jesus fucking christ
[First Image ID: A screenshot with a water filter over it of someone else's text post. The text post reads "I keep seeing this around, especially now around Yom HaShoah, and it's starting to piss me off, "Never again means never again for anyone." NO THE FUCK IT DOES NOT." /.End ID]
[Second Image ID: A screenshot of someone's reply made in the tags. It reads "There's actually a whole (academic) article about this. How in Israel the phrase is generally understood to mean 'never again the victims' whereas in diaspora it's understood to mean 'never again for anyone' and how the phrase was PROBABLY coined by anarchist communists who specifically meant like 'dismantle the systems (like nationalism) that led to this in the first place'. IDK if this person is Israeli but it's usually Israelis you see responding like this and it's because they straight up have no idea the rest of the world doesn't see it like that. Combined w the at this point pretty infamous disdain for Holocaust victims and survivors for being 'weak'. It doesn't mean 'in your honour we will never let this happen again to anyone else' it literally means we will never again be like YOU who failed to protect yourself. Edit ppl sharing these tags feel free to do so without attribution. I'm not really keen to engage with teh people who will be angry abotu this. /.End ID]
@jewishvitya if you do not want to get involved feel free to ignore this @ but I wanted to confirm with you that this is an interpretation held by Israelis. Personally I've only heard "never again" as a blanket statement for "never again letting genocide happen to anyone."
Yeah, that's true, in Israel "never again" means we'll never allow ourselves to be victims again. That's how I understood it for us growing up.
We're aware of the different interpretation worldwide. But we don't trust other nations to protect us from another genocide, so I saw it more as an expression of guilt than a promise I can rely on. There's a level of... scoffing at this other interpretation and seeing it as a bastardized version of the promise we made to ourselves. "You don't mean it, you don't actually care, you just want to feel better about yourselves."
And this might be something to keep in mind. We don't trust gentiles. So any demand from Israel to stop oppressing Palestinians is taken as... you felt bad for us as long as we were victims, you like us when you can tell romanticized holocaust stories about how all we did was be murdered, but once we can protect ourselves, you hate us again. "They're so antisemitic they can't stand seeing a Jew being strong, they want us to roll over and be murdered." So many Israelis aren't even trying for... good PR. Because they believe that the only way to look good to a world that hates us is to die.
When other countries stand against Israel, the response is that we always knew we were alone and universally hated. So that's another reason to be patriotic and defend the existence of this country. Because no one else will protect us. That's why you see Israelis doubling down rather than seeing how wrong we are.
The disdain towards holocaust victims doesn't show anymore when we talk about this, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's part of the history of the meaning. Holocaust victims were seen as weak in early Zionism. To the point that survivors were mistreated.
If you see grains of truth in any of this, it's because these attitudes make use of very real antisemitism to lead us to these conclusions. Other countries are not doing enough to protect Jews and combat antisemitism. So it's easy to look at that and say "see? We can never trust them."
(Disclaimer in case this reaches someone who doesn't know me. I'm anti-Zionist, I'm explaining a mentality I don't agree with. I'm not making these arguments as if they're correct, I'm laying them out to show them.)
Yeah, while not Israeli, I was very much raised in a zionist mindset, which heavily involved the idea that someday we would NEED to run to Israel. And I was pretty heavily raised with all of these ideas, with a complete fear and suspicion to any gentiles to the point where I knew I wasn't supposed to trust a single gentile opinion on anything Jewish, because they were obviously just using it to control us into assimilation, or drive us out, survival optional.
I only recognized how dangerous that was from other Jews, and even then only because I was constantly uncomfortable with listening to the concept of a "self hating Jew" as the only explanation for why they disagree with Zionism. I need a reason, even when my entire being disagrees with someone, I need to understand why.
Without that mentality, the real oppression in the background of zionist thinking, makes it so easy to just spiral out into monstrosity. People really do hate us, and really do condemn legitimate self defense. So if there isn't the self awareness that fascism isn't a unique ideology of "bad people", that anyone can be prone to being swayed by fascist thinking even if they've been victims of it, the legitimate terror and still-present discrimination makes a fantastic barrier to lock yourself in an echo chamber where you dismiss those who say you're hurting them as not one of you, and thus lying.
This last paragraph is great, thank you for that.
Important (no alt text bc phone, feel free to add) removed the posters name but they're welcome to respond ofc.
So many Zionists think the only other option to what they're doing now is death. In 1967, a war which Israel won and knew it would win, Israelis were preparing large fields for Israeli burials bc they thought they would be killed en masse. Sorry for linking TOI here but this quote os relevant and it's hard to find for free online from a better source. Quote partway down the page "During the Six-Day War, Israelis prepared for their demise, following the ways of our perpetrators from World War II, digging mass graves just in case of catastrophe as well as producing atomic weapons."
In reality, Israel was not at risk and Israel in fact used this war as a reason to expand further settlements and commit the Naksa, the expulsion of a further 300,000 Palestinians. Egypt had no means of destroying Israel in 1967 just as Palestine has no means of doing that now. But that's not what Zionists teach their children. They hear Israel was almost destroyed in 1967, and that Israel did what was necessary to "defend itself."
If you're brought up in constant fear of annihilation (no matter how unfounded), both of yourself and your community (worldwide Jewry etc.) It's easy to fall into fascism. And if you're taught that anyone who disagrees with you wants you dead (whether they're part of your in-group or not), you won't be reasoned with.
