherry-picking from the documentation to prove a case. 

"'Those who falsify history routinely take the path of omission. They ignore crucial facts and important pieces of evidence while cherry-picking from the documentation to prove a case. 

"'But Pappe is more brazen. He, too, often omits and ignores significant evidence, and he, too, alleges that a source tells us the opposite of what it in fact says, but he will also simply and straightforwardly falsify evidence.

"'Consider his handling of the Arab anti-Jewish riots of the 1920s.

"'Pappe writes of the “Nabi Musa” riots in April 1920: “The [British] Palin Commission... reported that the Jewish presence in the country was provoking the Arab population and was the cause of the riots.” He also quotes at length Musa Kazim al-Husayni, the clan’s leading notable at the time, to the effect that “it was not the [Arab] Hebronites who had started the riots but the Jews.”

"'But the (never published) [Palin Commission Report], while forthrightly anti-Zionist, thereby accurately reflecting the prevailing views in the British military government that ruled Palestine until mid-1920, flatly and strikingly charged the Arabs with responsibility for the bloodshed.

"'The team chaired by Major-General P.C. Palin wrote that “it is perfectly clear that with... few exceptions the Jews were the sufferers, and were, moreover, the victims of a peculiarly brutal and cowardly attack, the majority of the casualties being old men, women and children.” The inquiry pointed out that whereas 216 Jews were killed or injured, the British security forces and the Jews, in defending themselves or in retaliatory attacks, caused only twenty-five Arab casualties.'"

Me: "Yeah. I'm looking at that report right now and it says there had been an explosion, and then people were looting Jewish stores and beating Jews with stones, and in one case stabbing someone. Some people said that some Jews got up on the roof of a hotel and retaliated by throwing stones themselves.

"And then it literally says, 'The point as to the retaliation by Jews is of importance because it seems to have impressed the Military and led them to imagine that the Jews were to some extent responsible for provoking the rising.' That's the only thing it really says about anyone blaming the Jews.

"Except.... the very beginning gives some historical context. And it does say that when the Balfour Declaration came out, Muslims and Christians 'considered that they were to be handed over to an oppression which they hated far more than the Turk's and were aghast at the thought of this domination....

"'If this intensity of feeling proceeded merely from wounded pride of race and disappointment in political aspirations, it would be easier to criticise and rebuke: but it must be borne in mind that at the bottom of all is a deepseated fear of the Jew, both as a possible ruler and as an economic competitor. Rightly or wrongly they fear the Jew as a ruler, regarding his race as one of the most intolerant known to history....

"'The prospect of extensive Jewish immigration fills him with a panic fear, which may be exaggerated, but is none the less genuine. He sees the ablest race intellectually in the world, past-masters in all the arts of ousting competitors whether on the market, in the farm or the bureaucratic offices, backed by apparently inexhaustible funds given by their compatriots in all lands and possessed of powerful influence in the councils of the nations, prepared to enter the lists against him in every one of his normal occupations, backed by the one thing wanted to make them irresistible, the physical force of a great Imperial Power, and he feels himself overmastered and defeated before the contest is begun.'

"Wow! What a great fucking example of how 'positive' stereotypes are actually used to fuck people over! We're not antisemitic, we actually think Jews are the smartest, most powerful, richest group with tremendous global power! So positive!! Not at all being used here to justify antisemitic violence!

"Also, immigration from all over the world actually meant that different agricultural and manufacturing techniques were brought into the region, and yes, financial investments to start businesses sometimes, which meant that Arab Palestinians there had the highest per capita income in the Middle East, the highest daily wages, and started a lot of businesses of their own. But go off, I guess."

"Anyfuckingway.... it basically says that the Muslims and Christians were angry and scared, the Jews were too quick to set up the functioning government that the Brits were supposed to be there to help both sides create -- and which the Arab leaders completely refused to create for Palestine, because (1) fascists and (2) didn't want Jews nearby -- and that they were "ready prey for any form of agitation hostile to the British Government and the Jews." Then it says the movement for a United Syria was agitating them real hard, and so were the Sherifians.

