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.
if only the bible had said French people used to live in Haiti 5000 years ago they'd have the cheat code.
I honestly don't know why people keep talking about Haiti as an example of indigenous revolt against settlers. It was absolutely a revolt against oppressors, but not of the settler-colonial war variety.
Yeah slave revolts are a distinct thing. Reminds me of how Bacon's Rebellion has a backdrop of genocide against Native Americans, which actually served as the initial reason enslaved africans, freemen, white poor, and white indentured servants started working together.
Come on now, it was a settler colony and at that point a relatively small space had been enduring brutal genocide of its native population for 3 centuries. Trafficked Africans were put in the same class as the natives, alongside whatever few indigenous people that were left. The revolution there was absolutely decolonial, to call it 'not of the settler-colonial war variety' is doing some incredible mental gymnastics.
The other reply here comparing Haiti to Bacon's Rebellion because that one started with colonial violence is far more of an ahistorical stretch than comparing Haiti to Palestine.
Yes it was a settler colony, and yes it essentially entirely genocided it's entire indigenous population and simultaneously engaged in brutal chattel slavery. But the liberation struggle of those enslaved Africans and freemen was a distinct struggle from indigenous liberation struggle. Being oppressed is not equivalent to indigeneity. If you want to call it a war for liberation that resulted from settler-colonialism, that's acceptable to me, but it was not an indigenous revolt against settlers like Palestine currently.
Sure, in the vague sense. In this specific example, I challenge you to explain the material difference in 1791 between the original inhabitants of the island and the Africans trafficked there.
Well chiefly, the original inhabitants had all been killed, the genocide of the Taino people being one of the most comprehensive and brutal in colonial history. Trafficked Africans were also oppressed, but the social dynamics around them allowed for the emergence of a small middle caste of freed Blacks who were able to own property and even plantations and typically literate. Toussaint Louverture and some other leaders of the Haitian revolution were from this caste.
That class did not and would not have been allowed to emerge among the native Taino.