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.
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I’m going to quibble with your claim that Israel is a safe haven for Jews. This attack should have ended this claim forever. There is no way Jewish people are safer in Israel than they would be in the us, Canada, the uk, France, Germany, etc.
Secondly, why do Jews need a homeland to be safe? No other group that has been attacked through history ever has been supported in creating an ethnostate in order to protect them. Where is the demand for Roma to have a state to protect that from racism in Europe? Where are the calls to give the descendants of enslaved Africans to be given a state they can control in order to be protected?
Antisemitism is a real problem, and as leftists we must always call it out just as we do for any other form of oppression. I will continue to my best at this as well, and pretty much agree with the specific arguments you make in the rest of your post
Especially when it came to the Beta Israelites and some of the other non-white jews you’d think Israel’s purpose as a Anglo colonial state would’ve been made obvious. Israel finally allowed them in without reservation (compared their right to return to the right to return of Russian Jews or American Jews), but then Israeli doctors and nurses kept giving them birth control with no informed consent - like no indication that was happening.
Also the Samaritans are treated like shit, and they were there first! The Jews come back from exile and the Samaritans are sitting around being Israelite just fine and are happy to point out some small inaccuracies in their Torah.
And they’re still there. There aren’t a lot of them but they never left.
People love talking about the Samaritans like they are a fictional mythic race created for the “good samaritan” story. Like they are freaking elves
Is Israelves anything?
Don’t know about Israelves, but I know about Isn’traelves tho
There’s a Norwegian hardcore band called Israelvis, does that count?
the israelis also corralled them all into a small town in the west bank
Where are the calls to give the descendants of enslaved Africans to be given a state they can control in order to be protected?
Isn’t that what Liberia is?
Liberia has the exact same problem as Israel. There were already people living there. To be done correctly I think descendants of enslaved Africans would deserve a homeland carved out of the US, Brazil, etc. with the caveat that indigenous peoples of those regions would also have full rights in these hypothetical countries
Edit: this would be similar to the idea that Israel should have been carved out of Germany/Austria but more complicated due the existence of righteous and just indigenous struggles in the americas and Caribbean
This is Haiti, this is Jamaica now that the Taino people were the victims of total genocide. This was the idea of the Black Belt Thesis which advocated for the southern US agricultural heartland to be transformed into a Black nation-state while the rights of Black people were also fought for in the rest of the US.
This is the partial goal of the Kurdish people. While we wait for total revolution and capitalism, the nation-state is one of the best forms available for oppressed nations to actualize their self-determination. As we see in the case of Israel, this can end up as a fascist and genocidal project which is why @Nagarjuna@hexbear.net advocates for the Florida-Annexation bit.
I still say we resuurect Lotharingia and give it to the Jews. Germany and Italy have it coming and erasing the Dutch is a net win.
It ended horrible for Liberia. The Americo-Liberian attacked and segregated the natives, they ran the country as a one-party state until 1980’s. When the USA decided to fund a coup, they helped a radical right-wing native military goverment be established that caused more and more ethnical problems.
Just because the Americo-Liberian were starting to have diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union, ended their one-party system, eased the segregation on the natives and they had started to support Palestine.
Haiti probably fits the bill better.
I think you’re right that Israel is factually not safe. Although, the attacks were mostly against forward settlements and not like, Tel Aviv (although the bombing obviously changes that). I think I should have differentiated more strongly between the motivations of apolitical and left wing Jews who moved to Israel after the holocaust and the reality of Israel not actually being safe. Thank you for your quibble.
I want to clarify one thing though. in my post, I’m critical of the idea that an ethnostate is the best way to secure Jewish liberation. My proposed solution was one secular state with civil rights protections for religious minorities.
