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It’s obviously true that criticism of Israel isn’t inherently antisemitic. But that’s also a convenient excuse used by people who are actually antisemitic. Bo

It’s obviously true that criticism of Israel isn’t inherently antisemitic. But that’s also a convenient excuse used by people who are actually antisemitic. Both of these things can be true at once.

kingkawn 3y ago
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- deleted 3y ago
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- nerdponx 3y ago
  This. I have always been very very skeptical of the motives and intentions of various BDS groups over the years. Lots of issues with hypocrisy, propaganda, and double standards. But that doesn't excuse the murder of thousands of civilians in collective retribution for the murder of a few dozen. It's possible for both things to be true: Hamas is bad and committed a heinous act of terrorism, and Israel is committing a horrifying atrocity against Palestinian civilians in retaliation.
  - zczc 3y ago
    As far as i understand, the main goal of the Israel operation is to remove Hamas capability to launch another Oct.7-style attack in the future: prevention, not retaliation (though one can argue if there is a way to achieve this goal with less cost on civilians).
    - mandmandam 3y ago
      > one can argue if there is a way to achieve this goal with less cost on civilians) Not really, no. There's no argument. The entire world is calling for a ceasefire because so many civilians are being murdered.
    - sudosysgen 3y ago
      The current approach will not achieve this goal. Overwhelming force doesn't stop insurrections unless it goes all the way to genocide or ethnic cleansing. That's what makes the argument especially pointless.
    - kingkawn 3y ago
      The IDF listening to its own intelligence assessments alone would’ve prevented Hamas from launching that attack. Hence what they are doing is mass retaliation against the entire population of Gaza, not to mention the killings in the West Bank and the suppression of domestic dissent against the war.
      - oh_sigh 3y ago
        If I tell you someone will break into your house sometime in the future...maybe tomorrow, maybe 5 years from now, and actually maybe never...how would you change your behavior? There was some intelligence about a potential threat, but hardly anything specific that they could easily respond to. Coupled with the fact that Hamas has their own counterintelligence laying out deceptions in the months leading up to the attack. I guess Israel could have just stationed a few battalions over the full length of the border....forever.
        joomooru 3y ago
        Israel absolutely had incredibly specific intel [1] of the attack plans a year in advance of the attack, yet chose to do nothing out of arrogance [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/30/world/middleeast/israel-hamas-attack-intelligence.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/30/world/middleeast/israel-h...
        IncreasePosts 3y ago
        (alternate account for oh_sigh here, apparently posting 3 times 90 minutes ago means I can't post anymore today) Yes, they had intel about the attack method, but not the dates, or even if it was real or aspirational. This goes to my question about the person break into your home... What changes or adjustments could Israel have taken based on the intel? Like I said, maybe they could just place a bunch of battalions along the entire border, but then maybe Hamas would just lay low until they were gone.
        nerdponx 3y ago
        For all we know they allowed it to happen so they'd have an excuse to retaliate. See also: basically every 9/11 conspiracy theory.
  - oh_sigh 3y ago
    Without looking it up, how many people do you think Hamas terrorists killed on October 7th?
    - nerdponx 3y ago
      The initial news reports here in the US mainstream media made it seem like dozens or hundreds at most. The music festival seemed like the worst of it.
      - oh_sigh 3y ago
        Ok, but we've known for a whole now that the number is around 1200 killed. Not what most would call "a few dozen".
        zlg_codes 3y ago
        [flagged]
        nerdponx 3y ago
        I didn't know it was over a thousand, that's my mistake.
  - edanm 3y ago
    > But that doesn't excuse the murder of thousands of civilians in collective retribution for the murder of a few dozen. 1,200 Israelis were killed, not "a few dozen". 250 were kidnapped and held hostage, of those about 130 are still being held. Second, Israel isn't "murdering" civilians in collective retribution. It's fighting a war against a neighboring "government" that has just invaded it, slaughtered thousands of its citizens, and has promised to do it again and again. Many civilians are dying in this war, which is a horrible tragedy, and is unfortunately true of every war, which is one reason wars are so terrible. But it's hard to say this war isn't justified given the promises of Hamas.
    - MSFT_Edging 3y ago
      > Second, Israel isn't "murdering" civilians in collective retribution. Dehumanization is the first step to a genocide. Additionally, this does not explain the violence being done in the West Bank to Palestinians, a population that is notably not ruled by Hamas.
      - edanm 3y ago
        What did I say that was dehumanizing? If you're talking about me putting the word "murder" in quotes, it's because casualties of war aren't usually referred to as victims of murder, but I was quoting the parent post. > Additionally, this does not explain the violence being done in the West Bank to Palestinians, a population that is notably not ruled by Hamas. There are definitely Hamas operatives there as well, not to mention a public that is overwhelmingly supportive of Hamas's actions. I'm not saying this to say they should be "punished", I'm saying this to explain that there are genuine security threats that Israel needs to deal with in the WB as well. That said, some of the violence there is totally unjustified, especially violence instigated by settlers and not the IDF.
        MSFT_Edging 3y ago
        You are conveniently ignoring that these aren't civilians getting caught in a crossfire. They're civilians being targeted. You don't kill about 20k civilians in 2 months without targeting civilians. To call these deaths simply a casualty of a normal war is seriously undercutting how heinous the actions by the IDF are.
