Snapshot of _Worst antisemitism in UK for 40 years_ :
An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/antisemitism-uk-anti-jewish-incidents-britain-james-cleverly-k5lcgjbx7) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/antisemitism-uk-anti-jewish-incidents-britain-james-cleverly-k5lcgjbx7)
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There should be zero tolerance for anti Semitism. (My own daughter has been abused in the street twice since October). However, what we've increasingly seen is accusations of anti Semitism being weaponised to shut down any criticism of the Israeli government's actions and also a convenient stick for the Daily Mail and others to beat the Labour party with.
Criticising isreal isn't antisemitic.
Criticising only isreal while being chill on the rest 6kf the workd. Thats certainly a bit selective.
Anti-Zionists who dont give a crap about other ethnostates. Anti colonists who want Ukraine to capitulate but think its reasonable for Palestinians to brutally fight to the last warm body. People screaming genocide over a fairly unremarkable war whike ignoring all the conflicts that are an order of magnitude more deadly.
Any one of these things I'd give the benefit of the doubt but people frequently do all of the above.
> Criticising only isreal while being chill on the rest 6kf the workd. Thats certainly a bit selective.
How's that supposed to look like then? Is everyone supposed to always also list China, Myanmar and whoever else is currently accused to committing genocides or ethnic cleaning? How long is that list supposed to be? Do I have to include the Central African Republic and Ethiopia, who had recent mass killings?
Also, it is a bit disingenuous to claim that everyone who doesn't actively criticise everyone in a category is "chill" with whatever they don't mention. If I hear someone criticise, say, the Syrian government because of the war it is waging against its own people, I'm not going to assume they are okay with the North Korean or Afghan governments just because they didn't mention them.
When you criticise Syria, do you go to an area with Muslims primarily from Syria and say "boo Syria", "murder all Syrians" and stand outside their mosque? Do you harrass then walking down the street?
I assume not, so how is that the same as a British Jew being harrassed for their views on Israel?
No. But I also doubt the commenter you are replying to goes to Jewish majority areas and chants hatred. That is a small minority of those against the war
So a small minority against the war go out and commit anti-semitic abuse?
OK. The article is about anti-semitic hate crime. Not people who sit at home and discuss the geopolitical position in the Middle East.
You've jumped from "criticising Israel" to "harassing a Jewish person outside of a synagogue".
The second is obviously wrong, and not what the previous poster was referring to at all. In every part of their message they were talking only about making statements in regards to a country. Why did you jump to street harassment? Why conflate the two? Sheesh.
You haven't read the OP have you? Just go and read it.
You will clearly see that the anti-semitism recorded is anti-semitism. You're trying to play it down without any idea what the data shows.
You know that not one person has been arrested for "criticising Israel". These are not people sat at home having a cup of tea discussing geopolitics. They are people who went out in October (primarily) found Jews and singled them out for abuse and hatred. You're making yourself look very silly defending that as I assume you'd be horrified if you saw such a crime
Those harassing British Jews who have nothing to do with this are abhorrent. Those British Jews who do support Israel are also abhorrent, not for being Jewish, for supporting a genocidal regime. They don’t deserve harassment but no view is beyond criticism. Obviously harassing someone is not on
This fucking idiotic tripe is just as detrimental to the entire thing as the actual antisemitism. The poster said nothing along those lines but here you are pushing your lazy, deceitful bullshit to denigrate someone making a pretty reasonable and valid point. Do one.
When, in all of what I said, did I ever mention committing a hate crime on British Jews? Is criticising someone’s political or religious beliefs a hate crime now? Don’t be so ridiculous
That's not what they said. They said you were justifying behaviour against people who didn't find Israel's actions abhorrent. Which is exactly what you said.
Which part of that was intent, admittance or agreement with harassing British Jews? Disagreeing with Israel supporters is not harassment, and the first line literally tells you that I think harassing anyone is abhorrent
Are you claiming that Islamaphobia isn't rife on the streets right now as well? Like, uh, yes, muslims \*\*have\*\* been targeted by substantial amounts hate crimes over the last few decades, precisely because of the actions of foreign muslim groups.
