5 ms·

The charge of "antisemitism" has been weaponized with very great effect, and is being used indiscriminantly against anybody who speaks out against Israels apart

by phkamp 5y ago

The charge of "antisemitism" has been weaponized with very great effect, and is being used indiscriminantly against anybody who speaks out against Israels apartheid policies, like I did. My experience being at the business-end of such an attack has been very educational, and has provided a lot of raw data to some people who study information warfare. The FreeBSD projects reaction was a very good example of the efficiency of this mode of attack: By demanding immediate, as in "minutes not hours" reaction from anybody and everybody associated with the target, the attachers cause overreactions, badly throught out reactions and lots of collateral damage. The only way to stand up against this kind of systematic and state-sponsored bullying, is to stick to your principles, and demand that everybody else does so too, no matter how scared shitless they are about the shitstorm Israel have thrown them into. My principles are that Israel, like every other state on the planet, shall be forced to respect the human rights of every human being, not just the people they think are "Chosen" by their superstition. That does not make me antisemitic, that makes me human.

vogon_laureate 5y ago
Except you were talking about Jews collectively, not Israel. "I thought anti-semitism was unfounded hatred of Jews? If you hate them because they did something awful, like implement apartheid, it is not anti-semitism, but perfectly justified critique of people who in particular should know better than that." "I don't hold them collectively responsible, I hold them collectively in contempt." etc.
- phkamp 5y ago
  Lets continue that discussion when Israel is no longer an apartheid state ?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - gnfargbl 5y ago
    I don't want to get involved in the actual argument, but I find the dynamics of it fascinating. On one side, vogon_laureate appears to want phkemp to acknowledge that he understands that the Venn diagram of Jews and Zionists is not a circle. On the other side, phkemp would like vogon_laureate to accept that political criticism of Israel is not automatically anti-Semitic. Both of these seem, to me, to be somewhat reasonable points that should not be hard to agree on. What prevents this?
    - vogon_laureate 5y ago
      That's not quite right. The vast majority of Jews are Zionists. Zionism is just the belief in the right of Jews to self-determination in their ancestral homeland. Whether or not someone is a Zionist, shouldn't have any bearing on whether they deserve racism which is PHK's defence. He believes that Jews can deservedly be hated because of Israel and can be held "collectively in contempt"(his words).
      - gnfargbl 5y ago
        I apologize for the misunderstanding, I was clumsy. Would it be accurate to say that you're looking for a clarification that "the Jews" and "the state of Israel" aren't synonyms?
        vogon_laureate 5y ago
        The issue is that some of PHK's most controversial 'outbursts' show that he thinks it's OK to hate Jews as a collective because of Israel.
        gnfargbl 5y ago
        The reason I find the topic fascinating is that the semantics seem to obliterate the discussion before it can really begin. I'm assuming that from PHK's point of view, he casually used "the Jews" as a identity for "Israel". That's crass and wrong, but as another white European I'm ashamed to say that it is something that I might have also done before I was given the opportunity to learn a little more about the topic. I'm assuming that from your point of view, the language PHK used, with the history irremediably attached to it, is presumably just such obvious anti-Semitic racism, perhaps being so similar to language that you've certainly heard several times before, that you feel compelled to call it out as such. And so, here we are: unable to discuss the topic because the language is constructed from hand-grenades. By the time we have recognized them as such, our hands are already missing.
  - dash2 5y ago
    That is a phony argument. You blamed all Jews for Israel's actions. That was antisemitic. You don't need to wait for Israel to become better before admitting that. Many people have criticized Israel, sometimes very harshly, without needing to say things like "I hold Jews collectively in contempt". Your blog post on the matter [1] would have looked more dignified if you'd said "I was wrong" not just "I didn't express myself artfully". [1] http://phk.freebsd.dk/sagas/israel/ http://phk.freebsd.dk/sagas/israel/

by phkamp 5y ago

vogon_laureate 5y ago

Except you were talking about Jews collectively, not Israel. "I thought anti-semitism was unfounded hatred of Jews? If you hate them because they did something awful, like implement apartheid, it is not anti-semitism, but perfectly justified critique of people who in particular should know better than that." "I don't hold them collectively responsible, I hold them collectively in contempt." etc.

phkamp 5y ago
Lets continue that discussion when Israel is no longer an apartheid state ?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- gnfargbl 5y ago
  I don't want to get involved in the actual argument, but I find the dynamics of it fascinating. On one side, vogon_laureate appears to want phkemp to acknowledge that he understands that the Venn diagram of Jews and Zionists is not a circle. On the other side, phkemp would like vogon_laureate to accept that political criticism of Israel is not automatically anti-Semitic. Both of these seem, to me, to be somewhat reasonable points that should not be hard to agree on. What prevents this?
  - vogon_laureate 5y ago
    That's not quite right. The vast majority of Jews are Zionists. Zionism is just the belief in the right of Jews to self-determination in their ancestral homeland. Whether or not someone is a Zionist, shouldn't have any bearing on whether they deserve racism which is PHK's defence. He believes that Jews can deservedly be hated because of Israel and can be held "collectively in contempt"(his words).
    - gnfargbl 5y ago
      I apologize for the misunderstanding, I was clumsy. Would it be accurate to say that you're looking for a clarification that "the Jews" and "the state of Israel" aren't synonyms?
      - vogon_laureate 5y ago
        The issue is that some of PHK's most controversial 'outbursts' show that he thinks it's OK to hate Jews as a collective because of Israel.
        gnfargbl 5y ago
        The reason I find the topic fascinating is that the semantics seem to obliterate the discussion before it can really begin. I'm assuming that from PHK's point of view, he casually used "the Jews" as a identity for "Israel". That's crass and wrong, but as another white European I'm ashamed to say that it is something that I might have also done before I was given the opportunity to learn a little more about the topic. I'm assuming that from your point of view, the language PHK used, with the history irremediably attached to it, is presumably just such obvious anti-Semitic racism, perhaps being so similar to language that you've certainly heard several times before, that you feel compelled to call it out as such. And so, here we are: unable to discuss the topic because the language is constructed from hand-grenades. By the time we have recognized them as such, our hands are already missing.
- dash2 5y ago
  That is a phony argument. You blamed all Jews for Israel's actions. That was antisemitic. You don't need to wait for Israel to become better before admitting that. Many people have criticized Israel, sometimes very harshly, without needing to say things like "I hold Jews collectively in contempt". Your blog post on the matter [1] would have looked more dignified if you'd said "I was wrong" not just "I didn't express myself artfully". [1] http://phk.freebsd.dk/sagas/israel/ http://phk.freebsd.dk/sagas/israel/