Quote:
Originally Posted by Makarov
Agree. The Israeli government can be criticized for many things, but I don't think its fair to criticize it for emboldening or empowering anti-Semitic mouth-breathers. Seems like that's letting the mouth-breathers off too easy. It would be like responding to mosque vandalism by saying "well, its unfortunate that the actions of ISIS lead to people hating all Muslims" or something.
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There’s obviously some nuance there, as this cuts both ways. Yes, it’s wrong to blame the Israeli government for anti-semitism, and it’s a convenient excuse for anti-semites and literal Nazis to legitimize their criticisms. But then, as Psyche pointed out, there is a concentrated effort to link criticism of the Israeli government and/or Zionism with anti-semitism/criticism of Jews in general on that side. Look no further than the poster who has repeatedly said “I think we know why” when questioning why people are critical of the Israeli government.
In my opinion, all of these types of comments are related:
- conflating the Israeli government with Jews in general
- conflating Hamas with Palestinians in general
- conflating sympathy/support for Israeli civilians with support for the Israeli government
- conflating sympathy/support for Palestinians civilians with support for Hamas
There is a lot of good, valid criticism in this thread and widely, including people critical of Hamas, terrorism, countries that fund terrorism, the Israeli government, the settler movement, zionism, etc. I think anyone can look at the videos of one side saying things like “death to Jews” or “long live October 7” and the other side saying “death to Arabs” or “I hope you get raped” and see these people as trash that are responsible for their own words. But I think people lose the plot when they let those individuals represent the entire “side” of the argument in their own minds.
I’m not sure how to eloquently say this, but I don’t think there’s a spiritual difference between anti-semitism (specifically that which conflates specific individuals and organizations with Jews in general) and the type of thinking that allows people to lump all pro-Palestinian protestors together as Hamas supporters (for example). The difference is the latter is more widely accepted.
Look at Azure’s most recent posts which went pretty much unchecked. If he was talking about Jews and the Israeli government and not the wide range of other people he vastly generalized and blamed for Hamas, we’d regard it as anti-semitic. What’s the name for the same level of hatred and prejudice, and when do we start calling it out the same way we call out anti-semitism?