Much anti-semitism in Europe comes from the far-left. So it isn't necessarily anything like the rise of fascism in the 1930's.
Islamophobia currently is where most of the far-right in the UK and Europe are focussing.
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Anti-Semitism pervades European life, says EU report
- Thread starter Kiekura
- Start date
Much anti-semitism in Europe comes from the far-left. So it isn't necessarily anything like the rise of fascism in the 1930's.
Islamophobia currently is where most of the far-right in the UK and Europe are focussing.
There is an internationally accepted definition of anti-semitism. Anything in this list is what is internationally accepted as being "anti-semitic".
You can be critical of Israel (and you should be) without reverting to antisemitism. From my personal experience, many people who consider themselves staunch leftist are not capable of this and even have the unfortunate tendency to tell me, a Jewish person, what is antisemitic and what is not.
Antisemitism from the left is also not a new thing in most European countries.
The list starts out quite fine, point 6 is a bit broad but ok, but then you get to point 7 and suddenly any form of criticism of Israel can be labeled as anti-semitism. Well done, they basically made a nation-state invulnerable to criticism.
Well point 10 and sometimes 7 is used a lot on era even lol. Given that, a big increase in casual anti-semitism on the left spectrum of things makes more sense to me now if this is really the accepted definition
If your response to this is to come into the thread and claim there's a conspiracy against Corbyn or that you're not allowed to criticise Israel, you are the reason that Jews feel this way.
Just listen to them. Is that so hard?
Just listen to them. Is that so hard?
The point is, it was internationally adopted. You can disagree with it as a definition. But you run the risk of being anti-semitic. The far left do not like it, but ultimately the problem is there is a huge racism problem in much of the left of Europe that they will not tackle because they spend their time arguing about the definition. A definition that has been internationally accepted.
Here is the major crux - the definition is a bit irrelevant. The left and right of politics have now adopted racist positions (in some cases) and it is absolutely wrong. They want to make it about Jews vs Muslims and its a deliberate attempt by both sides to try and position their politics in this way.
Funny enough when I got to go on one of those birthright trips the group leader wouldn't shut up about how many Jews there were that were successful and in positions of power and that had disproportionate influence. Always thought it was kind of funny the same thing that is anti Semitic was used by him to try to pump up Jewish youth into thinking they could have great power and influence if they embraced their heritage and by extension, Israel.
The truth is that us jews do tend to end in positions of power and wealth because culturally we have always learned it is good to have indispensable skills and trades, so that the services are needed by the populace wherever we are forced to go to. Lawyers, doctors, finance, etc.
Mostly about the criticisms of Israels treatment of the Palestinians not being leveled at the Syrians, Egyptians and Lebanese. Egypt blockades because of terrorism too, but there are no threads on here wondering why we can't criticise Egypt.
Then you've got the colonial argument. Israel being a country for jews, much the same way Pakistan is a country created for South East Asian Muslims.
They also occupy territories because they were invaded and won a war, and feel it's bad form for people to criticise them for what they see as defense against aggressors. This is obviously an eye of the beholder point to a degree, but ask yourself what your country would do if their nearest neighbours regularly harped on about destroying you. Israelis are obsessed with their security for good reason, even if their actions are beyond the pale.
There are so many ways to criticise and pressure Israel over settlements and treatment of the Palestinians without engaging in holocaust denial, calling them Nazis or dehumanising an entire country.
Too many people have picked a side in an argument where both sides have serious issues. It is complex and rammed with bad actors.
Finally, Zionism is the belief in a nation state for Jews. Do you know any other ethnic group who are criticised by westerners for wanting their own nation? Can you think of any other country that you want to wipe from the map? If the answer is no, you are a racist.
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True. Some posts seem worryingly close to "I find it far more believable that European Jews would dishonestly call criticism of the Israeli government antisemitism than that left-wing people could possibly be antisemitic"
It extends to antizionism too. 4/5 UK Jews identify as being Zionists. If you're vehemently antizionism, you're othering 80% of the Jews in the UK.
Oh no, poor zionists. How dare I "other" supporters of apartheid and ethnic cleansing instead of coddling them and giving them my support in the slow cleansing of Palestine from Palestinians. You might as well add point 12. to that list:
12. Showing ANY sympathy or support towards the Palestinians or their plight.
I don't need an "internationally accepted" (whatever the fuck that means) list to tell me something I can judge from common sense. Heck, most of the list is true but someone had to sneak in 2 points that make criticism of Israel almost impossible. Fuck that noise!
But back on topic. Yeah, there is a lot of Antisemitism on the left and I say this as a socialist, I had to break off a few "friends" on the account of that. Most of it is caused by the globalism, bankers and Rothschild crazy conspiracies. Its super sad that its regressing as it is.
