I’ve seen a lot of posts on this site that are leaning into anti semetic tropes while criticizing Israel. I want to point it out so that folks can recognize it.
First, because I have to say it:
Israel is a colonial outpost of the United States. It was created by Britain and inherited by the US. The US gives Israel ~3,000,000,000 USD in aid every year. As a colony, it should be the goal of every socialist to destroy it, just as we seek the destruction of the US, Northern Ireland, South Korea, Canada, the Phillipine state, etc.
But! Israel is also a safe haven for Jews. This is seperable from the colonial nature of the state. Israel could have been created in Germany or Siberia or frankly Florida for that matter (in fact, annexing Florida to create a new state of Israel is what I mean when i refer to “the one state solution”). In many ways, the US with its civil rights act serves the same purpose, and in fact, most Jews live in the US.
Many of us had ancestors in Germany or Poland during the holocaust who did not stick around after the war. They saw Israel as their best shot at safety in the wake of the holocaust. Many Israelis are liberals, hoping to vote out Likud, stop supporting settlements, and negotiate palestinian statehood. These people are advocating half measures, sure, but they are not our enemies.
So I wanted to point out some anti-semetic tropes I’ve seen on this website and call them out so you can recognize them.
Conflating Jews in Israel with Zionists.
This can be done through omission. If you aren’t clear whether you’re talking about jews or a specific institution (for example, the I"D"F or the settlements or Likud), many people will read your statement as being about Jews. Be careful with the word “they”
erasing the ambivalent position of jews within colonialism / conflating jewishness with whiteness
The zionist entity is not a Jewish colonial project, but an Anglo colonial project. It was created by the British and now is funded by the US Americans. Jews are an oppressed minority whose oppression is leveraged against other oppressed peoples. Similarly to how the US uses Kurds to Balkanize Iraq or The Hmong to wage counterinsurgency in Laos, it’s uses Jews to destabilize the Levant.
Outside of the US, jews are largely understood as a racial group and oppressed on that basis. Especially in the Arab world where the Islamic hyper nationalism has gained ground in response to colonialism and been funded further by colonialists to their own ends (google “the safari club” or “Israel funds Hamas”)
Blood Libel
This one is the assertion that Jews are uniquely bloodthirsty / murder non Jewish children. The classic example of this myth that people are familiar with is Runplestiltskin.
It is true that the IDF under the direction of Likud and the US state is murdering many Gazans, the majority of whom are children. but! be careful to specify. When people talk about “jews” or “israelis” generally as perpetuating the murder of children, they are engaging in the blood libel trope. Again, be careful with the word “they” and specify which entities you’re talking about.
calling for ethnic cleansing
Okay, wtf ya’ll. It’s not jews as an ethnicity that are oppressing Palestinians, it is US imperial power. Jews have always lived in Palestine and the occupation only began in the 40s as part of a British initiative.
Jews will always be part of a palestinian state, and frankly need protections as ethnic and religious minorities. We do not seek the expulsion of Jews from Palestine, but their integration into it as citizens.
Jews are safe in the US not because its a colonial state but because of civil rights protections and generational wealth. If we can create civil rights protections in Palestine and a social safety net (ideally communism but I’ll settle for social democracy), then jews will be safe in Palestine.
Jewish control of America / protocols of the elders of zion
America controls Israel and not vice versa. APEC is not a cabal brainwashing otherwise Nobel Christian politicians. US politicians support Israel because they’re colonial politicians and Israel is our colony. APEC exists because lobbying is how power is exercised in the US, but if we had patronage instead, APEC’ functions would be carried our by a governor or an ambassador or whatever.
conclusion
Recognize the role of the US empire in Palestinian oppression. Recognize that jews are in an ambivalent racial category and are an oppressed people. Be specific when criticizing Israeli colonialism. Name who you’re criticizing, is it the settlements? The IDF? Likud? The US military Industrial Complex? Stop calling for ethnic cleansing of jews if you’ve been doing that. Don’t equate jewishness with whiteness / the Nazis. White people are white people, the US is the Nazis.