Most leftist jews after the Holocaust remained in, returned, or emigrated to the soviet union.
apolitical and left wing Jews who moved to Israel after the holocaust
Being a willing genocidal settler-colonizer is neither apolitical or left wing
It honestly gets worse and worse the more modern your “return” is. Cause then you are creating the market for new settlements and doing so in the face of well known atrocities. Its essentially house-hunting and getting whoever lives there killed so you can move in. No sympathy for settlers
That’s very true, but I would also argue that the existence of Israel as a Jewish ethnostate created by displacing Muslim Palestinians makes Jews unsafe everywhere; it serves as an open wound that will understandably (although wrongly when targeted against non-Zionist Jews) create strife and violence between Jews and Muslims worldwide
I also should have been clear that I don’t think you’re arguing for anything but a secular state with full rights for all people who live in it. Apologies for not being clear.
Also, I want to thank you for your post, antisemitism is such an insidious form of hatred and the way colonialism has utilized it is disgusting and incredibly harmful. We as leftists have to always be outspoken and vocal in our opposition to it. I also hate that Jewish leftists get caught in the crossfire of anti-Zionism. This is one area where I think things actually are complicated and nuanced, but I expect more of leftists, even though I’m sure I sometimes fail at recognizing and explaining them myself
I’ve seen a lot of posts on this site that are leaning into anti semitic tropes while criticizing Israel.
This is a pretty strong claim to make without presenting any evidence. In fact, is an extremely common thing reactionaries will say, and if any evidence is eventually presented, 99% it’s something inanely unoffensive like a lot of words for “free parking” or “plz no murder”.
For anyone who choose to read my comment but not the rest of OP’s post, the rest of OP’s post does have good points about not using terms that can be interpreted as antisemitic dog-whistles.
IMO rephrasing this as an educational PSA instead an accusation would be better.
I didn’t say “if you’re criticizing Israel, you’ve been doing it antisemetically” I said “a lot of people have been leaning on antisemetic tropes while criticizing Israel.”
I’m not going to dig up every post I’ve reported, but I’ll encourage you to look out for it the next time you’re in the news thread. You’ll see what I mean.
“I’m not going to provide any evidence of the incendiary claim I’m making.”
Perfect, assertions made without evidence can be dismissed without thought.
i’m not going to go digging for stuff i saw in the news mega 3 days ago, but i can be a little more specific about what I saw than OP https://hexbear.net/comment/4116393
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To be fair, the first thing I thought when I saw this post title was “Ackshually, I can’t be anti-Semitic, my half-great-uncle-in-law was Jewish!”
uhh i thought I linked to a reply on this post in a different chain.
You did, but it was the one you responded to.
Just dig up one then. Not that I don’t believe you, but the “its so prevalent that it’s not worth my time to show a concrete example” is a common tactic of people arguing in bad faith.
https://hexbear.net/comment/4096717 here’s one. I agree with this post but have been wary of calling it out specifically because of this response btw.
this comment breaks so many rules, including the nsfw tag rule. the only reason it wasnt removed is no one reported it.
REPORT THINGS.
the only reason it wasnt removed is no one reported it.
you WILL not be racistYes
Yeah I should have. I just assumed that someone else would considering how heinous it was and how early I saw it. I’ll do better on that regard.
Regarding other less viscerally memorable comments on Israel, I do worry about reporting things and being assumed to be a zionist. Especially since shit is terrible right now and I don’t know where the line is in terms of tone policing or insensitivity to people venting in this space during a particularly fucked up time. Idk maybe that’s just me overthinking things or being paranoid.
mods have a log of all reports and actions against users, if you want to make sure this is a safe space for minority groups you must absolutely report things so that problematic users can be identified. its better to make a report and miss than to make no report at all imo
not one upvote in 4 days, nobody even saw that probably. Not really indicative of a community wide problem that requires concern trolling over in the middle of zionist genocide
Yes and part of the reason I haven’t said anything is precisely because I didn’t want to tone police anyone at an exceptionally fucked up time. That being said, people asked for one example so I gave an example. There’s no need to shift goal posts lol, I’m not making a huge accusation.
