this post was submitted on 23 May 2024
642 points (97.2% liked)

World News

39373 readers
2868 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News [email protected]

Politics [email protected]

World Politics [email protected]


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 20 points 7 months ago (5 children)

Not sure how the Jewish would think about this but I'm starting to think it's antisemitic to link the Jewish and Israel (apart from Israel defining itself as a Jewish state). Funny how that might go full circle.

[–] Viking_Hippie 20 points 7 months ago

I'm starting to think it's antisemitic to link the Jewish and Israel

It definitely is. There's few things more antisemitic than assuming that all Jews approve of the fascist government of an apartheid ethnostate committing genocide with impunity.

It's right up there with the Alex Jones "globalist" conspiracy theories.

[–] FlyingSquid 17 points 7 months ago (2 children)

I am Jewish and yes, it is antisemitic to consider all Jews as Israelis. I do not support Israel, I have no affiliation with Israel, I have no interest in going to Israel apart from the archaeology. I'm from Indiana and I have a hell of a lot more in common with a Christian from Fort Wayne than an Israeli from Haifa.

Also, I know this is totally anecdotal, but every Israeli I have met in my life has been an asshole, which doesn't exactly endear me to their country.

Netanyahu is the one who benefits most from people thinking all Jews are Israeli. I sure as hell haven't benefited from it considering how many times I've had to justify myself just for who my ancestors were.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I have met a few cool Israelis, but I still wouldn't want to visit that country. Kinda like Iran, I played video games with a group from Iran for a long time and they are good and kind people, but I wouldn't ever want to visit them because I wouldn't feel safe in their country.

[–] FlyingSquid 3 points 7 months ago

I'm sure not all Israelis are assholes, it's just amazing that I've met a good two dozen Israelis and all of them have been assholes. Just arrogant as fuck.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago

Thanks for your input!

It's crazy how the media portrays the 'critisizing Israel is critizing the jewish' position. Even politicians, at least in the west, lean in to it, but this could be due to the geopolitical position of Israel as an ally I suppose.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 7 months ago

It is deliberate. Zionists love antisemitism. They love it when Jews are attacked outside Israel so they can claim to be the only safe place for them in the world. They love to use antisemitism to attack Jews, who do not want to be associated with Israel or are even critical of Israels practices or worst "questioning their "right to existence"".

[–] FuglyDuck 6 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

I dunno. It definitely will incentivize “otherising” of the Jewish diaspora. Which may be a tertiary objective of it. And it will definitely lead to increased conflict.

Which is a shame because most the Jews I know well enough to talk to about it, are extremely anti-genocide, and they’re vocal about it because… they know “I’m Jewish, [awkward stare]” is a great way to not get dinged for politics at work. (At least when the political topic is Gaza.)

[–] FlyingSquid 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

You are absolutely right on that. It keeps many anti-genocide Jews silent. It kept me silent for a very long time. I didn't even like talking about being Jewish. What changed my mind was a British documentary by a British comedian named David Baddiel called Jews Don't Count (based on his book of the same name), which is specifically about the "othering" of Jews, especially how many white people don't see Jews as white, but most non-white people don't see Jews as non-white. It's made me more vocal about things. I had already seen the documentary a few years before, but what has truly cemented it for me was the "you have said the actual truth" tweet by Elon Musk in response to someone who said Jews were oppressing white people.

It was streaming somewhere where non-Brits could see it (I think Dailymotion), but it doesn't appear to be there anymore.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

especially how many white people don't see Jews as white, but most non-white people don't see Jews as non-white.

There are people who are Jewish and non-white though - Ethiopian jews for example.

Which seems to negate the (Zionist-created) argument that there is such a thing as a Jewish ethnicity in the first place, as opposed to Judaism simply being a multi-ethnic faith like Christianity or Islam.

Clearly though plenty of people who are Jewish are also white. And clearly there is a history of denying them this Whiteness once their faith is "discovered" by those they know. Same as Irish or, to a lesser extent, Italians and Slavs. Which is wrong - as is the concept of race/ethnicity/"Whiteness" in the first place

[–] FlyingSquid 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

The vast majority of Jews are white. Yes, there are a few exceptions like Beta Israel, or what you call Ethiopian Jews (less than 200,000 people) or Yemenite Jews (Around 400,000 people), but considering there are around 16 million Jews on the planet, around 11 million Ashkenazi and around 2 million Sephardic. I think "Jews are white" is, as a general rule, a correct statement whether or not someone like Elon Musk think otherwise. I mean there are non-white Icelanders, but I think most people would say that claiming Icelanders are white without specifying that that's only a generality is acceptable as a statement.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago (1 children)

But there's a difference between saying most Icelanders are white and saying whiteness is a necessary condition to being Icelandic.

Either ethnicity/race is a necessary component of belonging to a group, or it isn't. And if it isn't, then idk how one can claim that such a group is an ethnicity.

So long as human beings who are black, Arab, Asian, etc can be Jewish, then idk how we can say that Jews are an ethnicity

[–] FlyingSquid 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

No one is saying whiteness is a necessary condition to being Icelandic or Jewish. The point is that when Elon says "you have said the actual truth" to someone who claims Jews are oppressing white people, he isn't thinking of Beta Israel or Yemenite Jews. He isn't even thinking of Sephardic Jews. He is thinking of Ashkenazi Jews, who are white. He just doesn't understand that. He very likely doesn't even know non-white Jews exist... but the Jews who are white are often not considered to be white because they are Jewish. It is the othering of Jews we're talking about.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

the Jews who are white are often not considered to be white because they are Jewish. It is the othering of Jews we're talking about.