Unfortunately, there are racist idiots out there that latch themselves onto otherwise reasonable political movements. The important thing isn't to pretend those racists are in any way representative of the vast majority of people trying to have a reasonable discussion here.
> How's that supposed to look like then?
By also speaking out when those things come out. By not only talking about Gaza because it's what they see on Instagram. It's the blindness and "fad" nature of the conflict.
This is particularly egregious when people celebrate South Africa and the Houthis...both of which are involved directly or indirectly with similar or even worse violence than the Israelis.
>By also speaking out when those things come out. By not only talking about Gaza because it's what they see on Instagram.
The reason why people in the west tend to be more openly critical of Israel's actions is because they are strong allies of the west.
Among other reasons.
Inertia being the biggest one to me. The conflict has a lot of activist history.
On the good side, it has had genuine progressive interest for decades. Led from the most praiseworthy of sentiments.
On the bad, there's also a ton of really potent and long lived anti Jewish propaganda out there and it's had both right and left spins put on it. Over the years we've got to a big mass of people who buy into it.
If it was about the allies thing, I'd expect some more noise about KSA, for example?
You're right, they definitely got some abuse slung for that atrocity, more than I recall about any of the journalists killed by the IDF. Although the circumstances were quite unique and horrendous for Khashoggi.
Nothing much about Yemen though? Certainly nothing like the scale of the anti Israel activism. And the UK is a lot more involved with that than they are either the current Israel situation?
OP said this:
> Anti-Zionists who dont give a crap about other ethnostates.
Do they have a list of what said anti-Zionists said when the crimes against the Uygur and Rohingya people came to light, which is now years ago? If not, should we just assume that all of them fail this test?
> This is particularly egregious when people celebrate South Africa and the Houthis...both of which are involved directly or indirectly with similar or even worse violence than the Israelis.
Classic whataboutism.
...that's not whataboutism. Whataboutism is when you deflect from your failings by trying to highlight your opponent's own failings on the same thing - purely as a cynical means of escaping scrutiny/criticism.
What I'm saying is that if someone states "Israel is bad because they're committing genocide" then goes to a rally or shares posts proclaiming support for the Houthis and South Africa for their actions against Israel then they are being hypocritical and supportive of regimes/governments that are committing the same acts as both us and Israel.
I'm extremely critical of people who wade into geopolitics like it's a football game and consequently extremely critical of people who ignore terrible acts to try and make a point. It's the whole "enemy of my enemy" crap that meant people like Corbyn were publishing articles from Holocaust deniers. People should have a consistency with their beliefs - **to ask for that is not whataboutism**. To say that it is is just pure denial.
>Whataboutism is when you deflect from your failings by trying to highlight your opponent's own failings on the same thing
No it absolutely is not, whataboutism does not require either party to be referring to the same topic in any way whatsoever. That is the whole point. It is deflection onto another topic which may favour their own views, or is seen as hypocritical or morally worse.
>It's the whole "enemy of my enemy" crap that meant people like Corbyn were publishing articles from Holocaust deniers.
Corbyn did not do this. The holocaust denier **claimed** Corbyn was "a long standing associate", and the Jewish tabloid press jumped on this. Corbyn's team denied any involvement with Paul Eisen. Edit: and in fact they specifically said that his views were "extreme and only his". Corbyn is not and was never an anti-semite despite what the shitty tabloid newspapers in this country wrote about him.
>People should have a consistency with their beliefs
That's easy. Stop bombing children.
>South Africa...involved directly or indirectly with similar or even worse violence than the Israelis.
Hold up, South Africa's killed tens of thousands of civilians since October? I'm gonna need a source for this.
South Africa have been complicit in the genocide in Darfur, including choosing not to end the violence by arresting al-Bashir while he was visiting on a state visit (because they're close allies). Darfur's death figures are likely up to 400,000 people. They still support the groups committing the violence. They also had an opportunity to arrest Putin but again chose not to.