I think that for the most part it isn’t a massive issue, but I think it’s probably worth mentioning considering it is, regardless of size, present. Also, it’s important to note at least one consequence of antisemitism in left spaces is that you drive away jews. I know many older jews that stopped engaging with leftist organizing when they were young due to antisemitism. Obviously, this is a privilege and these are not principled leftists nor anti-zionists but the point remains and jewish voices that are against Israel are necessary imo. They disrupt the narrative, it is harder to levy accusations of antisemitism (despite it still occurring), and so on. The only thing that antisemitism does is drive away jews and attract fascists. I don’t see the harm in asking people to try to be more critical right now.
I don’t see the harm in asking people to try to be more critical right now.
Wreckers wrecking by making mountains out of molehills is absolutely a problem in all left spaces. It’s concern trolling and accusations of anti-semitism are often used to do it - see the Labour party in UK being dismantled with these very tools. Get real, this isn’t about how sad jews feel right now and there’s no anti-semitism problem on hexbear so why is this thread needed at all
I mean i’ll be real if the people in the Labour party had been saying shit like what was in that comment I think the accusation would be warranted lmao, but this is not a political party.
I have seen antisemitism seems like others have too so there’s been a mild call out. I think it’s worth having one post about antisemitism. I don’t view it as a waste of energy, much like I wouldn’t view a thread on people calling other bigotries as being a waste. I’m not saying anything about tempering anger against Israel or the settlers. I’m just asking for some awareness around rhetoric. I understand why people approach accusations of antisemitism suspiciously as it is used cynically and frequently. You’re right, I don’t think this deserves to be turned into a huge struggle session. That being said, racism is insidious, and it also wrecks spaces. One post is not a mountain.
I was more calling OP out for lazy argumentation instead of casting aspersions on their actual claims. Refusing to provide a source and telling people to look for themselves in response to a good faith request screams “bad faith”. Especially if you made the initial claim.
Lol its the BMF alt
A blaqui slate and RollaD20 have dug some up
@CARCOSA@hexbear.net could you trawl up nagarjuna’s reports and make sure actions were taken? it seems like a serious accusation
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GOOD point, since OP was unable/uninterested in linking them, probably also he wasn’t coming back to check later. I know when I report things I almost never come back just to check if they got removed.
I’ve been posting and endlessly reposting the power metal remix of Cum Town riffing on the idea of an Elders Of Zion hard rock/metal song.
i don’t know what “a lot” means but i’ve seen some suspicious use of currency symbols like we used to do with micro$oft and some “israel hypnotizes” which would be fine except for the tropes.
Fucking £ib$
You mean like people titling posts with “Isr*el” instead of just saying it, or did I misunderstand?
I think I saw someone using a dollar sign in “Israel” on the first few days this latest flareup started but they were called out on it
I have grown annoyed with any name changes for a joke. It makes it harder to search for comments or topics when half the time people say “Isn’treal” or whatever
Israel is also a safe haven for Jews
Maybe some specific strands of Jewish people. As long as they are white or European or American or however you wanna categorise them. Ethiopian jews are ghettoised and forcibly sterilised.
Legit my fav question to ask people that make this statement conflating Israel with the entirety of Jewish peoples (a exceedingly diverse grouping of various ethnic and religiously distinct traditions/peoples). Also there’s the fact that Israel has a lowkey hate towards Eastern European ethnic Jews as well as also despising the use of yiddish language (legit goal of the Israeli state to ensure yiddish was never spoken). Also yeah never forget what happened to the Jewish ethiopeans that moved to Israel as refugees.
Why don’t they like Yiddish?
the many cultural developments of the diaspora go against the ethnostate desire for a single volk. for zionists, all of jewish history after the destruction of the second temple was a mistake that jews allowed to happen because they were too weak to resist their oppressors.
Too assimilated in German culture.
also whenever the IDF bombs another hospital, those same colonizers hop on social media and cry about how unsafe they feel because they had to watch news reports about a fucking hamas rocket that landed in an empty field.
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.
