Political Memes

The problem is that actual antisemites jump into the debate and work to linguistically push legitimate criticism of Israel into real antisemitism. You can see it right here, all over Lemmy, and presumably this thread. It's incredibly obvious, and it's also incredibly obvious that those people want to short circuit this conversation by making the issue black and white.

That's why many people are very hesitant to engage with this even if they do have real concerns over how Israel operates.

I think the requirement for “have to be stated it as a political position” caveat is rooted in malice which has historically skewed the discussion in favor of controlling the narrative in the interest of the agenda at hand, in this case is blind support for Israel.

I remember having to use the same set of qualifiers back in the day during the “War on Terror”, when arguing that mass bombing campaigns would only lead to more extremism. I’d have to state that I didn’t “support terrorism” and the idea was to have an objective discussion around the policies in question.

It’s a tact to suppress valid criticism and garner support.

It was apparent then and it’s apparent now. We cannot have open discussions in the interest of actual progress when folks are implicated into a myopic tribal view of the situation for having an opinion that goes against the common narrative.

It’s no more antisemite to object to Israel’s actions than it is to be pro genocide to vote for Biden. But this is what the Trump trolls have chosen for everyone to be upset about now.

It’s this every four years. There’s always something to not vote over.

Yeah, you would think that it would be pretty simple and straightforward for most people to grasp, yet, the need to condition being pro-not-killing-innocent-Palestinian/any civilians with a disclaimer of not supporting Hamas and not being antisemitic within the same breath exists in conversations with most folks. It's absurd. It's like being against both what was done to innocents by Hamas on October 7 and what Israel is currently doing to innocents is impossible for many people to wrap their minds around (or at least, that's how the national conversation is framed in the US). Neither action is an acceptable means of achieving goals (stated or otherwise), but Hamas and Netanyahu have long been in a toxic codependent relationship. My favorite is the look on "pro-Israel" peoples' faces in instances where they're informed that the person they just called an antisemite for daring to be against the bombing of innocent children and others is Jewish (whether by religious practice or genetics). It's bullshit.

But it makes money for defense contractors. How can it be wrong? — Several governments

kinda hard to get that message across when woke ass idiots are chanting" between the river and the sea" as if that slogan meant support for Palestine.