It's easy to tell when leftists are simply antisemitic because you suddenly see their views break down when it comes to Jews and Israel.
The fact is that Israel is the Jewish homeland, going back to the Kingdoms of Israel and Judea 3,000 years ago, and the entire history of the region is Jewish people being invaded, expelled, and killed in that homeland. Assyrians, Babylonians, Romans, Persians, Ottomans. Again and again and again.
This doesn't excuse the atrocities inflicted on Palestinians. The entire reason people say this is complicated is because the Levant is also the homeland of Palestinians. This is about many peoples who share the same homeland and their rights to self determination.
But suddenly leftist views go out the window when it comes to ancestry and people's original homes and self determination.
You'll hear them say "land back" and "decolonize" in the US, Australia, and other places. That people have the right to their homes and self governance. That land should go to indigenous peoples and their rights respected, even if it means taking away the rights of occupiers or colonists.
But then you talk about Israel and all of a sudden it's backflips to do anything but paint the situation as "Israel bad, Palestine good."
First is usually the insistent and incorrect antisemitic belief that Israel didn't exist before 1948, which is patently false. Google "history of Israel."
This one just fascinates me cuz like. Where do you think Jewish people came from? Thin air? Are we just going to ignore Exodus and the Jews fleeing Egypt to the Levant or how Jesus, a Jewish man, was executed in Jerusalem by occupying Romans?
I've seen "well it's been hundreds of years since Jews lived there." First, that's just false. Second, if there were fewer Jews in the Levant, it is because of the aforementioned invasion, murder, and expulsion; it doesn't make it not the Jewish ancestral homeland. Finally, if that is your belief, why do you support land back, etc? It's been hundreds of years since indigenous people in America were killed and forced elsewhere. What length of time is it appropriate to start saying "well it's someone else's land now"?
I've even seen leftists say, "well, the Ottomans / Arabs / someone else won the land and should get to keep it." Which is horrifying to hear from anyone and batshit to hear from self proclaimed leftists who decry colonization and the treatment of indigenous and first nation people elsewhere.
I've seen some people say that Israel is all white settlers from Europe, because leftists can't fathom anything other than "white people v people of color"... Which is again false because the vast, vast majority of Israeli Jews are middle eastern Jews and look no different than Arab people in the region. (Isn't imposing whiteness on people who are demonstrably not white in and of itself a form of colonization? But we're not ready for that conversation.)
Every argument circles back somehow to the belief that there should be no Jewish state at all, no right of self determination for Jewish people. Not just a different government in Israel that is not authoritarian and militaristic and would support Palestinian statehood.
No, so called leftists want to entirely abolish a Jewish state in the Jewish homeland.
And that's where leftism breaks down and becomes antisemitic.
Because leftists will cry for land back and decolonization and reparations and right of people to return home all day long until it comes to the Jewish people.
You can decry the actions of both Hamas and the Israeli government. You can support statehood for both Palestinian and Jewish people in their homelands and each their right to self governance.
Instead, it's mental acrobatics to deny Jewish people their ancestral heritage in the Levant and justify why no Jewish state should exist at all.
And that's how the left becomes antisemitic.
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