"Is that what Ilan Passe, I mean Pappe, meant by the Palin Report blaming the Jews?! That when it says it's understandable the Arabs were freaking out, because antisemitism, Pappe thinks it's saying the Jews were provoking them?!"

Internet: "I don't know. I kinda tuned out after the first hour you were talking."

Me: "OGH MY GOD"

Internet: "So anyway, then Morris ALSO says, 'About the 1929 “Temple Mount” riots, which included two large-scale massacres of Jews, in Hebron and in Safed, Pappe writes: “The opposite camp, Zionist and British, was no less ruthless [than the Arabs]. In Jaffa a Jewish mob murdered seven Palestinians.”

Me: "What the ENTIRE FUCK? There was no united 'Zionist and British' camp! The Brits would barely let any Holocaust refugees in, ffs!"

Internet: "Morris says, 'Actually, there were no massacres of Arabs by Jews, though a number of Arabs were killed when Jews defended themselves or retaliated after Arab violence.

"'Pappe adds that the British “Shaw Commission,” so-called because it was chaired by Sir Walter Shaw (a former chief justice of the Straits Settlements), which investigated the riots, “upheld the basic Arab claim that Jewish provocations had caused the violent outbreak. ‘The principal cause... was twelve years of pro-Zionist [British] policy.’”

"'It is unclear what Pappe is quoting from. I did not find this sentence in the commission’s report. Pappe’s bibliography refers, under “Primary Sources,” simply to “The Shaw Commission.” The report? The deliberations? Memoranda by or about? Who can tell?

"'The footnote attached to the quote, presumably to give its source, says, simply, “Ibid.”

"'The one before it says, “Ibid., p. 103.”

"'The one before that says, “The Shaw Commission, session 46, p. 92.”

"'But the quoted passage does not appear on page 103 of the report.

"In the text of Palestinian Dynasty, Pappe states that “Shaw wrote [this] after leaving the country [Palestine].” But if it is not in the report, where did Shaw “write” it?'"

Me: "I'M ON IT. [rapid-fire googling] OMG. This is.... Not the first time. In 'The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine,' he reported that in a 1937 letter to his son, David Ben-Gurion declared: 'The Arabs will have to go, but one needs an opportune moment for making it happen, such as war.'

"It's not in the source he gave. It's not in any of the three different sources he's given for it.

"He apparently has never responded to any requests for an explanation, either from the journal he published in, or from other historians. But it says he did "obliquely [acknowledge] the controversy in an article in Electronic Intifada, in which he portrayed himself as the victim of intimidation at the hands of “Zionist hooligans.”'

"This is absolutely fucking wild. THEN it says the chair of the Ethics Committee where he was teaching eventually said that the second part of the quote ('but one needs,' etc) was a (combined?) paraphrase of a diary entry and a speech Ben-Gurion gave, and that the first half is 'based on' a letter to his son.

"And it's so convincing! The chair says, 'Shabtai Teveth[,] Ben Gurion’s biographer, Benny Morris and the historian Nur Maslaha have all quoted this letter. In fact their translation was stronger than the quotation from Professor Pappé: ‘We must expel the Arabs and take their place.’ Professor Pappé has documentary evidence of these quotations and the source will ensure that this is correctly cited in any future editions of the publication or related studies.'

"And IT'S NOT EVEN TRUE?!

"Ben-Gurion's actual diary entry (not a letter) says the opposite.

“'We do not want and do not need to expel Arabs and take their places.... All our aspiration is built on the assumption – proven throughout all our activity – that there is enough room in the country for ourselves and the Arabs.'

"Benny Morris misquoted it as "We must expel the Arabs and take their places" in the English version of his 1987 book The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, although it was correct in the Hebrew version. He corrected himself in the 2001 book Righteous Victims.