Why isn’t “Israel” on your list of OK to criticize groups? The colonialist state of Israel needs to be destroyed and wiped off the face of the earth, and this is not anti-semitic to say. I’ve not seen one person on this site blaming all jews for anything. Can you provide even a single example of this that wasn’t quickly removed by mods? Stop vague posting and concern trolling if you don’t have an explicit example, now is not the time to center the attention on yourself.
I’ve been doing nothing but doom-scrolling the news mega the past week or two and I’ve seen maybe one or two instances of anti-semitism and they got insta-removed by mods within a few minutes. it’s really silly borderline wrecker behavior to sit here, after ~1000 people just got bombed in a hospital, and talk about how hexbear is doing blood libel and calling for ethnic cleansing or some shit.
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.
Also this is incredibly libshit. It’s blood libel to say that Israelis are killing children in Gaza? How about fuck off!
Especially when the entire zionist entity has been doing classic blood libel against Palestinians this entire conflict to drum up support of their genocide. OP’s entire post sucks, their fucking murdering thousands of people, this isn’t about your feelings.
If there is anti-Semitism, I’m not seeing it in the news megathread, proving once again the news megathread is the best part of this site.
I’ve seen basically every comment in the past 2 megathreads, there was like one person who said “maybe Kanye was right” and they got dogpiled by everyone and mods deleted the comment 5 minutes after I reported it.
1 comment out of 10k+ comments. Damn, I guess Hexbear really does have a problem with anti-Semitism.
go off king. OP is full of shit
Death to America
Well said. I agree with them when it comes to people saying “Jews”, but when it comes to Israel, any part of Israel, then condemnation is correct. Israel IS the settlements, the IDF, Likud, the MIC. It is the outcome of all of them and exists to carry out the MIC and Likud’s will, and uses settlements and the IDF to do so. Israeli Jews don’t get to use Jews writ large as a shield. They don’t get to claim the oppression of others while they colonize someone else’s land, and yes that means any Israeli citizen not actively opposed to israeli ie Neturei Karta.
Israeli also IS a white supremacist state, look no further than the treatment of Ethiopian Jews. Israel has accepted itself as white and framed itself against Arabs and other people of color. It is flat out not an ambivalent racial category. Jewish is, Israeli is not.
Quoting from BE’s video
i object to people singling out zionism not for the reasons that usually state like anti-semitism etc but because it’s just bog standard settler colonialism it still forms a wider part of settler colonialism it’s still a set of actions that are that easily identifiable as settler colonialism
Israel, any part of Israel, then condemnation is correct. Israel IS the settlements, the IDF, Likud, the MIC.
Couldn’t agree more. When we condemn the horrors of America’s drone war, or torture programs, or coups we don’t wring our hands about how it’s only JSOC or the CIA. We don’t excuse the contributing behaviour and support given to those crimes by liberal politicians.
Israel doesn’t deserve special treatment, even if it does constantly demand it.
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.
Maybe they aren’t your enemies, but they’re mine. Fuck off with this lib bullshit. It’s not only rge recent settlements in, eg the West Bank, that are settlements, ALL Zionists in Palestine are settlers, even those who are heckin wholesome liberals who think Palestinians can have a little of their stolen land back. Your post is soft Zionist apologia, and I think it’s gross
I’m distinguishing between enemies and political opponents. It’s the difference between socialist majority in DSA (our political opponents) and the democrats (our enemies)
The moderates within the oppressing group are a critical part of it with their own specific parts in the functioning of the oppression, and oppression as a whole is our enemy. Of course, we shouldn’t dehumanize them, but we also shouldn’t fool ourselves into thinking they are somehow neutral.
Hmmm, maybe you’re right, I want to parse my thinking on this more
I think you’re distinction is clear enough. And the overall intent of your post clear enough. The confusion seems to stem from different usages of the word ‘enemy.’ A Netanyahu aligned Israeli is a different kind of enemy and requires a different kind of approach than a half-measured liberal israeli.
