- Global surge in antisemitic incidents following the conflict between Hamas and Israel, affecting Jewish communities in various countries.
- Antisemitic acts range from verbal abuse to physical assaults, often justified by anger over the Gaza conflict.
- In areas like the U.S., Britain, France, Germany, and South Africa, antisemitic incidents have increased several hundred percent compared to the same period last year.
- Official responses vary, with Western authorities generally quick to support Jewish communities, while some countries like China have not taken steps to curtail antisemitic content online.
Media Bias Fact Check (Reuters):
Overall, we rate Reuters Least Biased based on objective reporting and Very High for factual reporting due to proper sourcing of information with minimal bias and a clean fact check record.
If you keep telling people that any criticism of Israel is antisemitism, and the IDF goes out and commits war crimes, don’t be surprised if people say “well if I’m gonna be called antisemitic for hating war crimes I might as well go all the way to actual antisemitism”. It seems kind of obvious.
If the only thing keeping you from being a bigot is people patting you on the tummy then… you are a bigot.
The issue that has become increasingly apparent throughout this (and any other time people remember that the Palestinians exist) is that: Yes, you can be anti-Zionist (for a range of definitions of “zionist”) without being anti-Semitic. But it is REAL easy to not stop with the former when there is such a strong push to be incredibly careful how we refer to Hamas (the de facto government of Gaza) and Palestine with almost no care being given toward the IDF (and Mossad and Netanyahu) and Israel. Or why the Israelis are in the region to begin with or how much of their demographics are refugees from nearby Arab nations.
Which kind of gets back to the idea of: When your rant is indistinguishable from that of a bigot…
To make it clear: The IDF are horrifying monsters who are actively engaging in genocide. Hamas are terrorists. And this is more or less a war between two countries at this point. But when talking points are “Fuck Israel, they never deserved to be there in the first place. Kick them all out” without even an acknowledgement of WHY they are there (and why “The West” supported them going there in the 40s…)? Well, if it quacks like a duck…
Yeah, it’s basically terrible people shooting at terrible people at the behest of terrible people with tons of civilians (on both sides) having to suffer because of it. And because of how the situation works it’s hard for anyone involved to not get sucked into this maelstrom of hatred.
And to think that there have been a number of times when this could’ve been avoided but hasn’t because the people with the power to do so either didn’t care or deliberately made things worse to further their own interests. (Or tried but were removed from power by more ruthless people.)
It’s a horrible, convoluted, heartbreaking, multicontinental multi-century mess that’s almost impossible to even talk about without wronging someone.
And some assholes take that as an excuse.
It seems pretty clear a large percentage of the human race associates the actions of any members within an ethnic group as an action by the entire ethnic group. Not 100% culpable, but maybe 60% to 30% depending on age and gender.
This is why everyone should stop identifying as a part of a community, and instead identify as an individual
But that doesn’t solve the problem of others identifying you as part of a community and blaming you for it
It also seems that some people embrace violent solutions and feel every other reaction to a problem is not extreme enough.
Conflating the Israeli government, and the Israeli military, with the Jewish ethnicity, and the Jewish religion, is proving to be bad for overall PR when the government, and the military, are doing things that are vastly unpopular globally. Like apartheid
People really shouldn’t need PR to be treated right.
Antisemitism sucks. So does relentless zionism. Stop accusing all jewish people of being militaristic zionists. Stop comparing Israel to jews. Israel doesn’t represent all jews. Saudi Arabia doesn’t represent all muslims. Russia doesn’t represent all orthodox christians. Being anti Israel doesn’t make you antisemitic. Being antisemitic doesn’t make you anti Israel. Don’t confuse the two. One can cherish jewish people, culture, history and be anti Israel to whatever extent. I’m partly jewish and don’t support Israel for example.
Stop accusing all jewish people of being militaristic zionists.
The UK has been openly hostile towards its Jewish residents for centuries. Some of its highest ranking political leaders are openly anti-semitic. Much of the Zionism of the 19th century was a direct consequence of British state and popular leaders villainizing Jewish residents and businesses in the exact same manner as the Germans did a decade or two later.
Meanwhile, state media wants to tie all Jewish people to the Israeli cause, even going so far as to accuse anti-Israeli jewish people and groups as being anti-semitic themselves and hounding any kind of Palestinian peace activists for being “terrorist sympathizers” by default.
So its sort of a rock-and-hard-place for UK Jews (particularly Hasidic Jews, who categorically reject Zionism) who have had to deal with this kind of state-sanctioned harassment and violence their entire lives, to disassociate from Zionism. Both the anti-Semitic bigots and the pro-Israeli flaks seem intent on tying you to the mast-head of this sinking ship.
Saudi Arabia doesn’t represent all muslims. Russia doesn’t represent all orthodox christians.
That’s been another kind-of annoying habit of mass media. Every Muslim from Minnesota to Mecca gets treated like the most radical orthodox Wahhabist. We’ve got US Senators and British PMs alike waxing poetic about “Radical Islamic Extremism” and demanding every practitioner of the faith make formal public apologizes for whatever nonsense MBS or Ayatollah Khomeini is on about this week.
Similarly, god forbid you know a bit of Cyrillic. People lose their fucking minds over the Russia-Ukraine shit if you’re not on the “right” side (which, at least in American politics, varies entirely based on your domestic ideological leaning).
One can cherish jewish people, culture, history and be anti Israel to whatever extent.
Not according to the western press. You need to pick a fucking side. And then it becomes a competition to be the most rabid and deranged in your support of that side. Otherwise, you’re no better than a traitor.
I don’t get why people hate that particular religion so much.
Me, I would do away with all religions, I think they’re all nonsense invented to control people or as a way to escape from reality, but that doesn’t mean I’d ever hate a religion or go to wild lengths to genocide it’s followers.
People who think there’s a magical man in the sky are a bit batty, but people who persecute others just for believing in magical sky men are truly off their rockers.
My experience is that the hate is for the ethnic group, not necessarily the religion.
Ethnicity and religion is intertwined in this case though, in a way that is quite unique. And which is probably significantly influenced by the way Jewish people were treated.
This is yet another reason why why ANY theocracy, of any denomination, is incompatible with modernity.
Not only does it limit the citizenry’s representation in terms of beliefs and cultural shifts incompatible with the faith within, it creates a common enemy for idiotic, ancient deity dick measuring squabbles from the outside.
I respect a person’s right to pray to whatever pokemon they want. Charizard, Yahweh, Mr. Mime, Allah, whoever speaks to your soul or whatever. I don’t respect any person’s right to use the pokemon they pray to as a rational to limit the rights of anyone else for any reason, ok you super serious Pokemon Masters?
Israel isn’t some great line of defense for the Jews, it’s a massive, singular target for the other idiot theocracies in the region that they hate and hate them back to attack, great choice of location by the way if you wanted to feel safe.
Israel is basically the geopolitical equivalent of what John McClain was coerced to do in Harlem in Die Hard 3, only for Israel it was a choice.
With this line of thinking you could also say it’s the Palestinians choice to be there. Why don’t just make Palestine somewhere else?