"Teveth also misquoted it in the English version of his 1985 book Ben-Gurion and the Palestinian Arabs, but again, had it correct in the Hebrew edition.

"And both Morris and Teveth explicitly point out the rest of the entry. The part about all their aspiration being built on the assumption and experience that there was enough room in the country for everyone.

"Historian Efraim Karsh’s 1997 book Fabricating Israeli History pointed out and corrected their mistakes.

"This is apparently a very well-known issue among historians of Israel and Palestine. It was a big deal in 2003, when an evangelist Christian publisher put out a book FULL of disinformation, which not only used the same quote as Pappe does, but also could not give a real source for it.

"But Pappe STILL USED THE MISQUOTE AND DOUBLED DOWN ON IT EVERY SINGLE TIME."

Internet: "Are you done? I know all this already."

Me: "Also, there are literally only two places where the phrase 'twelve years of pro-Zionist policy' shows up online, and they're both about Pappe making quotes up.

"NOW I'm done."

Benny Morris wasn't, though. The review continues at the link below. And the next part starts, "To the deliberate slanting of history Pappe adds a profound ignorance of basic facts. Together these sins and deficiencies render his “histories��� worthless as representations of the past, though they are important as documents in the current political and historiographic disputations about the Arab-Israeli conflict. Pappe’s grasp of the facts of World War I, for example, is weak in the extreme."

[adelle-ein]

idk man i've reblogged and said things about how certain people on this site and the bird one are putin defenders, syrian/ukranian genocide deniers, outright white supremacists, avowed antisemites, etc. pointed out the ways in which the current moment is being happily hijacked by white supremacists with very strong and obvious agendas. and some of you guys have reblogged and liked those posts, and then immediately gone on to continue reblogging violently antisemitic things from the very same people. so i don't think it's sinking in tbh

(and like, the posts in question are never anything useful or links to articles or anything remotely "worth" platforming genocide deniers, just the usual "DON'T SCROLL PAST THIS, POSTING IS ACTIVISM" shit)

[transgenderlestat]

i dont think israeli jews should get to have an opinion on who does and doesnt count as being part of a diaspora group. as if you fucking get it!

[scarecrowgolem]

That anon was about something else entirely take some context clues and figure it out you got called "racist" specifically.

Okay, I have no idea what that was about though then?? If I did or said something racist without knowing, I would like to know what I did wrong and learn from it. I don't really get much context clues from "slit until you hit an artery you racist druggie" and I'm going through my blog trying to find what on earth would warrant that.

This gives me 0 context clues

[supercantaloupe]

though i don't consider it my all time favorite show ever i do think cabaret is at the very top of the list of shows i'm so abnormal about that if i see people being Wrong about it i will go the fuck off about it

[administer-distractions]

.

[typicalnoise]

god i love women so so so so so so much

[eye-in-hand]

"I want no harm to come to you, only sense" you can't assault people into "sense" lmfao

Ireland is not anti-Semitic, c'mon. The Irish have good reason to be against Israel's treatment of Palestinians. What the Israeli government is doing reminds us too much of what the British did. We got our freedom, and unlike Israel or Indonesia, we choose not to perpetuate the same crimes done to us. I want no harm to come to you, only sense. I and many others don't believe this is the path to peace in any region, I'm sorry. x

This isn't about Israel or Palestine. This is about the treatment of Jews IN IRELAND by IRISH PEOPLE. Why is it that every time ANYONE points out the existence of antisemitic hate crimes in the diaspora goyim fall over themselves to justify it by pointing to the undeniable harm caused by the Israeli government?

The Chinese government is CURRENTLY engaged in genocide against the Uyghur people, but no one is using that as an excuse to harass and attack random people of Chinese decent in Europe or America, nor should they. I am simply asking, BEGGING at this point, for the same.

[spacelazarwolf]

i,,,,,,,,,,, ?????? like?????? where to even begin?????