You should take the opportunity to give examples of those posts and call them out directly by name and date of registration. Because I can’t imagine anyone leaning into anti-semitic tropes is anything but a reactionary wrecker. I don’t think you would accuse anyone of being anti-semitic in bad faith but it’s important to remember that this is the number one technique of the ultranationalist lobbyists of Israel when it comes to silencing or slandering pro-palestinian voices. And it’s a very good technique on their part because of the very grim and important history of antisemitism, mostly coming from the very nations funding Israeli settler-colonialism in Palestine.
And those same lobbyists would call you anti-semitic for proposing the destruction of the Israeli settler-colony. So it’s important to remember that the word “anti-semitic” is currently undergoing a semantic decomposition, a “Boy Who Cried Wolf” effect, where the neolib and neocon reactionaries of the imperial core are rendering the word utterly meaningless through their deceptive rhetoric. one of the unfortunate side effects of this, is that actual antisemitic nazis are going to see an opportunity to take advantage of the outpouring of support for Palestinians, and use it to worm their way into mainstream political discourse. This is why we should name these posts and quote them directly, rather than vaguely gesturing that they exist, so that these accounts can get take care and removed from our platform which has never in any way supported anti-semitism.
Give Florida back to the Seminoles and Miccosukee and other remaining First Nations.
Please call out and report these posts. These should be grounds for automatic bans.
Unfortunately, he does it in this very post.
Those two statements (with “jews” vs with “israelis”) are in no way the same. The first is antisemitism, the second is objective fact and the policy of the Israeli state. To conflate the two is antisemitic, and also plays into Israeli propaganda that they are the representatives of Jews and Judaism.
That’s a fine point. Perhaps I was being too gentle. I’ve seen Nagarjuna on here for years and figured that maybe he ran into some actual antisemitism that pissed him off. A lot of people are dunking on him for how tone-deaf this is in the wake of the ongoing slaughter of Palestinians, and I agree with that for sure, but I didn’t read the entire thread before posting and my first instinct was to ask him to substantiate his claims of anti-semitism by naming names. Because why vaguepost about it? If he is unable to name actual antisemitic posts coming from long time hexbear users (and not just opportunist nazis who registered yesterday), then that would firmly sink the central thesis of his post. So I figured I’d address that first and see what happens.
I actually agree with you (I’ve also seen him on here for years), but this post just ends up being counterproductive and promoting antisemitism (as discussed) and it really is far beyond tone deaf to do any excusing of Israeli settlers (almost blaming everything on the IDF, Likud, and the USA when this is the nature of the Israeli colonial project), especially given the current context.
I do think this post was emotionally motivated (as you say) and it does contain valid points that are important, but it’s definitely doing more harm than good and undermines those valid points in the later parts. I’m not trying to argue for a condemnation of Nagarjuna here, just to be clear. I’m just bothered by this post. It initially rubbed me the wrong way, and some of the comments in this thread helped me realize why.
Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply I had a problem with your comments! I was more trying to build on the discussion, but I’m feeling pretty aggravated and I think it’s showing in the tone of my posting.
Something I keep coming back to is how easily this could be used to say Afrikaners weren’t guilty for apartheid, that it was Britain that made the colony and unified it with the Boers. End of the day apartheid in SA and in israel and all Israel’s actions benefit the countries themselves and their goals and their first class citizens. America doesn’t need Israel to pass anti-miscegenation laws, that doesn’t help American interests. That is an Israeli interest and goal.
The US and the Anglos before them formed and propped up a proxy in the Middle East, but the form it took was the choice of Israelis and of zionism as an ideology. Hell America didn’t support Israel until AFTER '67, and the British didn’t go to bat for Israel in '48. The only one that did was Czechoslovakia sending weapons. That reality right there debunks their whole thesis
I’m a little annoyed that OP has commented under this post recently but hasn’t replied to any of the people that pointed out these issues (especially your various comments).
“Americans are nothing but a bunch of murderers” Correct statement, no issue here.
“Israelis are nothing but a bunch of murderers” Apparently this is blood libel now?
Literally just repeating the core tenants of Zionism