Yeah I agree. But those people would be white regardless of if they were Jewish. Whiteness as a social construct is determined by skin color or national origin or both. Religion doesn't have anything to do with it, although clearly through history it has - which catholics have also dealt with to some extent, especially in the WASP areas of the southern US.

[–] FlyingSquid 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

But those people would be white regardless of if they were Jewish.

Except we aren't. Many other white people don't consider me white. I know that for a fact from personal experience. It doesn't matter that I am genetically European and my skin is light.

And it is not just religion. I'm an atheist. That wouldn't make a damn bit of difference to the SS or any of the people chanting, "Jews will not replace us" in Charlottesville or Elon "you have said the actual truth" Musk. I am a Jew regardless and, thus, not white.

By the way, this is also true of Roma people. They are (or can be anyway) in almost every way visually indistinguishable from the rest of the European population. It doesn't matter, they're not white anyway.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Yeah we're saying the same thing. I recognize that there is a long history of denying Whiteness to people who have white skin. As I said, Irish, Italian, Slavic, and other catholic/orthodox peoples have been denied Whiteness at various points in history, in the US and elsewhere, in addition to people who are Jewish or Roma.

My point though is clearly the typical Irish person is white even if they are not seen as "White." The typical Bosniak is white, even if they are not seen as "White." And yes, clearly the typical Jewish person is white, even if they have not historically been seen as "White." But that's because really only White Anglo-Saxon Protestants are reliably considered to be White in the United States - which is a 3-part conjunctive test, of which people who are Jewish only satisfy, at most, the first two parts.

The point is that Whiteness doesn't even objectively exist, and is a socially constructed tool used to maintain the historical/current superstructure of Anglo Bourgeois hegemony in the West. So we should reject the classification of anyone as White rather than merely try to expand its definition to include historically oppressed peoples with white skin

Nevertheless, my point originally was that you don't need white skin to be Jewish. And because there are Ethiopian and Polish and Arab jews, it seems difficult to believe that there could be a Jewish ethnicity like the Zionists claim. And it seems that claiming that Jews are a distinct ethnic group is itself highly othering - and that othering is the intentional goal not only of White supremacist bigots, but also, for different reasons, is the goal of Zionist ethnostates such as Israel

[–] Aceticon 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Oh, have no doubt about that.

And it's pretty straightforwardly so: for example claiming that somebody demonstrating against the killing of children by Israel is an anti-semite is implying that killing children is a Jewish thing to do, which is incredibly close to the "Jews eat babies" kind of propaganda from the Nazis: even the worst actual antisemites in the present day weren't going around claiming that murdering children is a Jewish thing to do.

That's just how out of control the Israeli ultra-violent and extremelly racist Fascists and their racist Fascist supporters in places like the US are.

[–] APassenger 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I grew weary if anti-genocide protests being framed as pro-palestinian.

Neither side is entirely free of bloodshed. It's about stopping the bloodshed which means, I'd think, reducing the us vs them, not entrenching it.

Does anyone know how that framing became so consistent? Not in a speculative way, but with evidence?

[–] Aceticon 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Well, in the tribalist kind of thinking everybody must always be pro-some-faction or against-some-faction and the far-right (including Fascists tribes such as Zionists) are seldom deep thinkers and skeptics, so are almost without exception tribalists.

So it makes absolute sense that Zionists (and members of other political tribes whose "chiefs" have decided to support Zionism) claim that people who are demonstrating because of their Principles (in this case Humanist ones, like "though shall not kill innocent civilians") are doing so because of being pro-some-faction. Further, I would even say that the Zionists absolutelly believe that claim they're making and are speaking the truth as they see it: they simply cannot conceive of people being anything but tribalists who will put tribalism above all else (even any leftover Principles they might have) so people must be pro-some-faction or anti-some-faction to be demonstrating.

(PS: Whilst this is not evidence, it does match what I've observed first hand in situations like the Brexit Referendum in the UK. It also matches my observations as member of a political party in my homeland, since most political party members tend to be tribalist, even in leftwing parties, which as somebody who returned from abroad with no pre-existing "love for the team's shirt" and chose a party to join and help based on the principles they seemed to support, made me quite an atypical member and gave a wonderful chance to observe political tribalists in their "natural environment")

This is also why I believe a lot of the propaganda techniques being deployed by the Biden Campaign to try and get votes from people who are against the current actions of the Zionists because it goes against their Principles are incredibly misguided - Principled people aren't pro-Biden or even anti-Trump, they're pro or against some kinds of action no matter who does it, and things like "aversion to the murder of children" tend to be some of the stronguest principles around so likely to be much stronger for a non-tribalist that the "uuh, those other guys are bad" tribalist-heavy arguments.

I wouldn't be surprised if many people don't end up in the voting booth, intellectually ready to swallow their Principles and vote Biden purelly to stop Trump, and can't actually bring themselves to cast a vote.

Anyways, all this are theories and if Biden keeps on supporting the Zionists and their Genocide, we shall see.