1. the greek flag literally has a fucking cross on it.

2. the fact their first reaction to seeing blue and white flags was to start recording themself ripping them down and screaming at the workers.

3. “this is nothing against people who are jewish” weird how no one mentioned jews except u, the person that just ripped down a bunch of greek flags while screaming about israel.

4. why the absolute fuck would you post a video like this of yourself that was such a public embarrassment????

genuinely this is what makes me so furious and terrified about so many american “activists” bc this is not the only public display of ignorant indignation i’ve had the displeasure of witnessing or experiencing this year, both online and in person. they’re not in it to advocate for palestinians. they’re in it for the cathartic fury, feeling like a hero, getting to tell people off and feel morally superior. getting to be more open about their jew hatred is a bonus.

[applesauce42069]

There is a massive historical discourse issue when it comes to Israel-Palestine and yeah it pisses me off, firstly as a Jew, second as someone who is pursuing a degree in Jewish history.

You can see a part of it by looking at the historical narrative presented by a very popular source, DecolonizePalestine. This source has been shared widely by celebrities, by activists. It has been quoted to me on this website. It was even in the instagram bio of one of my TA's. It is considered a helpful and trustworthy source on Israel-Palestine.

The website has a Palestine 101 section, which includes this helpful module:

okay lets take a look:

I've never heard of the Peselet tablet, so let's do a quick google.

Huh. That's weird.

There actually is a 3,000 year old Egyptian tablet (stele) that talks about the levant though.

Oh no! Anyways. Lets move on:

I'm sorry but how do you mention the Assyrians without mentioning that they destroyed the ancient Kingdom of Israel. And the Persians without mentioning that they allowed for the end of the Babylonian exile and the building of the second Jewish temple in Jerusalem . And the Romans without mentioning what they named their province in the levant. Judea. This is where the name "Jew" comes from. There isn't a J in Hebrew.

wait the ottomans???? We already got to the Ottomans??? We just skipped literal centuries.

There's clearly a narrative being created here, not by the inclusion of historical facts, but rather the purposeful omission of historical facts. No serious scholar would be able to discuss the history of the levant and COMPLETELY LEAVE OUT THE JEWS.

This is the dominant historical narrative in discourse on Israel-Palestine and it is harmful. Not only because its untrue, but because it involves the destruction of Jewish history and the right of Jews to steward our own history.

Where we come from is and has always been a huge part of Jewish identity. I cannot stress this enough. It is wrong and yes, it is antisemitic to warp and erase Jewish history for your own political purposes.

and here's what gets me: it is completely unnecessary.

You can recognize all the horrors that the zionist movement and Israel has inflicted upon Palestinians without denying Jewish history. You can demand Israel take accountability and stop what it is doing without denying Jewish history. You can advocate for Palestinian freedom, statehood and self determination, without denying Jewish history.

But people don't want to *just* do that. In the minds of many, the only acceptable Free Palestine is a Palestine Free of Jews or Jewish autonomy.

And for that, fuck you. Palestinians are indigenous to the levant. They know their history and where they come from. Jews are indigenous to the levant. We know our history and where we come from.

No one is going anywhere.

Be better.

Free Palestine and Am Yisrael Chai.

[thekillersareeatingtheflesh]

i have this acquaintance who makes small talk with me literally every time they see me and im pretty sure that means they want to be friends with me but ive got Autism so i dont know how to like... signal that im picking up their social cues and that i also want to be friends. so we are stuck in limbo.