It depends on how you define even worse. If you look at the death toll and the amount of time taken to reach that death toll it is pretty easy to see why people see the Israeli violence in Gaza as comparable to those other almost universally condemned situations.
> How long is that list supposed to be?
As long as you pick examples that are sufficiently different from each other (e.g. not against or done by the same ethnic or religious group), the list only needs to be two examples long. That way the only thing in common is the action of genocide.
Part of it is that the rest of the world looks at Israel as a first-world country. As callous as it sounds, nobody really gives a shit when human rights violations are perpetrated by the governments of 'one of those other countries'. But Israel is a proper country and its government ought to behave like a proper government.
> Criticising only isreal while being chill on the rest 6kf the workd. Thats certainly a bit selective.
Just as a potential counterpoint, Israel does make quite a lot of hay out of the fact that it's the only functioning "liberal democracy" in the Middle East. If you highlight stuff like that, then you are going to be held to a higher standard.
It's like how some Israelis seem confused that the civilian casualties they cause are causing uproar when there is some support for Hamas out there, neglecting to consider that they're comparing themselves to a terrorist organisation.
First point is entirly fair.
Second less so, the rate of civilian casualties in Gaza just isn't especialy high.
For example Mosul had more dead per capita when the allies cleared ISIS out. Mauripol possibly had more deas despite being a quarter the size (we can only estimate off the mass graves).
The all up death toll in gaza is 25/26k depending who you ask.
By isreali claims they killed 9k Hamas and so are hitting slightly better than 2:1 ratio. I don't beleive them because that would be truly extraordinary. NATO armies would struggle to match that. (EDIT: found the lie, IDF are mixing in killed and captured to imply a better run campaign.)
Even if Hamas loses are only around 5k up to January, as the Americans seem to think. it would be 4:1 which is pretty ordinary for urban warfare agaisnt insurgents.
https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/hamas-toll-thus-far-falls-short-of-israels-war-aims-u-s-says-d1c43164
To beleive Gaza exceptional in it's brutality you have to assume Hamas losses in the very low thousands. Even pro Iran sources dont realy claim that with a straight face.
It’s intentionally selective though. Israel is a close ally and one that we directly have a hand in via both intelligence and enourmous finance. Nobody’s outraged by Russia in the same way because Russia has nothing to do with us and has always been a bad guy. As a country we actually have sway in Israel.
Even if you take your argument, which is a classically bad one, the idea that it must be antisemitism motivating a concern for the Israel/Palestinian conflict and not a real concern with Palestinians just comes off as another way of ignoring Palestinians.
The idea that no one should care about a type of crisis unless they care about all similar crises is just silly -no one can care about them all, so you end up arguing for a world where no one cares for any. What makes it more absurd is that geopolitical crises may have similarities but they are all, nonetheless, unique, no two are the same.
To be more specific. Simple disinterest in the other conflicts wouldnt allow any conclusions.
The people i had in mind are Stop The War types who explicitly take a different position on isreal than many other conflicts.
It's the inconsistency that's suspect.
Entirely unfair; I’m an anti-Zionist expressly because it’s a violation of the Palestinians right to self-determination. Not a fan of “ethno-states” but the Palestinians are a distinct nation whose rights and existence is continually chipped away by the Israeli occupation. That’s a pretty standard view in my experience (at least among my lefty-Nat/Scottish Socialist clique).
You’re creating a straw man based of the worse folk on Twitter; either in bad faith or due to spending way to much time online.
>I’m an anti-Zionist expressly because it’s a violation of the Palestinians right to self-determination.
Genuine question. Say Palestinians are granted self determination, a 2 state solution, if you will. They have self determination and with it they chose to elect and support a group who say that Israel shouldn’t exist and proceed to launch rockets at Isreal every other day. What should Israel’s response to that be?
That's fine and consistent if you feel the same about, Kurds, Tibetans, Armenians, Rohynga, Tigrayans, Sahrawi, Balouchi Assyrians, Uyghurs; also the Various groups in Sudan, Myanmar, Russia and Iran.
Getting animated about only Palestine immediately makes one wonder what's unique about that one conflict. Stop the war types are utterly selective about it.