There's no need at all to go on like this. Nobody is stopping you from supporting Palestinians. Have you ever been to any Pro-Palestine events? I have, lots of them.
This seems to ignore the fact that Israel gets a pass on everything they do, via the United States in the UN. Israel is a first world country, progressive compared to most countries and has a high standard of living, and is one of the most advanced countries in the world.
Absolutely it gets held to a different standard than other countries in the region, and other first world democracies. Granted, Israel isn't REALLY a democracy, but the US and rest of the world recognize it as one.
Given Israel's status in the world, it absolutely deserves to be held to a higher standard than other countries that "do the same things" (they don't).
Read the list very carefully. It does not stop criticism of Israel - it objects to that criticism being racially motivated or described in terms of race.
It's not about holding them to a higher standard. It's about making it acceptable to be racist, discriminatory and hostile to Jews abroad and Israelis. Nothing you've said there is at issue, so what are you complaining about?
The difference comes when you hold up Israel as being so very evil that it's the only country you want to erase. That is a nasty, backwards and badly informed position at best, and nakedly racist at worst.
This survey explicitly counts any "criticism of Israel" as anti-semitic behavior, as well as "supporting boycotts of Israel". See section 1.3, tables 3 and 5.
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On top of that, it's recently come out how China has been ethnically cleansing its Muslim population and how Canada has been sterilizing its indigenous people. But when you go into those threads, it isn't calling for the end of those countries, or boycotting all their goods, or asking why America supports them. It's ridiculous. I fucking hate what Israel has been doing, but the rhetoric people use and the double standards are so absurd I don't even feel comfortable engaging in conversation here anymore.
That's because a lot of criticism of Israel at the moment is genuinely antisemitic, conspiratorial and unheeded.
I have a friend who, when walking around, was approached by a Labour canvasser. The canvasser asked him what he thought about Corbyn, he said he didn't like him because he felt he was an antisemite. This canvasser then barracked the man, a Jew, for being a baby killer and for supporting Israel. My friend didn't bring Israel up at all. He's still waiting for the Labour party to respond to him nearly a year later. Nothing has been done to the canvasser.
If you meet a Jew who doesn't agree with you about something, and your first port of call is criticizing Israel, then that is racist. It's not the Israel criticism, it's targeting it at Jews who likely share your feelings regarding how Palestinians are treated.
Anti-semitism is bad and criticism against Israel shouldn't devolve into racism, but I can't help but chuckle when I remember that Israel's official IDF twitter account still exists and continues to spew hateful lies.
God, talk about having a thin skin.
God, talk about having a thin skin.
It's plain to see how incredibly hateful the anti-Israel rhetoric is. The Palestine situation is terrible, that goes without saying but the visceral nature of the response the mere mention of Israel or an Israeli person of note gets is quite telling.
Furthermore, this kind of approach seems to have been normalized. I don't think it's a stretch to say that a significant part of Europeans have normalized racist views towards Americans. When that is acceptable in daily conversation then you can easily move on to the next group of people if they have some sociopolitical issues worthy of criticism.
Furthermore, this kind of approach seems to have been normalized. I don't think it's a stretch to say that a significant part of Europeans have normalized racist views towards Americans. When that is acceptable in daily conversation then you can easily move on to the next group of people if they have some sociopolitical issues worthy of criticism.
Is any and all criticism of Israel automatically anti-Semitic? The survey that this topic is about counts it as such, independent of the criticism's tone or content (or even whether it is directed as an individual). There are separate survey categories for Jewish people being blamed for Israeli actions and harassment of individuals.
Reporting Israeli atrocities in a newspaper or posting a flyer supporting BDS would be classified as anti-Semitic using this survey's methodology.
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In my own very limited experience here in the US, I've only experienced and encountered anti-Semitism from the left, and it usually stems from Israel criticism being levied against all Jews as a people. In the past, I never really knew how to engage with these people, and both are no longer in my life, one for other reasons, and the other entirely because her anti-semitism was so profound as to be beyond my capacity to ignore or engage.
Just out of curiosity would you be okay describing what that kind of antisemitism looks like? I ask because a lot of the political commentators I listen to who are from the US are jewish themselves and oppose Israel. No worries if you don't want to get into it.
I think we need a citation if you want to say this? If it comes down to criticism of Israel then fine which in some cases clearly goes beyond that and people blame all Jews for Israel for some reason. However, from what I gather most hate crime is Nazi based (Swastika's on bricks through windows etc...) and the great race replacement is a Jewish conspiracy theory that's popular on the right along with Soros controlling the world.
