#leftwing antisemitism

[dynamicity-keysmash]

Sometimes I try to engage in political discussion on parts of the internet that aren't Jumblr and get violently reminded of the widely-held consensus that there is no antisemitism on the left.

[libtard-blazkowicz]

[puddle-turtle]

hello i was recently talking to my roommate who has been getting into conspiracy theory tiktoks about 'the elite' etc and i was trying to explain how a lot of that routes back to antisemitism, they were saying i was wrong and making things up and honestly i do not have the energy or resources at hand currently to direct them best, asked them to go research and listen to jewish voices

does anyone have resources or good accounts etc on antisemitism and conspiracies and the dogwhistles in them and how they are harmful etc?

note: if anything needs reworded or a tag should be taken out please lmk i am still learning lol

[socialistsephardi]

A concern regarding leftist politics and anti-Semitism | portfolio

Growing up Lebanese Canadian, I had never heard of the supposed conflict the world wanted to exist between Arabs and Jews until I was about eleven. Having all t...

This was written by a non Jew, and honestly, I’ve never been so happy. This is so validating. Finally, someone who isn’t Jewish is calling out antisemitism on the left. Finally.

“ Supporting the self-determination of many oppressed minorities such as the Kurdish people, it would be hypocritical and flat-out wrong for me to say I did not support the self-determination of the Jewish people. Being historically discriminated against, oppressed, and subject to genocide, Jewish people have every right to want self-determination, and denying this is anti-Semitic. Now, I have seen the left liken this to the settler colonialism of Indigenous peoples in Canada. While I am opposed to plenty of actions taken by the state of Israel, most notably the vast displacement of Palestinians and the expansion of settlements that continue to marginalize and displace Palestinians, I am uncomfortable with the comparison. This is because white people colonizing has a far different and more oppressive history. White supremacy exists. “Jewish supremacy” does not, and such myths have only perpetuated hateful sentiments against the Jewish people. Further I’d like to pre-emptively add that I would not classify Jews as white because historically Jewish people as a class have been otherized by white supremacy, not included in any of it or its benefits. Yes, some Jews are white passing, just as some Arabs (including myself!) are. “

THANK YOU!

“ Because of this difficult and nuanced situation, the concerns of Jewish people are often not addressed on the left. When any other group says “I am a (marginalized group) and this is (racist/sexist/homophobic etc.)”, leftist strategy is always to believe them. It’s not to question the lived experience of members of marginalized groups or to say “no, this is not racist”. Thus, when Jewish people feel alienated by certain tenets of anti-Israel politics, we need to listen to them, not simply say “no, this isn’t racist, there’s a difference between supporting Israel and supporting Jewish people”. Yes, of course there’s a difference. I support Arabs while thinking that plenty of the institutional practices of Arab states are extremely problematic. But we need to be held accountable and realize that systemic anti-Semitism can make us think we’re not being racist or discriminatory towards Jewish people when we really are. “

THIS IS ACTUALLY AMAZINGLY GOOD

BARUCH HASHEM

[freegazafromhamas]

29 percent of young Americans view Jews as a threat to society -- poll | The Times of Israel

29 percent of young Americans view Jews as a threat to society — poll

Blue Square survey finds nearly half of US respondents view antisemitism as a 'major problem,' but most think Jews should handle it on their

[freegazafromhamas]

Hasan doing damage control, essentially saying "I'm not saying the cold-blooded murder of peace activists outside a Jewish Museum by a guy chanting Free Palestine was a false flag, but also this is exactly what a false flag would look like".

Ends up sounding exactly like Alex Jones and Qanon folks but with less conviction in his beliefs.

The horseshoe is a circle.

[freegazafromhamas]

[notaplaceofhonour]

One of the experiences that really highlighted to me how willing the left can be to turn a blind eye to and gaslight Jews about antisemitism was trying to talk about Michael Jackson’s antisemitism, such as in the song “They Don’t Care About Us”, which was released with the lyrics:

“Jew me, sue me, everybody do me / Kick me, kike me, don't you black or white me.”

I feel like that is shockingly straightforward with how antisemitic it is, both in its specific language (the K-slur & Jew-as-a-verb) and its conspiratorial bent in the context of the whole song. But when it came out and Jews were obviously appalled and spoke out about it, MJ made the standard “but have you considered that accusing me of bigotry offends me?” and “I was taken out of context!” statements that bigots make when they get called out on their bigotry.

As for MJ’s claim that he was taken out of context, here is some context: In 1993, MJ’s relationship with the press deteriorated when they began covering allegations of his child sex abuse. In the midst of this, tabloids ran a lot of scummy, sensationalized headlines—ruthlessly mocking his appearance and eccentricities and even running entirely false stories. This marked a drastic shift in MJ’s lyrics, which began to focus heavily on his victimhood (both real and perceived, often conflating both and tying them to broader social issues), with many of the songs on the next album HIStory (1995) being about this. “They Don’t Care About Us” is on this album. In 2003, there were revelations that Michael Jackson had grown close with members of Nation of Islam (a fringe and antisemitic hate group), and in 2005, Good Morning America aired a phone recording of Michael Jackson calling Jews “leeches”, claiming Jews had targeted him for his wealth, and saying “It’s a conspiracy. Jews do it on purpose”.

This is the context of Michael Jackson singing about being a stand-in for the victims of all kinds of real world oppression like racism and police brutality, and then saying he was being “Jewed” and “kiked”. It came out that he was molesting little kids, and rather than face the music, he tried to dodge responsibility by conflating those allegations with racism and the gross, sensationalist bullshit that tabloids were running on him; he wove all these things together in a narrative that he could use to wrap himself up in victimhood & conspiracy to position himself as not just a martyr, but the very archetype of martyrdom so that the world could, as he sang on the same album in his cover of John Lennon’s song, “Come together, over me.”

The lyrics were later changed to replace “Jew” & “kike” with abstract noise that drowned out the words or repetitions of “sue” & “strike”. But even so, this is still a song, not truly about inequality and injustice, but using inequality and injustice to shield a child molester from responsibility. And the fact that “Jew” can so easily be replaced with “sue”, not simply in sound but in meaning, without disrupting the narrative and tone of the song, belies the fact that Michael Jackson believed himself to be a victim of some sort of conspiracy between “(((The Media)))” and greedy Jewish lawyers.

And yet, trying to talk about this to this day, even with the benefit of hindsight, when it’s pretty well-accepted that MJ was in fact a child molester and knowing what he said about Jews after this song came out, it is next to impossible to get people to see the antisemitism in him tying together all oppression in the world as him being “Jewed” and “kiked” by (((The System)))—even when he literally says “Jew”, even when he says the K-slur, even when he refers to Jews as blood-suckers, even when he literally says Jews are conspiring against him. When people started using the song as part of the George Floyd protests, and I was like “hey, maybe that’s not a great idea” and gently tried to explain this context, I was ignored, told it didn’t matter because the song was about inequality, told Black people have every right to distrust Jews “because Jews are White” and stabbed Black people in the back by embracing Whiteness, etc. etc.

I think that is one of the times that really started to make it clear to me, “oh, yeah no, leftists can be staring straight at a K-slur in the mouth of a known sex offender and still say it’s fine”—something leftists generally would not do for any other vulnerable minority. It still astounds me.