The thorny problem is this: Anti-Zionism is not inherently antisemitism, but many anti-Zionists are antisemites who use anti-Israel activism to launder their anti-Jewish prejudice. You see it on the right and you see it on the left. This corrupts the conversation. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv... - ThreadSky

yair-rosenberg.bsky.social • 472 days ago

The thorny problem is this: Anti-Zionism is not inherently antisemitism, but many anti-Zionists are antisemites who use anti-Israel activism to launder their anti-Jewish prejudice. You see it on the right and you see it on the left. This corrupts the conversation.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/11/anti-semitism-anti-zionism-activists-hamas-apologists/675937/

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Comments

ametria.org•471 days ago

I am enjoying and learning from many of your writings. I have not ever met an anti-Zionist who wasn't an antisemite when tickled.

annharries.bsky.social•471 days ago

Surely it depends on what the definition of anti-Zionism is? I am massively opposed to what the settlers are doing on the West Bank and I think the Palestinians get a very rough deal but I don’t want Israel to cease to exist,just its current fascist-adjacent government.

yair-rosenberg.bsky.social•471 days ago

You'll like the article!

annharries.bsky.social•470 days ago

God that’s depressing. I genuinely loathe Netanyahu and his government of fascists, but then I also loathe Orban, Trump Erdogan and Bolsonaro and Johnson.I wish he would just disappear. He has massively damaged Israel.

thryse.com•470 days ago

I just had something to say on this topic, unfortunately

https://bsky.app/profile/qirenni.com/post/3kduqw7mo5j2r

lfillingham.bsky.social•471 days ago

I'm not entirely sure on terms here. Does being Anti-Zionist mean thinking the state of Israel should not exist?
As a practical belief that would be hard to separate from antisemitism.

savannahskeath.bsky.social•471 days ago

There’s a difference between “the state currently in Israel-Palestine shouldn’t be a theocracy explicitly built to protect one group at the expense of others” and “let’s get rid of the whole thing”. Israel is there, it exists. Most of the people who live there are refugees one way or another.

mabehr.bsky.social•472 days ago

Is there a difference between Anti-Zionism and Anti-Israel? You use the two interchangeably here.

bjorning.bsky.social•472 days ago

Antizionists are of necessity anti-Israel, but people speaking out against Israel need not be antizionists. You can be neutral or for Zionism and still think that the Israeli government is bad.

eastsidegadfly.bsky.social•471 days ago

Zionism has multiple meanings and someone can be a Zionist in its metaphorical (and original) sense but opposed to the modern Jewish majority ethno state.

erfolgsspur.bsky.social•471 days ago

Unfortunately it took me a mighty long time to realize this. The events after October 7th made that very very clear.

danielrembrandt.bsky.social•471 days ago

The thorny problem is this: Anti-Palestinianism is not inherently antisemitism, but many anti-Palestinianists are antisemites who use anti-Palestine activism to launder their anti-Muslim prejudice. You see it on the right and you see it on the left. This corrupts the conversation.

annharries.bsky.social•471 days ago

Surely it is possible to acknowledge the awfulness of the October 7 massacre and still deplore the loss of life in Gaza without any labels, being attached of any kind?

danielrembrandt.bsky.social•471 days ago

Indeed. Surely it must be. I’ve done so.

estarianne.bsky.social•471 days ago

Is it also possible to acknowledge the awfulness of what is happening to Palestinians right now though?

annharries.bsky.social•470 days ago

Oh my god yes. I used to live in Jordan five minutes drive from the Palestinian refugee camps. I think what’s happening is utterly appalling. Everybody is suffering. It s heatbreakingf, and I really want a cease-fire urgently.

estarianne.bsky.social•470 days ago

Yes me too.

danielrembrandt.bsky.social•471 days ago

Jews and Palestinians are semites

deejdart.bsky.social•472 days ago

Then you run into any critique of the Israeli government is antisemitic. It’s like an ethno-state is a bad idea.

postingtreyf.bsky.social•472 days ago

I think antizionism and Zionism are labels for Jews Only due to the sheer volume of antisemites who take on those labels. It’s also an intracommunity debate that gentiles butt into when they have no business being there.

