#when anti-zionism IS antisemitism

[spanishsongs]

Lest anyone think what is happening on the left is new, this article was written in 2004.

"In certain circles on the Left, talking about the Holocaust elicits nothing but groans and sighs – it’s called ‘Holocaust fatigue’. There are various stock responses which seem to dismiss the whole experience out of hand – ‘Yes it was terrible but it was used by Zionist leaders as an excuse for the foundation of the illegitimate Jewish state of Israel on land stolen from the Palestinians.’

Yet within those same circles, very deliberate comparisons are made between the current situation in Palestine and the Holocaust: a banner equating a Star of David with a swastika and cartoons of Israeli soldiers in SS uniforms. I have been to Palestine several times over the last couple of years and seen the appalling situation with my own eyes. It is a massive over-simplification to say that the Israelis are repeating history and have ‘become the Nazis’, yet some Palestine solidarity activists constantly make that comparison. It is as though Jews must be collectively punished for the behaviour of the Israeli state by the use of inflammatory symbols and language, and a widespread denial of our experience of persecution. It taps into a profound trauma that immediately and inevitably puts me on the defensive – which is ironic because I don't support Israel's policies towards the Palestinians."

"That’s why I find it extraordinary that for many on the Left the term ‘Zionism’ drips from their lips like venom while they embrace the Palestinian flag. It seems that Zionism has become synonymous with arch-imperialism. If you are a Zionist (and ‘all Jews are Zionists’), it is implied that you are clearly a supporter of Bush and Blair and have some global imperialist agenda to control the world on behalf of the Jews. Not only is this untrue, but it implies that Zionists are worse than any other nationalist. Surely, if you believe that nationalism is problematic because it must be inherently racist, then we should be challenging all forms of nationalism and all colonial projects, not just singling out Zionism for special attention."

Again, this was written in 2004.

[infiniteglitterfall]

I guess this might be why the UK seemed to go so antisemitic so quickly

I'm researching the 1947 pogroms in the UK. (Actually, I'm researching all the pogroms and massacres of Jews in the past 200 years. Which today led me to discover that there were pogroms in the UK in 1947.)

From an article on "The Postwar Revival of British Fascism," all emphasis mine:

Given the rising antisemitism and widespread ignorance about Zionism [in the UK in 1947], fascists were easily able to conflate Zionist paramilitary attacks with Judaism in their speeches, meaning British Jews came to be seen as complicit in violence in Palestine.

Bertrand Duke Pile, a key member of Hamm’s League, informed a cheering crowd that “the Jews have no right to Palestine and the Jews have no right to the power which they hold in this country of ours.” Denouncing Zionism as a way to introduce a wider domestic antisemitic stance was common to many speakers at fascist events and rallies. Fascists hid their ideology and ideological antisemitism behind the rhetorical facade of preaching against paramilitary violence in Palestine.

One of the league’s speakers called for retribution against “the Jews” for the death of British soldiers in Palestine. This was, he told his audience, hardly an antisemitic expression. “Is it antisemitism to denounce the murderers of your own flesh and blood in Palestine?” he asked his audience. Many audience members, fascist or not, may well have felt the speaker had a point. ...[The photo of two British sergeants hanged by the Irgun in retaliation for the Brits hanging three of their members] promptly made numerous appearances at fascist meetings, often attached to the speaker’s platform. In at least one meeting, several British soldiers on leave from serving in Palestine attended Hamm’s speech, giving further legitimacy to his remarks. And with soldiers and policemen in Palestine showing increasing signs of overt antisemitism as a result of their experiences, the director of public prosecutions warned that the fascists might receive a steady stream of new recruits.

MI5, the U.K. domestic security service, noted with some alarm that “as a general rule, the crowd is now sympathetic and even spontaneously enthusiastic.” Opposition, it was noted in the same Home Office Bulletin of 1947, “is only met when there is an organized group of Jews or Communists in the audience.”

The major opposition came from the 43 Group, formed by the British-Jewish ex-paratrooper Gerry Flamberg and his friends in September 1946 to fight the fascists using the only language they felt fascists understood — violence. The group disrupted fascist meetings for two purposes: to get them shut down by the police for disorder, and to discourage attendance in the future by doling out beatings with fists and blunt instruments. By the summer of 1947, the group had around 500 active members who took part in such activities. Among these was a young hairdresser by the name of Vidal Sassoon, who would often turn up armed with his hairdressing scissors.