- grumple 3y ago
  1200+ Israelis, mostly civilians, were brutally murdered on 10/7. There have already been real-life anti-semitic attacks on people and property. There have been synagogues and cemeteries burned, people murdered, shot, and stabbed, businesses trashed. [0][1][2][3][4] You can find hundreds more sources of recent, very real, physical violence against Jews and Jewish places worldwide. Jews have been subject to thousands of years of very real pogroms, genocide, and conspiracy theories. These are not "possible" bad outcomes, they actually happened, we're seeing some of it now, and we have every reason to believe that it will happen again. 0. https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/04/world/an-existential-threat-antisemitic-attacks-soar-across-europe-amid-israel-hamas-war/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/04/world/an-existential-threat-a... 1. https://www.timesofisrael.com/historic-synagogue-in-tunisia-heavily-damaged-in-rioting-tied-to-israel-hamas-war/ https://www.timesofisrael.com/historic-synagogue-in-tunisia-... 2. https://www.timesofisrael.com/armenia-opens-probe-into-arson-attack-on-synagogue/ https://www.timesofisrael.com/armenia-opens-probe-into-arson... 3. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-antisemitic-incidents-up-about-400-since-israel-hamas-war-began-report-says-2023-10-25/ https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-antisemitic-incidents-up... 4. https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2023/11/05/in-france-1-040-anti-semitic-acts-perpetrated-since-october-7_6230045_4.html https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2023/11/05/i...
  - kingkawn 3y ago
    What is happening now worldwide in terms of anti-semitism is absolutely irrelevant in comparison to the mass murder in Gaza. I come from people who were the recipients of anti-Semitic violence in Europe for centuries. What Israel is doing has only and will only make it worse.
    - grumple 3y ago
      I was responding first and foremost to the assertion that such attacks were merely "possible". I demonstrated that they are actual. They put real people who have nothing to do with this war at risk due to actual antisemitic behavior. Your characterization of military action against military targets in Gaza as mass murder is an interpretation, but not a reasonable one. Israel was attacked by thousands of Hamas soldiers. Hamas governs Gaza (poorly, and undemocractically, but they do govern it). Israel is responding to the attacks by Hamas by attempting to destroy Hamas. Hamas is still launching rockets at Israel from Gaza even today. They are still fighting. War is hell. Civilians die, especially when the opposition hides in and under civilian structures. There is no magic weapon or method that will eliminate Hamas without killing civilians. And Hamas has demonstrated over and over that they will not respect ceasefire or stop killing, and they have been widely supported by Gazans. Hamas must be eliminated and Palestinians must actually want and accept peace for there to be peace.
pydry 3y ago
It's obviously true that calling out or implying anti semitism where it doesnt exist doesnt automatically make the accuser an racist. But it usually does. They are, while doing this, implicitly or explicitly endorsing Bibi's "exterminate the palestinians" Amalek trope, Ben Gvir hanging a portrait of Baruch Goldstein on his wall (shot up a mosque, considered to be a hero by ~10% of Israelis) and Isaac Herzog calling race-mixing a "tragedy". (i dont think it's too controversial to suggest that those 3 people essentially represent Israel) This practice of calling all and sundry racist in defense of a state founded upon an ideology of racial purity is, of course, probably mostly racist projection. Indeed, it's hard to be a dedicated anti-racist these days without being accused of being an anti semite at some point.
- fnimick 3y ago
  Don't forget Smotrich, a leader in the current government, who said it was a "mistake" that the first Israeli government didn't "finish the job" of expelling all the Arabs from Israel. https://www.timesofisrael.com/smotrich-at-knesset-ben-gurion-should-have-finished-the-job-thrown-out-arabs/ https://www.timesofisrael.com/smotrich-at-knesset-ben-gurion... The current Israeli government has espoused their views that Palestinians should not have their own state, that all Arabs are terror supporters who are the enemy of Israel, who should be exterminated or removed. And this was happening regularly long before October 7th. I wonder why some Palestinians don't see Israel as a viable partner in peace or that they feel their only option is to destroy Israel before they are destroyed themselves?
  - Animats 3y ago
    This is getting into the internal politics of Israel, which are a mess. No party has anywhere near a majority. Netanyahu has had over 16 years in power, and he stays there by trying to hold together a coalition whose parties don't get along at all. How he's done that is not pretty. (Imagine the US with Trump in his fifth term of office. Now you have roughly the right picture.)
toyg 3y ago
One could say the same for "the other part": being pro-Palestinians doesn't mean being pro-Hamas, but that's also a convenient excuse used by people who are actually pro-Hamas. The problem happens when nobody is given the benefit of the doubt about being in group 1.
- throw310822 3y ago
  I thought you were going to say: "One could say the same for "the other part": being pro-Israel doesn't mean being a anti-arab racist who wants to ethnically cleanse Palestine, but that's also a convenient excuse used by people who are actually just that".
  - deleted 3y ago
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mkoubaa 3y ago
Suppose they are both true, what does this imply? That it's fair to suspect people of racism because someone else hypothetically uses an excuse?
deleted 3y ago
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thomastjeffery 3y ago
It's only convenient when we refuse to expand our counter-narrative. I call that lazy. We could continue to bundle every criticism of Israel together, or we could confront each criticism directly.