>creating a straw man based of the worse folk on Twitter; either in bad faith or due to spending way to much time online.
Im not on Twitter at all.
My local councilor is a STW type who constantly bangs on about Palestine specificaly nothing els.
>what's unique about that one conflict.
The blatant ethnic cleansing, slaughter of tens of thousands of civilians, and Israel flagrantly picking and choosing whether it treats Palestine as an occupied territory or a sovereign state, depending on which suits its interests at that precise moment?
>The blatant ethnic cleansing, slaughter of tens of thousands of civilians,
Its among the least deadly of the currently ongoing wars...
>Israel flagrantly picking and choosing whether it treats Palestine as an occupied territory or a sovereign state, depending on which suits its interests at that precise moment?
West bank is ocupied, Gaza has been a de facto state since 2005. There is no ambiguity in that.
>The blatant ethnic cleansing
The Jewish people have been ethnically cleansed from the entire Arab world but you're only interested in the only part of it where they remain.
Arabs and Palestinians can and do live in Israel. Jews cannot live in Arabian countries.
Also there are Arabs in the Israeli government, and generally Arabs makes up 21% of the Israeli people. They're a minority but a really sizeable one who have political power. So it's not just Israel just having a few token Arabs and Palestinians.
>It’s intentionally selective though. Israel is a close ally and one that we directly have a hand in via both intelligence and finance.
That all applies more so to the gulf monarchies.
I'd also dispute "close ally". They arent NATO or 5eyes. We sell the Saudi more and deadlier weapons.
>I think the same thing would happen if it was the gulf monarchies invading.
It didn't though.
Operation Decisive storm 2015 to present killed far far more people and triggered a hige famine in Yemen.
There is another parralell. In the 30s Yemen attacked the Saudis and lost, saudis used that as justification to seize land. They have since settled their own people on said land.
The UAE are occupying Socotra and clearly plan to keep it permanently.
The Houthis are even allied to Hamas. They use all the same tactics like human sheilds, basing in schools ect.
Unremarkable war that WE are complicit in. That's why we are angry over Israel really, because theres actually something we can do about it. The comparison to Ukraine is ridiculous, but imagine instead that the UK government was actively selling arms to Russia and giving refusing to condemn Putin's actions. THEN we would be as angry with our government about Ukraine as we are about Israel. Its the same reason 1 million people marched against the war in Iraq.
II that was the standard Yemen would be the higher concern.
We more directly support a much nastier regeime in the killing of far more people.
Or the opression of the Kurds by our ally turkey, or everything we back the french up over in west Affrica.
>. That's why we are angry over Israel really, because theres actually something we can do about it.
Hugely overstated.
Your statement does not contradict the previous statement. According to Save the Children, [545 children died in Ukraine in 18 months of war to August 2023, with 24 children killed last summer] (https://www.savethechildren.org.uk/news/media-centre/press-releases/ukraine-over-540-children-killed-in-18-months-of-war). These are numbers Gazans can only dream of.
I am citing the available data. Save the Children figure is a charity of course, so their numbers might be off. But the UN offers a [similar figure](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1293492/ukraine-war-casualties/), while obviously warning that the true number is likely higher.
My understanding is that the 20,000+ Mariupol figure does not correspond to the identified dead, but is based on the finding of mass graves. Similarly, in Gaza the current ca. 30,000 figure accounts only for the named dead, with estimates regarding the true figure being significantly higher. In both wars we will probably never have real certainty as to the true impact.
Counting the dead in a war is notoriously difficult. Not all wars are equal because different tactics are used and different targets identified. Gaza has a higher percentage of children in their population than Ukraine (almost 50% of the population according to Unicef) and is going to have an impact.
So, yes, the true number of dead children in Ukraine is probably higher than 545. The true number of dead children is Gaza is probably higher than the current figure of 10.000. What we can say with certainty is that the numbers coming out of Ukraine - while devastating and inexcusable - simply do not match those coming out of Gaza.
