Sigh…you know, it’s not so much that “oh if you’re anti-Israel you’re anti-Semitic,” it’s more that Jewish and Israeli identities are inextricably intertwined - even though most Jews I know do NOT identify personally or politically with Israel.
It’s that whenever someone brings up the atrocities Israel has committed, they seem to be looking at all Jews for an explanation. For the record, it’s like that time when all people of Japanese descent in the US were put in internment (re: concentration) camps during WW2. What Japan did in that war was undeniably horrific, but that didn’t mean harassing, imprisoning, and vilifying all people of Japanese descent was okay. (I mean, I don’t think it’s EVER okay, but apparently that’s a hot take these days.)
It’s that Jews have been the scapegoated subjects of conspiracy theories for literal millennia and have faced their own genocide more times than can be counted because of it.
It’s that Jews around the world, regardless of their country of birth or citizenship, ARE being targeted over what’s happening in Gaza - mostly with harassment (still Not Okay), sometimes with violence. That’s not made up, that’s not “fake news,” it’s shit that is actually happening to people on the fallacy of “guilt by association.”
All this to say: what Israel, the country, the political establishment, has done is fucked up - but it isn’t just Jews who associate Israel with Judaism. It’s everyone. So when people start talking about abolishing Israel, or how Israel “doesn’t have a right to exist,” yeah, Jews kinda get defensive because historically, THIS IS HOW YOU GET A GENOCIDE. It starts with blame and dehumanization that is normalized through off-handed “jokes” and generalizations. Sometimes there IS a faction within a group that is doing fucked up shit, and yeah, they should be held accountable - but it’s a slippery slope from “the gov’t and military of Israel is doing bad things” (fair) to “that entire country should be wiped off the map” (extreme, bordering on genocidal because a lot of people live there and “with nukes” is kinda implied) to “all people remotely associated with Israel (ie Jews) should be eliminated” (genocidal).
I’m not going to get into the so-called “debate” of who’s to blame and who struck whom first and worst. In a war of suffering, there are no winners. I’m just a fucking WASP watching all this shit go down and calling out dangerous behaviors and rhetoric.
2087
blakekathryn
jacobvanloon
jbbartram-illu
germansingergirl
stormborns
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