kingkawn 3y ago

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deleted 3y ago
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nerdponx 3y ago
This. I have always been very very skeptical of the motives and intentions of various BDS groups over the years. Lots of issues with hypocrisy, propaganda, and double standards. But that doesn't excuse the murder of thousands of civilians in collective retribution for the murder of a few dozen. It's possible for both things to be true: Hamas is bad and committed a heinous act of terrorism, and Israel is committing a horrifying atrocity against Palestinian civilians in retaliation.
- zczc 3y ago
  As far as i understand, the main goal of the Israel operation is to remove Hamas capability to launch another Oct.7-style attack in the future: prevention, not retaliation (though one can argue if there is a way to achieve this goal with less cost on civilians).
  - mandmandam 3y ago
    > one can argue if there is a way to achieve this goal with less cost on civilians) Not really, no. There's no argument. The entire world is calling for a ceasefire because so many civilians are being murdered.
  - sudosysgen 3y ago
    The current approach will not achieve this goal. Overwhelming force doesn't stop insurrections unless it goes all the way to genocide or ethnic cleansing. That's what makes the argument especially pointless.
  - kingkawn 3y ago
    The IDF listening to its own intelligence assessments alone would’ve prevented Hamas from launching that attack. Hence what they are doing is mass retaliation against the entire population of Gaza, not to mention the killings in the West Bank and the suppression of domestic dissent against the war.
    - oh_sigh 3y ago
      If I tell you someone will break into your house sometime in the future...maybe tomorrow, maybe 5 years from now, and actually maybe never...how would you change your behavior? There was some intelligence about a potential threat, but hardly anything specific that they could easily respond to. Coupled with the fact that Hamas has their own counterintelligence laying out deceptions in the months leading up to the attack. I guess Israel could have just stationed a few battalions over the full length of the border....forever.
      - joomooru 3y ago
        Israel absolutely had incredibly specific intel [1] of the attack plans a year in advance of the attack, yet chose to do nothing out of arrogance [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/30/world/middleeast/israel-hamas-attack-intelligence.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/30/world/middleeast/israel-h...
        IncreasePosts 3y ago
        (alternate account for oh_sigh here, apparently posting 3 times 90 minutes ago means I can't post anymore today) Yes, they had intel about the attack method, but not the dates, or even if it was real or aspirational. This goes to my question about the person break into your home... What changes or adjustments could Israel have taken based on the intel? Like I said, maybe they could just place a bunch of battalions along the entire border, but then maybe Hamas would just lay low until they were gone.
        nerdponx 3y ago
        For all we know they allowed it to happen so they'd have an excuse to retaliate. See also: basically every 9/11 conspiracy theory.
- oh_sigh 3y ago
  Without looking it up, how many people do you think Hamas terrorists killed on October 7th?
  - nerdponx 3y ago
    The initial news reports here in the US mainstream media made it seem like dozens or hundreds at most. The music festival seemed like the worst of it.
    - oh_sigh 3y ago
      Ok, but we've known for a whole now that the number is around 1200 killed. Not what most would call "a few dozen".
      - zlg_codes 3y ago
        [flagged]
      - nerdponx 3y ago
        I didn't know it was over a thousand, that's my mistake.
- edanm 3y ago
  > But that doesn't excuse the murder of thousands of civilians in collective retribution for the murder of a few dozen. 1,200 Israelis were killed, not "a few dozen". 250 were kidnapped and held hostage, of those about 130 are still being held. Second, Israel isn't "murdering" civilians in collective retribution. It's fighting a war against a neighboring "government" that has just invaded it, slaughtered thousands of its citizens, and has promised to do it again and again. Many civilians are dying in this war, which is a horrible tragedy, and is unfortunately true of every war, which is one reason wars are so terrible. But it's hard to say this war isn't justified given the promises of Hamas.
