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  • Puffin [any, they/them]
    ·
    3 years ago

    I 100% agree. A lot of people on the left really have a bad understanding of antisemitism, and may harbor some antisemitism themselves. There seems to be a bit of logic like "we're the guys against nazis, so we can't be antisemitic." It feels a lot like people lose the ability to self-crit around antisemitism.

    Because some people call all antisemitism antisemitic, there seems to be a reaction in many areas of the internet to preemptively say "Anti-zionism ≠ antisemtism" when criticizing Israel. However, it begins to feel like a lot of people take this a step further to thinking that anti-zionism can't be antisemitic. I've seen a bit of "antizionism" that accuses Israel of secretly controlling the world, controlling finances, eating babies, poisoning water, spreading disease, or to Jews being more loyal to Israel than their own country. Old antisemitic canards rehashed as anti-zionist doesn't make them stop being antisemitic.

    Absolutely we should condemn Israel for the treatment of Palestinians and work towards justice. But your criticism of Israel should remain grounded in reality and not stray into antisemitism.

    With respect to people saying that Jews call everything antisemitic, this also really rubs me the wrong way. If you think that somebody who accuses black people of calling everything racist is harboring some racism, you should see that the same thing applies to Jews. Antisemitism also tends to be more crypto, so there is also naturally a lot of uncertainty about if somebody is being antisemitic.