[determinate-negation]

ridiculous how many people are just taking it as just "secret new york jew tunnels" when the reality is so much funnier. the messiah is alive and 122 years old but he pretended to die 30 years ago, we need to dig a tunnel to fuck with the 99% of fake fans who claim to support him but believe slanders like "he died from natural causes at age 92" and "if he's still around why has nobody heard from him since 1994"

yeah people are like “hmm what are the secret jew tunnels for 🤔 why does no one know” but we do know and the answer is more mundane and also crazier than captures the average american because its like the internal religious politics of chabad and the really weird messianic movement associated with them. its soo funny but its starting to just get depressing seeing like protocols of the elders of zion type shit promoted constantly on twitter about the tunnels (truly completely gone to shit as a website) because people seeing it passively just dont understand anything about how the hasidim are in nyc or how this city is. like the guys who dug the tunnels, which u may see referred to as bocherim (young unmarried men who are in religious studies) are like bachelors or frat guys who deeply believe in an esoteric messianic sect its not talmudic ritual child trafficking tunnels that all the world leaders meet at. chabad is probably downplaying how significant this sect is at least in nyc but again this isnt a conspiracy everyone whos been here knows this

[secondwhisper]

I don't think this is a reasonable generalization. It's good to know that many conversion processes don't explicitly push students toward zionism, but I think it's more common than you may realize.

My conversion classes were co-taught by the local Hillel rabbi. (Anyone who's spent time in Jewish non- and anti-zionist movements for more than a couple years knows why this is a red flag.) Unfortunately, upon review of my notes from one particularly memorable class a few years ago, I didn't write down most of what she said. She did claim that BDS is inherently antisemitic. And she very explicitly told us that day that all real Jews are Zionists.

My sponsoring rabbi was aware that I am not (and also was not then) Zionist. He warned me before the beit din that I should not share my opinions on medinat yisroel unless explicitly asked. The Hillel rabbi, who was also on my beit din, did ask about how conversion "made me rethink my relationship to the state of israel". My sponsoring rabbi cut my response short - I think he was afraid the Hillel rabbi would not let me move forward to the mikveh if I said anything more than "it's important to know the historical context" and "it's important to be aware of what harms are perpetuated in the name of our supposed safety." (The third rabbi on my beit din did not talk much and I could not read his expressions.)

It was very much an effort of myself and one of the other students in these classes to politely push back against the compulsory Zionism created in that space primarily by the Hillel rabbi, and which was most aggressively enforced by one of the recently-welcomed gerim who just kept attending classes with us all.

---

Conversion does not have a standard curriculum. (Certainly not in liberal strains of Judaism, where I've spent my time and where I have the most friends, but I've never heard of a standard curriculum for Orthodox converts either.) I know (or at least fervently hope) that my experience (wrt pro-israel pressures) was not standard. But it absolutely did exist, and we did have a half dozen converts every year.

Hillel is one of the most prolific Jewish organizations in the US. Hillel is explicitly Zionist. It is hardly any wonder that those taught or sponsored by Hillel-affiliated rabbis would be pushed toward Zionist expressions of modern Jewish life.

Becoming Jewish means being welcomed into a people. There are plenty of Jews in the US (the context I know we're both speaking from) who simply would not welcome a convert who does not materially support the Israeli nation-state project. And if you're not welcomed by your beit din (or if you can't even find a rabbinic sponsor), then you're not welcomed officially; if you're not welcomed officially, your conversion is not finalized.

this is what happens when a reddit atheist automatically switches "jew" to "zionist", either using an algorithm or in their head. statements like this are an admission that "zionist" is being used to mean jewish.

[sanguine-pigeon]

Maybe we should take a leaf out of the democrat playbook and start calling leftist antisemites weird.

It is weird to be single-mindedly obsessed with taking down a country you have no ties to.

It is weird to make excuses for rape and murder and beatings and hate crimes in the name of a country you have no ties to.

It is weird to speak with ghoulish callousness about over a thousand dead human beings. It is weird to call an infant hostage a colonizer. It is super weird to draw nazi symbols on flyers begging for his safe return.

It is extremely fucking weird for any gentile to spend so much energy attacking Jews for being Jewish, and reasonable people who are not ghouls do not say ghoulish things about an entire ethnicity and throw tantrums when called ghoulish.