Granted, I also think both labels are no longer useful in 2023.

jordanasquith.bsky.social•471 days ago

Couldn't have said it better. I would compare the word to Jihad. A word that has been so disconnected from it's actual meaning, if you hear a non-muslim claiming they're "anti-Jihad" it always sounds like Islamophobia.

ozmodiar.bsky.social•471 days ago

We can't use the corruption of the conversation by some as an excuse not to have the conversation.

lizardky.bsky.social•471 days ago

The only way to "smear" David Icke would be to say "He's a sane, rational person with well-considered and evidence-based ideas."

esteinnyc.bsky.social•471 days ago

Thank you for this. It is one of the best things I’ve read in the horrifying past month. And a lot of people on this platform in particular really need to read it.

peterverpoorten.bsky.social•471 days ago

I think it is necessary to have a clear framework to distinguish between this. I would suggest that people looking at concrete actions, and try to substantiate these following the rules of evidence, are taken seriously as discussion partners.

peterverpoorten.bsky.social•471 days ago

While wild accusations, obvious smears and conspiracy theories obviously fall outside legitimate debate into tribal attacks.

dgoldman.bsky.social•471 days ago

I mean at its core Zionism is just the belief that the Jewish nation deserves a safe homeland. Anti-zionism is borderline antisemitic at least, if that's all you attribute to being zionism. And if one defines it as including anything more, then most Israelis aren't zionists.

eastsidegadfly.bsky.social•471 days ago

Just like many people take “River to sea” literally - same thing with Zionism. It makes sense that people would assume Zionism only describes supporting the modern state of Israel only.

eastsidegadfly.bsky.social•471 days ago

And someone can be opposed to that without being antisemitic if they don’t know that the word has multiple layers.

dgoldman.bsky.social•471 days ago

So what else does from "from the river to the sea" mean?

eastsidegadfly.bsky.social•471 days ago

Palestinian people deserve a safe homeland.

dgoldman.bsky.social•471 days ago

Yes which is why Hamas needs to go.

peterfeld.bsky.social•471 days ago

no one deserves a homeland on someone else's land. no settler colony deserves a supremacist ethnostate. It is not antisemitic, borderline or other to oppose zionism and Israel (NOT just the current government) and its many war crimes and chant "from the river to the sea" as I and many other Jews do.

dgoldman.bsky.social•471 days ago

That's a total misrepresentation of everything Israel is. The majority of Israelis never left the Levant. You are peddling bull shit lies. You know nothing of the Levant and you know nothing of Israel.

dgoldman.bsky.social•471 days ago

If an ethnostate is a safe homeland for a people, then sure, Israel is an ethnostate. Japan is an ethnostate too. So? It's not the exclusive home of Japanese people, even though their immigration control is quite strict. Likewise, Israel is the homeland of the Jews, but not exclusively.

peterfeld.bsky.social•471 days ago

if you want to tell me Jews from Poland or America are indigenous to Palestine (ditto from Yemen, Egypt, Syria, Morocco or Iraq) that's a laugh. We aren't.

dgoldman.bsky.social•471 days ago

I suggest you read the article. Most originate in lineages from the Levant that were thrown out nearly 2,000 years ago when Judea was sundered. But most also never even left the region in question.

gophergrad.bsky.social•472 days ago

#bk

jonlien.bsky.social•471 days ago

One of the issues with the word Zionist is that those of us who grew up among evangelicals heard a lot of white Christian people calling themselves Zionist. Talking about the Jewish people having to return to Israel to prepare for the second coming of Jesus.

jonlien.bsky.social•471 days ago

These are very much anti-Semitic people with a clear NIMBY approach to Jewish people. But they are also Zionist because they firmly believe that Jesus won’t return unless the Jewish people are returned to Israel.

Thus they are white Christian anti-Semitic Zionists.

jonlien.bsky.social•471 days ago

And those of us who grew up opposing these people very quickly took the label anti-Zionist without considering that to have anything to do with Jewish people, but opposing everything the government of Israel stood for.

This is a label we no longer use, exactly for the reasons in the article.

sarabjustone.bsky.social•471 days ago

It’s an impossible line to walk when so many are so invested in bad faith arguments.

Being Jewish doesn’t prevent you from doing wrong things, and we should be able to say it when it happens.

But being Jewish shouldn’t result in persecution just for being Jewish.

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