AOC liberals in the US likely have a higher chance (however small that is) of eventually following the pipeline all the way through to communism than MAGA chuds. Many will stop at her or Bernie, yes, but the approach to keeping that pipeline enticing for them is different than with a MAGA type. You need to peel away different layers and expose different incorrect thought patterns.
Phrasing is important if you don’t want to scare away libs who aren’t quite ready yet to be radicalized. Centrists and half measure socialists are a strategic enemy, but not on a personal level. It’s usually not being immoral that keeps you there, just the lack of better knowledge and experience.
This is a great point and I love how succinctly you expressed it.
It is essentially a corollary to what Mandela said about Arafat and Gadhafi that people make the mistake that “their enemies are our enemies”, because by extension, just because someone is not your enemy, does not make them not “our enemy”. You might not view AOC as an enemy, but she is the enemy of a hell of a lot of people. She just said she would vote yes for increased iron dome spending, that pretty firmly makes her an enemy of the Palestinians.
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.
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.
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.
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.
in fact, annexing Florida to create a new state of Israel is what I mean when i refer to “the one state solution”
Give Florida back to the Seminoles and Miccosukee and other remaining First Nations.
Conflating Jews in Israel with Zionists.
Jewish control of America / protocols of the elders of zion
Please call out and report these posts. These should be grounds for automatic bans.
Conflating Jews in Israel with Zionists.
Unfortunately, he does it in this very post.
When people talk about “jews” or “israelis” generally as perpetuating the murder of children, they are engaging in the blood libel trope.
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’ve seen Nagarjuna on here for years and figured that maybe he ran into some actual antisemitism that pissed him off.
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.
Glad we see eye to eye. Yes, there’s more wrong with it then tone deafness, I was just trying to be brief. Hopefully something will be done about it. Apologies if I took the wrong approach. You raise important points.Yes, there’s more wrong with it then tone deafness, I was just trying to be brief. Hopefully something will be done about it. Apologies if I took the wrong approach. You raise important points.
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.
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.
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
how the fuck is Israel “a save place for jews” … what … did i miss the bronx calling a intifada or London needing a Iron Dome … ?
he’s uncritically repeating israel’s self-mythology lmao. it’s true that zionism would not have been so popular without the real fear and trauma that the nazi holocaust created, but that doesn’t make zionism any less stupid and misguided on even a theoretical level.
Israel is in fact among the most dangerous places, if not the most dangerous place, in the world to be Jewish, precisely because of the violence inherent in settler colonialism.
The idea that Israel serves as a safe haven for Jews has always played a justificatory role in Zionism but it has never been true.
Ethnostates are always bad, Israel would still be bad if it were in Florida.
“It didn’t work trying to colonise land in the Middle East but what if we use already colonised land from indigenous people in the Americas instead? Surely that one-state solution will work.”
The Florida thing was a joke
Right, there needs to be a distinction drawn between ethnostates and nationalism of the oppressed.
The thing is Israel cannot be nationalism of the oppressed. It is fundamentally settler colonial. Great video on why there is no good element to Israel, and why it must be approached as intrinsically opposed to liberation and socialism https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mro9y8KZObk&t=1731s
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I dont think criticisms of Israel are rooted in anti-semetism, I think that it’s a place where it’s easy to fall into anti-semetic tropes on accident.
But! Israel is also a safe haven for Jews. This is seperable from the colonial nature of the state.
It absolutely is not. As an explicit settler-colonial project with racial supremacist justifications everywhere, you cannot distinguish some kind of “pure” Zionist just looking for safety (who? Be specific) from those who vote for the ethnic cleansing fascists and live on recently stolen land. The people who can be separated are children, those working against the Zionist entity, and possibly those who are simply propagandized and are on their way there.
I will also point out that there are other countries that are just as safe for Jewish people. This is not because those countries lack antisemitism (such as the US), but because the ethnostate in which Israeli occupiers live is not a safe place because the people they displaced and are displacing still live and still resist. You cannot be a safe occupier. Occupation is war.
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.