The 43 Group had considerable success with these actions, but public anger was spreading faster than they could counter the hate that accompanied it. The deaths of Martin and Paice had touched a nerve with the populace. On Aug. 1, 1947, the beginning of the bank holiday weekend and two days after the deaths of the sergeants, anti-Jewish rioting began in Liverpool. The violence lasted for five days. Across the country, the scene was repeated: London, Manchester, Hull, Brighton and Glasgow all saw widespread violence. Isolated instances were also recorded in Plymouth, Birmingham, Cardiff, Swansea, Newcastle and Davenport. Elsewhere, antisemitic graffiti and threatening phone calls to Jewish places of worship stood in for physical violence. Jewish-owned shops had their windows smashed, Jewish homes were targeted, an attempt was made to burn down Liverpool Crown Street Synagogue while a wooden synagogue in Glasgow was set alight. In a handful of cases, individuals were personally intimidated or assaulted. A Jewish man was threatened with a pistol in Northampton and an empty mine was placed in a Jewish-owned tailor shop in Davenport.

And an important addendum:

I've read a whole bunch of articles about the pogroms in Liverpool, Manchester, Salford, Eccles, Glasgow, etc.

Not one of them has mentioned that the Irgun, though clearly a terrorist group, was formed in response to 18 years of openly antisemitic terrorism, including multiple incredibly violent massacres. Or that it consistently acted in response to the murders of Jewish civilians, not on the offensive. Or that at this point, militant Arab Nationalist groups with volunteers and arms from the Arab League countries had been attacking Jewish and mixed Arab-Jewish neighborhoods for months.

I just think the "Jewish militants had been attacking the British occupiers" angle is incredibly Anglocentric.

Yeah, they were attacking the British occupiers. But also, that's barely the tip of the iceberg.

Everyone involved hated the Brits at this point. If only al-Husseini and his ilk had hated the Brits more than they hated the Jews, Britain could at least have united them by giving them a common enemy.

[ljbrary]

The New York Times is a fucking joke of a paper. Recently I literally cannot look at a headline without feeling utterly hopeless at the state of the world… because of the state of journalism. It’s honestly heinous, and quite frankly terrifying.

“Israeli Rabbi who Disappeared is Found Dead”

No. Try, “Rabbi was KIDNAPPED and MURDERED in the UAE by TERRORISTS.”

It’s genuinely not controversial to tell the truth. He did not “disappear” — he was kidnapped. By terrorists. He was not “found dead” — he was fucking murdered for being a Jew. Call it like it is or don’t call it at all.

Genuinely insane and disgusting that the nyt can claim to have journalistic integrity after this past year. When it comes to anything Jewish or Israeli, this isn’t an outlier of a headline; it’s the fucking rule.

[elder-millennial-of-zion]

Anti Zionism is not antisemitism and I’m gonna say it everytime yall try to play victim. it’s honestly disgusting that you think Palestinian people should die just because you want a country to “exist” your people are not in danger if they have enough time to gather near a fence in thousands of groups and cheer as bombs fall on the West Bank of Gaza, you say “Palestine shouldn’t exist” and then use the exuse “when I say in a Zionist, I mean I just want the state of Israel to simply exist” but you mean you want to wipe out an entire race of people to do so, you’re honestly disgusting and I hope karma hits you like a ton of bricks because Israel and the entire west is honestly disgusting. Kike

Thank you for this. I’ll keep it as a case study.

[hilacopter]

if I see you saying stuff like "jews please call me out and correct me if I ever post something antisemitic!" you better be willing to actually listen and take to heart stuff you might not like hearing

[socialistexan]

Very easy to spot bad faith actors.

Remember, folks, the term "zio" was popularized by David Duke, a man too racist and antisemitic even for the KKK. It's a straight up neo-nazi term. Full stop.

If you use or or defend it's use, then anyone and everyone, regardless of political affiliation, is allowed to completely dismiss you as both unserious and a threat who deserves no platform.

Either you're a grifter using a tragedy to spread bigotry or you're a useful idiot who couldn't spare a critical thought to save your fucking life.

[homosandhomies]

just want to stress this point: being critical of the israeli government is not antisemitic. HOWEVER, if you choose to blatantly ignore why israel is so important to the jewish people and how significant it is to our history and culture, THAT is antisemitic.

[mirmirma]

I think I figured out why "anti-zionism isn't antisemitism" bothers me so much for something I agree with.

Israeli Jews need a place to go. I feel like a lot of the anti-zionists sharing their opinions forget this fact. We can't just say, "You have to leave Israel, but you can't go anywhere else either." That's a recipe for a new Jewish genocide if I've ever heard one.