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This is a mischaracterization. Table 5 shows that general criticism of Israel ranks rather low - just 38%, on average, consider it anti-Semitic. The general thrust of what people are dealing with in terms of rhetoric:
The most common antisemitic statements they come across – and on a regular basis – include that "Israelis behave like Nazis toward Palestinians" (51 %), that "Jews have too much power" (43 %) and that "Jews exploit Holocaust victimhood for their own purposes" (35 %).
Interesting.
Point 6 doesn't seem broad at all. You don't discriminate against Catholics on the basis of some perceived loyalty to the Vatican, and you don't discriminate against Jews on the basis of some perceived loyalty to Israel and/or a global conspiracy. Simple.
And point 7 doesn't erase any and all criticism of Israel unless your criticism is somehow entirely rooted in the idea that Jews don't have a right to self-determination.
There's plenty of countries that should "erased" and reformed with moral and democratic governments. The difference is we enable Israel at every turn and have a much stronger relationship with them than any other country that is "evil". We just don't turn a blind eye to what Israel does. We actively support it, with Obama sort of being the exception (but not really) and Trump actively supporting them.
Separating criticism of Israel and anti Semitism is impossible. The country claims to speak for the Jews and Jewish people, and from its inception its advocated that Jews need to support it. Jews certainly don't need to support the state, and the state certainly doesn't speak for me, but the perception the state likes to dispel is otherwise. And you will invietably have the criticism bleed over into anti semetism.
Edit: I should also add that Israel is one of the few countries where we in the US have an incredible amount of influence over via soft power. The fact people target Israel in their criticisms, is because here in America we know we can and should be doing better. But we dont. I at least, target Israel in my criticism due to this and also the country claims to speak for me, and the world needs Jews who speak out against "their" state.
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I'll detail, absolutely, but for context, let me explain myself. I come from a very conservative Hispanic family, but my paternal grandmother, despite being Hispanic, had a last name of either Jewish and/or Romanian origin. My sister firmly believes this to make us of direct Jewish heritage, though I'm less certain of it than she is.
The first person was the great-aunt if an ex-girlfriend. She was Italian, first generation born here. She was always talking about the Jews running everything and always getting out of trouble. I always found it pretty off-putting, but it ended up being nothing compared to the next person. She left my life when I broke up with my ex after three years, due to a tragedy we couldn't recover from.
The second, and most outrageous example, was an Egyptian-American woman I dated for a week about a year and a half ago. For context, she was Muslim, and born here in the States. She was flagrantly anti-Semitic, talking about how evil the Jews are, how they are always scheming to control the world and eliminate brown people, and at one point suggesting the world would be outright better if they did not exist. I mentioned my possible heritage to her, and she "one of the good ones" it away. Things finally came to a head after our second physical date, when I asked her how she would react if her son or daughter brought home a Jewish man or woman and she flipped out for a solid hour. Full-on rant about the evils of Jews and Israel, and how I was a Jew sympathizer trying to infect her with Zionism. I stopped talking to her at that point.
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Yeah, that's horrific. It's odd how conspiracies say the Jews are eliminating both white or brown people depending on which region the bullshit originates from.
My general experience as a Canadian is that the Extreme Muslims hate Jews, the Extreme Left hate Israel so much that it bleeds over into general anti-Semitism, and the "new" Extreme Right hate Muslims the most and are borderline accepting of (fully assimilated) Jews.
Anti-Semitism has always seemed weird to me compared to traditional racism (not that racism isn't weird, but you know what I mean). 90% of the time I can't even tell if someone is a Jew. I was dating a girl for almost a month before I even found out she was from a Jewish family. It's nuts to me that nearly half the Jews in Western Europe feel unsafe. How does that even happen?
Anti-Semitism has always seemed weird to me compared to traditional racism (not that racism isn't weird, but you know what I mean). 90% of the time I can't even tell if someone is a Jew. I was dating a girl for almost a month before I even found out she was from a Jewish family. It's nuts to me that nearly half the Jews in Western Europe feel unsafe. How does that even happen?
There was an exchange student from Hungary I was forced to interact with for a month or so (I was working and living at a research centre in the middle of nowhere and she came there to do some research) who was hardcore into anti-Semitism and the whole "Jews control the world to nefarious means" conspiracy theories. I only learned about this a bit later when I had already left the research center and saw her when she visited my city but I didn't let her get away with it when she was in my company and brought it up. I let her know how dumb I thought she was being and tried to explain what makes it so dumb. Unfortunately I don't think I changed her mind even a little.
She's the only one I've personally encountered who I know is an anti-semite. It sucks that it's on the rise again. People never learn.
She's the only one I've personally encountered who I know is an anti-semite. It sucks that it's on the rise again. People never learn.
