You’re clearly very naive and cannot see the world as more than black and white.Now the Israeli state are the bad guys and the Palestinians are the good guys. So now it is OK to boycott jews again, shout about the eradication of the Jewish state and its people (“from the river to the sea”) and talk about a one-directional genocide since “75 years and 182 days”. This is either really really stupid or blatantly antisemitic. There is no excuse for what the Israeli government is doing atm. And I agree that there shouldn’t be any nations or borders in the world at all. But making this into the mostly Jewish population as a group of occupiers is just wrong. It’s actually not too different from what the Israeli government is saying when they identify basically all Palestinian civilians as hamas. Like I said, only black and white thinking :/Edit: Reading this again, I can see why I upset OP and others. This was unnecessarily harsh. Sorry. I guess it’s my own frustration that the internet is full of one-sided debate upon this conflict. I’m still not comfortable with the rhetoric of this post but want to apologize for being so rude!
The issue people are having with your comment here is that you are misrepresenting the OPs post. The only thing they are calling for here is an economic boycott of Israel to pressure the Israeli government to end their attacks on Gaza. Meanwhile you are rolling that up in strawman argument that says that’s basically the same thing as wanting the obliteration of all Israelis. Don’t be so quick to make bad faith assumptions. While left wing antisemitism is a real issue, as is antisemitism in the middle east, OP hasn’t given you any cause to make that accusation here. I’d suggest editing your post to clarify that you were (I assume?) talking more generally about the topic rather than about the OP in particular.
Hm, I see what you mean. But the post is calling for an “end to Zionism” (in the video) and sees the whole Israeli state as non other than a genocide project (for the entirety of its existence, in the description). One of the top comments is the antisemitic slogan “From the river to the sea PALESTINE will be free”. All in all, I don’t feel comfortable with this at all. I mean, please organize against what the Israeli state is doing. But don’t just adopt antisemitic rhetoric and paint this whole conflict as this one-dimensional.
Maybe it’s my own bias, because as a German I’m much more sensible to the topic of antisemitism and especially in German leftwing politics, organizations like e.g. BDS have been identified as antisemitic for a very long time. Leftists from other countries often have a very different understanding of the same conflict. Not sure what to make of it though.
How is BDS antisemitic? Maybe there is antisemitism associated with it’s movement in Germany but that hasn’t been my experience in the US. Though any pro-Palestine group here is constantly called antisemitic by Americans that support Israel.
Well, there is this official text on BDS by the German federal ministry for political education (unfortunately in German). I did not mean that the German branch of BDS is considered antisemitic, but the whole of BDS.
TL;DR of this text is basically that BDS is outwardly and on first glance pretty progressive. When I look at their website I can agree with most stuff I see. The article in German above now claims that BDS fails the 3-Dimension test of antisemitism. That is, they demonize Israel, use double standards and want to delegitimize its existence. The article then describes the history of BDS where it claims that BDS campaign calls the state of Israel a colonialist and that they therefore try to further delegitimize it. The problem the article sees with that is that BDS leaves open which land they want to return to Palestinians exactly and what they plan to do with the Jewish population inhabitating it right now. Same goes for plans for all Palestinian refugees to return to their homeland. Again, this would probably mean large displacement of the Jewish population and the destruction of the Israeli state. The article then describes how a frequent rhetoric of the BDS campaign and associated people is to compare the Nazi Regime with Israel. In context of how many survivors and their descendants of the Shoah founded the state of Israel and still live there, the article sees this as the “ultimate demonization”. This demonization is contrasted in the article with all of the Palestinian refugees living in neighboring Arab countries who are also discriminated against and who have to endure violence and oppression as well. Also, many examples of clearly antisemitic public figures associated with the BDS are named.
The difference between the German discourse vs the international one on BDS is probably how you view the right of Israel to exist. There is the argument that the Jewish religion is highly persecuted and that especially after the Shoah Jews need their own state to be able to live free from antisemitism and persecution. Internationally (apparently including many Jewish voices) this is viewed differently and a framing of Israel as a colonial state that should be dissolved may therefore be more easily thought of. From the former perspective, this already is a antisemitic argument because it delegitimizes the existence of a safe space for Jews.
In my own opinion, I see the BDS campaign as pretty problematic because it tries to simplify this whole conflict into “Israel bad / Palestine good” and how it tries to onesidedly moralize it. Sure, there are pro-Israel campaigns that try to do the same. But neither will lead us anywhere. BDS is in my opinion not a campaign that is interested in solving this conflict constructively or with everyone in mind. But we desperately need campaigns who are interested in Palestinian and Jewish people alike. I may be perceived here as derailing the protests against the Israeli government. My concern though is that we let ourselves be derailed by groups like BDS.
I agree we need to be careful that we don’t enable the sort of mass murder of Jews that has happened throughout history, being from Germany I’m sure you are especially careful to ensure something like the Holocaust doesn’t happen again.
I don’t agree that calling Israel a colony is antisemitic, it was formed as and still operates as a settler-colony. This conflict isn’t black and white, but in war there is nearly always an aggressor against the other, the culpability is rarely even. Israel, the aggressor, with support from untouchably powerful militaries, and the victim, Palestine, whose homeland was forcibly taken by said militaries.
I don’t see the de-legitimization of the state of Israel as antisemitic because the state is not legitimate by any recognized standard, and continues seizing territory in opposition to international treaties, annexing Palestinian land even in the last few weeks. I’m sure antisemitic people could use the BDS movement to mask their true views but I haven’t seen that connection in the US. There are plenty of Jewish people in the US who call for boycotting Israel and giving Palestine full self-determination.
nobody’s talking about eradicating Jews except you.
You sure about that? “From the river to the sea” is open to interpretation, but many (including Hamas) use it with a genocidal meaning. Everyone that uses this phrase should know about this meaning and know what it signals to others. So yes, people are talking about a genocide of Israeli people, i.e. Jews.
no, we’re not. it’s just you, and it’s disgusting.
Well, seems very obvious now that you don’t want to see this conflict as more than black and white.
seems obvious you want to paint Israel as a victim and intentionally misunderstand what you’re being told.
Where did I paint Israel as the victim? They are obviously responsible for mass destruction and reckless killing of thousands of people. What I say is that you don’t get the complexity of the conflict, that you just focus on one side of it and that calling for the destruction for the Israeli state is very problematic. There seem to be so many people that try to ignore either side of the conflict. “Oh, the Palestinians are all Hamas and we are just defending us” vs “Oh, the Israelis are all genocidal colonialists and we have to destroy them”. Neither of both is true and we would benefit from trying to move away from a Palestine vs Israel narrative and try to rather organize against the Israeli government as well as Hamas.
Where did I paint Israel as the victim
when you parroted the propaganda that these anarchists are anitsemitic genocide enablers
you don’t get the complexity of the conflict
you don’t know what I “get”
how did you find this community?!