  - MSFT_Edging 3y ago
    > Second, Israel isn't "murdering" civilians in collective retribution. Dehumanization is the first step to a genocide. Additionally, this does not explain the violence being done in the West Bank to Palestinians, a population that is notably not ruled by Hamas.
    - edanm 3y ago
      What did I say that was dehumanizing? If you're talking about me putting the word "murder" in quotes, it's because casualties of war aren't usually referred to as victims of murder, but I was quoting the parent post. > Additionally, this does not explain the violence being done in the West Bank to Palestinians, a population that is notably not ruled by Hamas. There are definitely Hamas operatives there as well, not to mention a public that is overwhelmingly supportive of Hamas's actions. I'm not saying this to say they should be "punished", I'm saying this to explain that there are genuine security threats that Israel needs to deal with in the WB as well. That said, some of the violence there is totally unjustified, especially violence instigated by settlers and not the IDF.
      - MSFT_Edging 3y ago
        You are conveniently ignoring that these aren't civilians getting caught in a crossfire. They're civilians being targeted. You don't kill about 20k civilians in 2 months without targeting civilians. To call these deaths simply a casualty of a normal war is seriously undercutting how heinous the actions by the IDF are.
grumple 3y ago
1200+ Israelis, mostly civilians, were brutally murdered on 10/7. There have already been real-life anti-semitic attacks on people and property. There have been synagogues and cemeteries burned, people murdered, shot, and stabbed, businesses trashed. [0][1][2][3][4] You can find hundreds more sources of recent, very real, physical violence against Jews and Jewish places worldwide. Jews have been subject to thousands of years of very real pogroms, genocide, and conspiracy theories. These are not "possible" bad outcomes, they actually happened, we're seeing some of it now, and we have every reason to believe that it will happen again. 0. https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/04/world/an-existential-threat-antisemitic-attacks-soar-across-europe-amid-israel-hamas-war/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/04/world/an-existential-threat-a... 1. https://www.timesofisrael.com/historic-synagogue-in-tunisia-heavily-damaged-in-rioting-tied-to-israel-hamas-war/ https://www.timesofisrael.com/historic-synagogue-in-tunisia-... 2. https://www.timesofisrael.com/armenia-opens-probe-into-arson-attack-on-synagogue/ https://www.timesofisrael.com/armenia-opens-probe-into-arson... 3. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-antisemitic-incidents-up-about-400-since-israel-hamas-war-began-report-says-2023-10-25/ https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-antisemitic-incidents-up... 4. https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2023/11/05/in-france-1-040-anti-semitic-acts-perpetrated-since-october-7_6230045_4.html https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2023/11/05/i...
- kingkawn 3y ago
  What is happening now worldwide in terms of anti-semitism is absolutely irrelevant in comparison to the mass murder in Gaza. I come from people who were the recipients of anti-Semitic violence in Europe for centuries. What Israel is doing has only and will only make it worse.
  - grumple 3y ago
    I was responding first and foremost to the assertion that such attacks were merely "possible". I demonstrated that they are actual. They put real people who have nothing to do with this war at risk due to actual antisemitic behavior. Your characterization of military action against military targets in Gaza as mass murder is an interpretation, but not a reasonable one. Israel was attacked by thousands of Hamas soldiers. Hamas governs Gaza (poorly, and undemocractically, but they do govern it). Israel is responding to the attacks by Hamas by attempting to destroy Hamas. Hamas is still launching rockets at Israel from Gaza even today. They are still fighting. War is hell. Civilians die, especially when the opposition hides in and under civilian structures. There is no magic weapon or method that will eliminate Hamas without killing civilians. And Hamas has demonstrated over and over that they will not respect ceasefire or stop killing, and they have been widely supported by Gazans. Hamas must be eliminated and Palestinians must actually want and accept peace for there to be peace.