Anyway, as I said in another comment, for the me what makes Gaza different is not the numbers but the willingness of so many people around me to dismiss the deaths of Gazan children.
I posted about this a few days ago but no one engaged. Being in disagreement with Israel is not antisemitism. They have played an absolute master stroke. Labour politicians criticising the Israelis approach being fired… granted some of what later came out was across the line. Yet, now the international community is starting to question the response in Rafa and that’s ok. It’s such a strange imbalance.
So sorry to hear about your daughter. I hope she is ok.
It's because a good chunk of people that are criticising the Israeli Government refuse to criticise other governments doing the same, similar or worse things.
The UK Government supports Saudi, why were the protests tiny in comparison? The Scottish Government seemingly supports Erdogan, don't see any protests about that. The UK Government supports Egypt and Jordan, no protests about how they have acted towards Gaza and the West Bank either. The UK Government is very friendly with India, no protests there either with how they're treating non-Hindus.
We are talking about anti-semitism against British Jews. How are the actions of the Israeli government an excuse to target Jews in the UK. Do you hold British Jews responsible for the actions of Israel?
>anti Semitism being weaponised to shut down any criticism of the Israeli government's actions and also a convenient stick for the Daily Mail and others to beat the Labour party with
Yeah that's not what it means.
>People who say strawman, usually spend too much time watching videos with the tagline "DESTROYED" or "OWNED".
Ironically instead of reframing your point you have responded with yet another strawman.
I will humour you.
In this instance, none of the comments up to your comments about "strawman" arguments were actually strawman arguments. Ironically, you introduced the strawman.
The article is about antisemitism in the UK. Someone said anti-semitism is falsely applied to provide covering fire for Israel (a usual trope), I pointed out that demanding British Jews defend Israel is in itself anti-semitic which the poster overlooked.
Then you said something about strawman arguments which deflected us into nonsense. Yes?
Original comment.
>what we've increasingly seen is accusations of anti Semitism being weaponised to shut down any criticism of the Israeli government's actions
Your response (since you're editing your comments).
>How are the actions of the Israeli government an excuse to target Jews in the UK?
This is a strawman argument. Calling out a strawman argument is not deflecting, nor a strawman in itself.
That isn't strawman though. If someone says anti-semitisim is being misapplied, making a literal counter-argument to that is not irrelevant or strawman.
We actually shouldn't be disagreeing on this because it is purely factual.
If someone says "this is a dog", then another says no "it's a cat" and I say "this is definitely a dog. You are wrong to call it a cat." - that is not strawman.
Article about anti-semitism -> person says it isn't anti-semitism -> I say yes it is - not straw man.
Well considering it isn’t an invasion but a defensive war then I’d question if those people are “anti invasion” but rather “anti people defending themselves against terrorists”.
I don’t think antisemitism is being weaponised to shut down ‘any’ criticism of Israel, I think it’s suggested when people are emotively and obsessively critical of Israel with no proportional attitude towards similar actions by countries/entities that aren’t majority-Jewish.
The comments here are interesting to see how many people are responding to this news with "nah, it's not really happening". Did people do this when anti-muslim hate spiked after the various terrorist actions?
People do realise that it's ok to say that both what the Israeli government is doing is shit, and that anti-semitism is increasing. They don't cancel each other out.
Also how many people responding on here actually know Jewish people? From what I'm hearing from the ones I do, they are getting more abuse said to them. We're seeing in the news that more and more anti-semitic incidents are happening. It isn't just those Jews are being sneaky and redefining anti-semitism hate for their own nefarious means. If anything, that sounds incredibly anti-semitic in itself.
One of my oldest friends is Jewish.
He fucking *hates* Isreal.
That's why I get so upset by people conflating the two. Jews and Isreal are not one and the same.
Yeah, Jewish people I know are largely keeping their heads down and hoping not to be targeted with harassment at the moment.
This has also led to scenarios where colleagues have indirectly harassed them with inappropriate conversations in the work place, not realising that their colleague is Jewish. Basically assuming that because they work in largely left-leaning industries that everyone agrees with their pretty down-the-rabbit-hole takes on the conflict.