With the rise in hate for Israel, a part of Jewish history, and the rise in antisemitism in general, a lot of Jews don't feel safe in their neighborhoods. I've heard many talk about making Aliyah, aka moving to Israel, to be safer. Frankly, I don't feel safe. I live down the road from a place that was shot up less than a decade ago, and now antisemitism is rising.

There are anti-zionists trying to shut down Jewish run businesses. If they can't make their living when they live now, where do you think those businesses are gonna go? Many menorah lightings have been canceled. If they can't celebrate their religion safely, where do you think the Jews in those areas are gonna go?

To them, there's only one possible answer: Israel.

This is where zionism comes from. This is why people move to Israel.

If you're anti-zionist, the best thing you can do for Palestine is be kind to your Jewish neighbors. Make them feel safe and welcome. Because if they don't, they'll go someplace where they do feel safe and welcome: Israel.

[batsysquared]

zionism and nationalism

Stop using the term "zionism". Ideally, nobody at all would use it outside of intra-jewish discussions and certain academic circles, but there are two camps of people who never let go of it. This very circumstance is exactly why it's so much more important that everyone else abandons the term in discourse. If you truly, truly care about the situation in Israel and Palestine on a level beyond morality plays and the fun of Geopolitical Team Sports - that is, you care about stopping pain and suffering, about ending a cycle of violence, about freeing the people of Palestine from their oppressors and the people of Israel from the very same chains that bind people living anywhere where those who hold power speak and act on their behalf without actually bothering to hear any but those who legitimize their actions, about forging a lasting peace between people where neither side has any significant desire to harm the other - then it is important to understand that zionism, as a term used in popular discourse (i.e. discussions against zionism by those critical of Israel's actions or for "zionism" in justification of Israel's right-wing - both distinct from discussions about zionism between Jews) is a weapon wielded by antisemites and genocide supporters both. It is a weapon of obfuscation, honed sharply over decades to muddle any good faith effort at a conversation on any topic relating to Israel. Antisemites use it, obviously, as a dogwhistle - they depend on others to also use it so that they can spread their hate unnoticed, spreading propaganda amongst the well-meaning to be regurgitated uncritically in order to effect a subtle societal shift towards their views - just enough that those they wish to victimize are terrorized and isolated by an already great hatred which now seems even unimaginably greater than it already was. At the same time, those wholly behind the State of Israel's actions, and those who believe it hasn't gone far enough, use zionism to further the conflation of their ideals with the ideals of all Jewish people everywhere. They use a long-standing cultural framework to ingratiate threatened Jews (of which there are many!) to an ideology that is not equally understood to be what it is. Where one person may see the safety of a homeland, the supporter of genocide sees kahanism - the elimination of all who are in the way, and the exclusion of those who are perceived to be not sufficiently culturally aligned. They, too, spread propaganda amongst the well-meaning to be regurgitated uncritically, merging these two different conceptualizations of zionism into one dual-but-irreconcilable meaning, and in doing so also isolate individuals to strengthen their own position and to gloss over the horrors they support by framing their desire as something less than their actions.

So - when the word "zionism" is used in these discussions about the actions of State of Israel (again, as opposed to discussions among Jews about what Israel ought to be; see also the distinction between black people discussing a theoretical New Africa and the condemnation by the public of pre-1980s Liberian politics) what does it mean? From my observance, it means something different to every single person who uses it, and every single person who hears it assumes that the way it was used was the way they understand it. With two constant forces acting in bad faith to make it impossible to know what anyone really means when they use the word, with so many people who are scared and hurt and so many people that are ready to fight on their behalf, how could anyone have a conversation in their presence which is not full of hidden barbs that cut away at any real attempt at forward movement? You can't. And for antisemites and kahanists both - that’s the goal. So what are those who truly care about peace to do? Simple: call out the actions of the State of Israel and the rhetoric of those in power and those who support them for what it is: nationalism. Not some unique "Jewish evil" as antisemites would have you believe, nor a desire and need unique to the Jewish people, but rather the very same mechanism by which states have organized themselves for centuries to protect Us and hurt Them. The thing being championed now as the solution for Palestine: the evil that always seems such a good idea until suddenly it isn't, because the usage of violence to create a geopolitical, cultural, and ethnic boundary forever taints those boundaries. This taint ensures that it will always be those who control those boundaries that refuse to let go of them once independence is won, because safety can never be truly assured. Others are always a threat, and so there will always be an excuse. Eventually, as we see now in Israel, the boundary closes in every way but the lines on the map (which, of course, expand) as people who fit the cultural and ethnic profile set forth fail to meet the expectations of those who now control who is and is not considered to fit in the box, and as the contents of the box change to exclude those trapped outside of it even though there was no problem with them before the box ever existed. And rest assured, as has happened with every nationalist movement before, should Palestine find its liberation under these same ideals - that "from river to sea, Palestine will be free" - all we've done is flipped who is Good and who is Bad. The slaughter continues, with a new flag and a new justification. To believe otherwise is to cling to liberalism - to defend the status quo by believing that it has changed even when all that has really happened is that blue has been painted over with red while the building continues to collapse on its rotten foundation.