pydry 3y ago

It's obviously true that calling out or implying anti semitism where it doesnt exist doesnt automatically make the accuser an racist. But it usually does. They are, while doing this, implicitly or explicitly endorsing Bibi's "exterminate the palestinians" Amalek trope, Ben Gvir hanging a portrait of Baruch Goldstein on his wall (shot up a mosque, considered to be a hero by ~10% of Israelis) and Isaac Herzog calling race-mixing a "tragedy". (i dont think it's too controversial to suggest that those 3 people essentially represent Israel) This practice of calling all and sundry racist in defense of a state founded upon an ideology of racial purity is, of course, probably mostly racist projection. Indeed, it's hard to be a dedicated anti-racist these days without being accused of being an anti semite at some point.

fnimick 3y ago
Don't forget Smotrich, a leader in the current government, who said it was a "mistake" that the first Israeli government didn't "finish the job" of expelling all the Arabs from Israel. https://www.timesofisrael.com/smotrich-at-knesset-ben-gurion-should-have-finished-the-job-thrown-out-arabs/ https://www.timesofisrael.com/smotrich-at-knesset-ben-gurion... The current Israeli government has espoused their views that Palestinians should not have their own state, that all Arabs are terror supporters who are the enemy of Israel, who should be exterminated or removed. And this was happening regularly long before October 7th. I wonder why some Palestinians don't see Israel as a viable partner in peace or that they feel their only option is to destroy Israel before they are destroyed themselves?
- Animats 3y ago
  This is getting into the internal politics of Israel, which are a mess. No party has anywhere near a majority. Netanyahu has had over 16 years in power, and he stays there by trying to hold together a coalition whose parties don't get along at all. How he's done that is not pretty. (Imagine the US with Trump in his fifth term of office. Now you have roughly the right picture.)

toyg 3y ago

One could say the same for "the other part": being pro-Palestinians doesn't mean being pro-Hamas, but that's also a convenient excuse used by people who are actually pro-Hamas. The problem happens when nobody is given the benefit of the doubt about being in group 1.

throw310822 3y ago
I thought you were going to say: "One could say the same for "the other part": being pro-Israel doesn't mean being a anti-arab racist who wants to ethnically cleanse Palestine, but that's also a convenient excuse used by people who are actually just that".
- deleted 3y ago
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- deleted 3y ago
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mkoubaa 3y ago

Suppose they are both true, what does this imply? That it's fair to suspect people of racism because someone else hypothetically uses an excuse?

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

thomastjeffery 3y ago

It's only convenient when we refuse to expand our counter-narrative. I call that lazy. We could continue to bundle every criticism of Israel together, or we could confront each criticism directly.