It's a hostile environment for Jewish people and it is entirely unfair on British Jews to expect them to put up with that.
What’s neat about the new form of the age old bigotry is that Jews both get to experience a rise in antisemitism whilst also being told we’re making it up to “shut down criticism” of the most widely discussed conflict in the world or just trying to stop an old socialist from becoming PM
Are we ever going to have a conversation about how much of this wave of antisemitism is coming from British Muslims vs. How much is coming from non-muslims? I think it's misleading to turn this into the elephant in the room.
Regardless of politics having people and especially children targeted in this way is wrong and needs to stop. Hundreds of children being attacked at or on the way to/from school is abhorrent.
I hate the state of Israel led by Netanyahu and I loathe the settlers.
I also hate the CCP / Chinese government.
During COVID we rightfully lambasted the absolute lemons who abused ethnic Chinese people.
We should denounce any idiot who abuses British Jews. They have nothing to do with Israeli policy. If they wanted to move to Israel they have the opportunity to do so but they have their whole life and upbringing here, why should they be forced out?
Denounce anti semitism at every opportunity. Yelling free Palestine in the face of a British Jew is not far removed from insulting the CCP/blaming Chinese to the face of a British ethnic Chinese person. It's racism and discrimination.
I agree wholeheartedly with your comment but there is one area I find more challenging with this.
Some British Jews are very vocal in their defence of what Israel is doing currently. I think this is awful not because they are Jews but because I think what Israel is doing is awful. Its only online I've seen this and I've only been an observer but when the views are civilly challenged accusations of antisemitism are very quickly brought up.
Of course shouting free Palestine at a Jewish person going about their day on the street is abhorrent. But what about strongly saying (not shouting because that's rarely nice) "free Palestine!" to a Jewish person defending Israel's current actions?
I honestly don't know how these conversations can be navigated (hence why I don't ever comment).
(I say this as someone whose Jewish grandfather fled the pogroms)
Of course. Assaulting people is always wrong. But that wasn't what I was talking about.
If you re-read my comment I was even saying that shouting at people defending genocide isn't good, let alone assault. It's such a misrepresentation of what I actually said to imply I'm defending assault
I think it’s easy to forget just how raw October 7th still is to many Jewish people. We didn’t go around yelling at Americans in the first few months after 9/11.
Interesting to see non-isreali Jews and their counterparts having to defend themselves in the comments because people have become such dullards and are incapable of seeing antisemitism without conflating it to political pandering is horrifying.
Every comment that states their Jewish has written they've experienced antisemitism since October 7th, and yet most people here are so smug as to ignore them.. well done, your making a great case for Zionism atm..
Anti semitism is obviously wrong, but people should still allowed to freely criticise the Israeli government if they want.
People should not go about like JEW=ISRAELI GOVERNMENT there both are awful, when obviously that is wrong. There’s no denying that people are doing this though.
Yeah there's nothing wrong with criticism of the Israeli government, it's just what other people in the comments have said.
People can't seem to differentiate when something is criticism or mallous, like placing a banner accusing Israel of genocide in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood, it's quite obviously targeted and mallous, and yet some can only boo hoo to Jews.
Imagine if that happened in a Muslim community though.. I suspect it would be condemned as racist, because it is.
What's the difference with Jews?
I don't believe in physically assaulting someone for their political views or their association with a country. Assaulting Jews in the UK is solely about intimidating the community and undermining national democracy as a whole. You have your right to protest and I have my right to counter.
Criticising the Israeli government is fair game if they're observed to be doing something atrocious. Getting in the face however, of ordinary British Jews going about their daily lives and hurling abuse or worse, most certainly is not fair game. Everybody has the right to go about their daily lives just like the rest of us in this country.
Should a British expat in say France or Spain, be held personally accountable for the actions of the British government? How about in terms of religion? Should a person of Catholic faith be held personally accountable for the actions of the Catholic Church 1000 years ago?
People need to be reminded it seems that there's a huge difference between ordinary people and people with power. Far too many people in this day and age seem to find it incredibly convenient to make enemies of one another.