The problem is nationalism. It always has been, everywhere across the world. Not only does calling it zionism plaster over the true issue, it causes people to turn a blind eye to the nationalism they themselves call for in desperation to combat the zionism they fear, and prevents them from wrestling with the nationalism they themselves live in and benefit from. Nationalism is a tool for liberation, yes, but one that must be discarded once liberation is obtained and yet never is. To build a nation is to preserve a people, but to build a state to defend that nation (or to build a nation around a state, lest we let empires like the US off scot free) is to open the door for atrocity. The answer is not a defined and bordered Jewish nation, nor is a defined and bordered Palestinian nation - even if both exist at once, their foundational myths and rhetoric will compel them, as states, to engage in "legitimate" violence against each other and their own people. This is not just an inevitable consequence of nationalism, it is its goal, as viewed through history across the world before the western concept of the nation-state even fully coalesced. Anyone who truly wants peace in Israel and Palestine, in the Middle East, or in the world as a whole must come to terms with this. And to do that, we must stop making excuses. Israel is not guilty of Zionism, because Zionism is a purposely moving target which (outside of non-discoursal channels, where the term is actually properly defined before use and remains so throughout the conversation) means everything to everyone and thus nothing to anyone. To call it Kahanism is a step better, but this still positions what has happened this past century as something unique. No, Israel is guilty of nothing more than dipping its hands in the same well of blood that humanity calls "security". Until we understand this and stand together to look upward and speak out against those who chain us with promises of that security and say that the blood of those around us will bring serenity, there can never be peace. Humanity will eat itself alive, snuffing out empathy as portions of it fail an ever-stricter purity test, and it will cheer itself on while it does.

[news4dzhozhar]

How deranged does the US look to the rest of the world to be proudly welcoming an indicted war criminal to address Congress?

[hussyknee]

I'm very serious when I say the biggest threat to Jewish people's safety rn is Zionist celebrities and influencers on social media. They validate and promote every single antisemitic trope whenever they post. It's chilling. I've seen one of them specifically targeting and threatening Black Americans for their lack of support, and it's doing wonders for the platform of Black Trump supporters.

[infiniteglitterfall]

Honestly: Not listening to Jews is one thing.

It takes time for any given person to work their way around to educating themselves about their learned biases, to what tropes and traps they're missing. Much less to learning history and culture and prioritizing the voices of a marginalized group on its own issues.

However. I fucking draw the line at you fools who are SO enthusiastic about getting a free pass on one group, SO happy to cave in to all that unexamined bigotry from the world around you, SO overjoyed at the high of being told it even makes you a BETTER PERSON to do it, that you're fucking SWALLOWING KKK TERMS LIKE "ZIO" AND SPITTING THEM BACK OUT AT JEWS.

When you sound like David Duke, you maybe wanna CHECK WHAT PIPELINE YOU ARE ACTUALLY IN.

[ducksoup17]

please stop confusing antizionism with antisemitism. please I beg of you

[joemerl]

"Pro-Palestinian" protestors: We're not anti-Semitic, we're just anti-Israel!

Also "pro-Palestinian" protestors: *kidnaps and rapes a Jewish woman*

[insane-control-room]

Today I learned it’s ok to steal someone’s land and bomb a far smaller power as long as you hide behind the fact you’re Jewish

today i learned its land back except for jews! thanks :)

[bijoumikhawal]

"leftists don't fall for/into right wing hate campaigns for other groups as much as they do for antisemitism" is a really funny way of broadcasting which groups you pay attention to. Anyway we all do remember V*ush and his sycophants constantly claiming "land back is a call for ethnostates" and baiting WOC to intentionally misrepresent their politics on race up to and including claiming they want white genocide, right.

Acting like somehow people on the left are often progressive about every other thing but are antisemites is absurd. It happens, but its not common. An antisemite is often also a racist, a xenophobe, religiously intolerant overall, etc. There are plenty of racist, xenophobic, shithead leftists. Anyone who's actually a leftist would know there's constant tumbling online with shithead leftists and they never have just one shithead opinion.