I can only speak for France, Germany, and Austria since these are the European countries I have lived or currently live in but casual antisemitism has always been part of my life. People are well educated on the Shoah but that does not stop them from joking about Jewish stereotypes and telling me not to take it seriously. It seems to me these days it has become more acceptable to be openly antisemitic as long as you somehow tie it to the atrocities Bibi his government commit. I am not exactly practicing but when I was in Germany for a wedding recently, I could tell the mood had changed. People tell about getting called names on the street if you wear kippah.
I am very fortunate in that my grandmother who was born in 1926 is still alive. She was in a ghetto and two concentration camps. She isn't surprised that antisemitism is on the rise again. It never went away it was just more covert for a while.
How many of you actually read the survey report? Because its pretty weird/nuanced.
Lets start with the fact that this is an online survey, with respondents self selecting based on wether they "consider themselves jewish", and the antisemitic comments are not just in person, but also "on the internet" or "in political speeches" in the last 12 months and last 5 years.
So if we look at the Netherlands, it actually scores pretty high in people having seen or heard antisemitic speech (which, considering or political culture, elements of sports culture, and broad attention given to anti-semitic speech by islamic politicians/clergy seems logical), but scores very low when people are asked wether it's a problem.
The opposite seems to go for Poland.
Lets start with the fact that this is an online survey, with respondents self selecting based on wether they "consider themselves jewish", and the antisemitic comments are not just in person, but also "on the internet" or "in political speeches" in the last 12 months and last 5 years.
So if we look at the Netherlands, it actually scores pretty high in people having seen or heard antisemitic speech (which, considering or political culture, elements of sports culture, and broad attention given to anti-semitic speech by islamic politicians/clergy seems logical), but scores very low when people are asked wether it's a problem.
The opposite seems to go for Poland.
Well here in the US, the extreme right just murdered a bunch of people in a Synagogue. So I wouldn't call that accepting.
I don't doubt that you have the right intentions and would not abuse a Jewish person for the sake of it but you are a fleas' bollocks hair away from full blown racism with that sort of thinking. No matter how many cast iron examples you can throw out, you're talking about eliminating the citizenship of millions of people and exposing them to very real dangers of violence and ethnic cleansing. Nobody deserves that. Most Israelis are just normal people trying to get on in life, the same as you.
It's just about empathy ultimately. Look at someone like Bibi. How can you begin to combat him if you can't grasp his motivations? The fact that his brother was blown to bits by a Palestinian, in his mind, gives him the same justification as you're giving for your views about removing Israel.
The fact is that the Palestinians are in a horrible position, but equally they do disgraceful, unforgivable things. You cannot blanket support one side over another here without being racist to one of them, and I would hope that as a forum of leftist anti-racists we would be able to see the problems in dogpiling in every Israel thread, much as we would if someone started a thread calling for the final ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
Just don't be a dick.
You're telling people not be dicks while going "but both sides" about an apartheid state.
Are there numbers/percentages without these three included?
Hating different ethnic groups is anathema to progressive ideology.
There are two sides here. Israel is overhelmingly worse but that doesn't mean that the Palestinians do not have blood on their hands. Pretending they don't does not help them. It just provides a useful scapegoat for the actual instances of Israelis using antisemitism as cover for violence and coercion.
If you think that what they do justifies actual racism then that's certainly an interesting perspective to take as an anti racist.
I'm not getting into another argument on here about whether or not Palestinian violence is excusable and acceptable. It isn't.
I work with an Egyptian who has had family members killed by a Hamas attack.
Palestinian are getting their land stolen, getting killed left and right and don't have the fucking means to fight an equal fight, you dumbass.
And don't equal Hamas to Palestinian.
That is no excuse for terrorism, they cannot win a war against Israel and all it leads to is further bloodshed.
The onus is not entirely (not even mostly) on the Palestinians to reach a settlement but there will be no peace until bombs stop going off on the regular and to pretend otherwise is childish.
Like it or lump it, Hamas and the PLO (and many others) have done unforgivable things. Discussing this is not a controversy. It is an important part of any conversation. Ignoring it is what leads to things like the results in that survey. It also leads to cruel treatment in Egypt, Syria and Lebanon for peaceful Palestinians.
If your position is every dead Israeli = understandable, but every dead Palestinian = tragedy you have a fucked up world view. No deaths is what we're after.
My insight into most of this has come from Egyptians, not Jews. I knew next to nothing about the wider Palestinian diaspora until I started working with them, and I can assure you they too have robust views on Israel.
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Mondoweiss: How to tell when defending Israel is actually racist
By Steven Salaita
You're doing a few of these and it's disgusting.
Total horseshit. Every single time this topic comes up the same people pounce on me every single time a reference to Palestinian violence is made. It is real and wrong. Arabs die because of it too, you know.
I've spent a lot of my time fighting for equal rights for Palestinians. I have fought islamophobia and anti Arab racism. I had a senior labour person suspended because of islamophobia. I work with Arabs daily. Grow up.
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