The implicit line here is always that this explains, even justifies occupation, disposession, genocide. Fleeing fascist genocide by settler-colonists does not mean you get to do your own. It was not acceptable then and it is not acceptable now. “Never again” includes everyone.
I know that you don’t mean it like this. But what I say is still true because the ideas are incoherent. Not because you explicitly want to justify the Nakba.
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.
Yes they are, just like liberals here in the US are our enemy. Liberals are constantly our enemies, they make themselves that by supporting fascism so long as it doesn’t have the name. They can be used by us, but they are the people who call the cops on their black neighbor and putting in a tip that their neighbor was at the protest last night. Liberals will sell you out and people will die by their hand if you’re not more cautious than this.
The question is not whether those settlers are the enemy, it is in how they should be approached.
Conflating Jews in Israel with Zionists.
I agree that nobody should do this. I haven’t seen it but it’s a common enough thing that I wouldn’t be surprised to see some examples.
As an aside, I’ve seen this conflation done by anti-Zionist Jewish liberals many times.
erasing the ambivalent position of jews within colonialism / conflating jewishness with whiteness
Eurocentrism does actually exist in the Zionist entity and Europeans invented the project and largely populated it. They have brought their biases with them and are the dominant culture there. This is the context in which I tend to see Jewish people brought up as being white - when people are talking about Israelis. That’s just an instance of conflating being Jewish and being Israeli.
Blood Libel
I simply have not seen this on hexbear dot net. I would hope that it’s because if it has happened, they were wreckers that are quickly banned.
calling for ethnic cleansing
This one requires citations. Show receipts.
Jewish control of America / protocols of the elders of zion
Same as above.
The Zionist entity is run by genocidal monsters and must be destroyed
A lot of these claims are very specious.
The idea that Zionism is principally an Anglo project is a misrepresentation of history. It isn’t especially important which ethnicity the main theorists and advocates of Zionism were, but the idea that it was principally a British project as opposed to one signed off on by British imperial rulers is misleading, and for no good reason because again the ethnicity doesn’t matter. Zionism is bad no matter who started thinking about it first.
The idea that the US controls Israel and not the other way around is also not an easy claim to defend. I don’t need to explain the effect of AIPAC on Congress to comrades here, but equating saying Israel influences or even dictates US policy on Israel is equivalent in no way to saying “Jews control the US”. Equating Israel with jews is in itself antisemitic, you should be careful with this sort of language.
Also I would appreciate some citations of the claim that comrades on Hexbear are calling for ethnic cleansing of jews from the region, or that jews are uniquely bloodthirsty.
I think it’s probably also worth noting that Zionism itself is an extremely anti-semitic ideology which is perfectly willing to slaughter Jews along with Arabs, and the Israeli state is in its actions and policies racist and anti-semitic.
Also I would appreciate some citations of the claim that comrades on Hexbear are calling for ethnic cleansing of jews from the region, or that jews are uniquely bloodthirsty.
someone with an @ in their username probably said shit and then got banned.
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this isn’t a real problem. left anti-zionists are not antisemites. right antisemites who use anti-zionism as a shield are quite easy to spot.
death to israel.
that said, i appreciate OP being open and sincere in his criticism.
Actually sweaty, the USSR did create a Jewish state in Siberia, as a true alternative to Zionism and took in Jews during WW2, which still exists today as the only autonomous state in Russia. So Zionists who moved back to Israel did in fact have an alternative. Mizrahi are cool. Zionists are not cool.
When Zionist movement was founded circa 1897, Russia was host to the world’s largest Jewish population. In fact, during the Russian civil war, the white army (Russian nationalists) led pograms against Jews, and killed up to 125k, mostly in UKRAINE, which surprise, surprise, is ran by Nazis today. It was the Red Bolshevik Army which had a policy of taking in or allying with the Jews, and many Jews embraced Soviet communism because of that. Moscow even hosts the world’s largest Jewish museum today, the Jewish museum of tolerance.
Russia is just as much of a home to the Jews as Israel in the 20th century. No one forced the Zionists to leave for Israel and commit genocide against the Palestinians.
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