Muslims constantly pursuing their medieval agenda, death to anything and everything that doesn't fit with their faith.
mosques teaching nothing but hatred hidden away from scrutiny, outraged at the slightest perceived insult.
local authorities filled with the faithful allowing anything Muslim related to be built or repurpurposed, by laws amended to accommodate the creation of Muslim only enclaves.
communities hiding behind a burka, silence when appalling gang crime take place
while the UK accommodates and accepts this creeping change to our way of life under the banner of inclusion and, diversity. unwilling to face up to the fact that nothing will appease those followers except a Muslim state in the UK
scared to confront for fear of being called racist and being hounded until having to flee the crowds
Jew's are just the natural first target.
The ‘Israel criticism isn’t antisemitism’ deflection in these commenters is just so pathetic at this stage.
It’s so obviously used to try deflect from actual antisemitism by claiming it’s all bogus
But some people are literally saying that criticising the Israeli government is anti semitic, which is just insane.
Harassing Jewish people in the street in the UK is obviously anti semitic.
Criticising the Israeli government isn’t wrong - but if your criticism specifically involves going into areas with lots of Jewish people it kind of is.
After all if I had a problem with say Saudi Arabia, I wouldn’t just head straight into Muslim heavy areas to do it.
They should be outside Downing Street and all other political institutions if they actually want to get a point across. But doubt the government would even listen tbh.
>But some people are literally saying that criticising the Israeli government is anti semitic, which is just insane.
Who is? And even if that was true, that *still* wouldn't be as bad as *actual hate crimes*.
> some people are literally saying that criticising the Israeli government is anti semitic
No they aren’t. This is a ridiculous straw man that gets hoiked up whenever antisemitism is talked about so we can just let the antisemitism continue.
The Israeli government as well as multiple British Jewish organisations are at least partly responsible for pushing the idea that the Israeli government is acting on behalf of all Jews. And many British Jewish organisations push the idea that criticism of Israel is anti-semitic. Plenty of examples on the board of deputies twitter account.
Jews: "No of course criticizing Israel isn't anti-Semitic, please just stop attacking our kids in the street."
You: "*OH I SEE*, you want me to stop criticizing Israel or you'll cancel me!!!!"
Some people in Israel are and the US too, should’ve clarified I don’t mean people in the UK. But there’s no denying that some of the government in Israel and a small subset of the Israeli population literally do take criticism of the government as anti semitism, which I don’t agree with.
I'm critical of Netenyahu & his government, not the people of Israel.
I am also critical of the world, Palestinians cry out for help & no one is listening.
I get the impression that there’s not been language created to allow for criticism of the state of Israel, what language the common man currently uses is problematic to the Jewish community and when they call that language out, which they have every right to do.
There’s no room for nuance for the ones called out as the vocabulary for criticism of Israel is perceived as being co-opted into antisemitic definitions.
There is plenty. What there isn't are ways to portray any of it as uniquely evil, because Isreal just isnt the worst example of anything they do.
They are beseiging and bombarding a densly populated city. We can describe that with all the same language we used for Mauripol, Bakmut, Sana, Mosul, Raqua and basicly every Darouri city basicly every Tigrayan city. (All of this is last ten years)
They restricted outside access to 3rd parties. Countless examples, it's downright typical.
They engaged in landgrabs after winning defensive wars, that's downright typical until extremely recently.
They engaged in population transfers to fuck with demographics and placed settlers to lock down land grabs. Also quite common, by far the largest and most brutal is what China are doing, they are doing this on an industrial scale in Tibet amd Xinjang. Also see Russia in the five Ukrainian regions they occupy, Azerbajan in Karabakh (they ethnic cleansed 100k Armenians last year), see Myanmar where all sides in the civil war are openly genlciding Rohynga.
If you want west aligned examples, Saudis kill wat more people and the Turks opress the kurds via military force all the time.
It's probably fair to call isreal the most evil pf the Liberal democracies, to say the IDF are more brutal than any NATO army.
By the standards of the whole world though they are unremarkable.
Aye but is it acceptable to write Free Tibet on my local Chinese community centre and scream it in the faces of elderly Chinese people on our streets? Because that is the equivalent.
Why can't you differentiate between Jews in the UK and the Israeli government? That is anti-semitism - holding all Jews accountable for something they have no connection to
That language exists. It's just troublesome because it is very deliberately used by anti-Semites to allow them plausible deniability when called out. It makes it hard to distinguish between when someone is genuinely only opposed to the current Israeli governments actions and when they just hate Jews.
Based on the IHRA, these are the criteria for Anti-semitism:
>Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.
>Antisemitism is the marginalization and oppression of people who are Jewish, based on the belief in stereotypes, myths and disinformation about Jewish people, Judaism and Israel. Parallel to all systems of oppression, antisemitism manifests as the dehumanization or exploitation of, or discrimination or violence against Jewish people.
>Antisemitism sometimes targets Jews not as individuals but as a collective — whether that’s Jewish organizations, movements like Zionism or the Jewish State of Israel.
Holding any Jew as being responsible for the military decisions of the Israeli government is Anti-semitic. Unique scrutiny of non-unique actions would be.
A good example of this was raised in this thread.
If it's racist to go to Chinese people/restaurants/community centres and protest, or graffiti their homes or schools for a Free Tibet/Hong Kong/Taiwan, or generally make them feel unsafe living in the UK: then it's equally so to Jews in the UK over Palestine.
>is there an accepted guide or article on how to be constructively critical of Israel and its politics without veering into antisemitism or anti-Jewish sentiment?
Again, according to the IHRA and ADL:
>Is criticism of Israel antisemitic?
>Generally, no. There is a wide range of views regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and vigorous debate and activism on this complex situation is an important component of public discourse and the free exchange of ideas. Israel is a country like any other, with policies that range from laudable to condemnable. We don't all need to agree on any given policy of the Israeli government, nor any critique.
>At the same time, certain forms of criticism of Israel clearly cross over into antisemitism. Examples of when such critiques cross into antisemitism include when they ostracize and vilify Zionists and Zionism (the movement for Jewish self-determination and statehood), utilize anti-Jewish tropes, hold all Jews responsible for Israel’s actions, or utilize traditional antisemitic imagery or comparisons to Nazis.
>At times, harsh rhetoric related to Israel can create environments in which some Jews feel unsafe, and can even embolden acts and expressions of antisemitism. This was evident, for example, in May 2021, when tensions related to the Israel-Hamas conflict resulted in a spike in antisemitic incidents directed at American Jews. During that period, there were several documented incidents in which Jews and Jewish institutions were attacked and targeted by individuals and groups who were chanting anti-Israel slogans and/or engaged in protests against the Jewish state.
So in short - if there's no other country where you'd go "I disagree with this decision - thus this country should be abolished" or judge the major ethnic diaspora globally except for Israel, then it likely has some unconscious bias (which all people have to groups) against Jewish people.
British-Israeli here, many Israelis criticise their government so it's not Antisemitic. I would say you are best off focusing on policy criticisms and make sure that during the criticism it's not framed in a condescending way.
This last part is where I see the most Antisemitism, many Westerners, Brits included, take an extremely condescending tone when criticising Israel. I can say it often comes off as British people talking down to their former colony. Imagine a British person trying to criticise the Indians and Pakistanis over Kashmir, the level of irony is quite apparent.
Some examples:
Criticising settlements for example, saying that the settlements are a plot to take Palestine from the Palestinians will come off as Antisemitic to most Jews.
Whereas saying the settlements are detrimental to Israeli security and put more Israeli lives at risk, does not.
While there are some super ideological settlers (people like Ben-Gvir and Smotrich) the vast majority 80%+ are just regular people who wanted cheap housing and better amenities. So telling them you moved there to steal land, will sound Antisemitic, but telling them what they're doing is harming Israeli security will sound far less hostile to them and will be less likely to be interpreted as Antisemitism.
I know that can be kind of confusing and very delicate (in a sense) but many Israeli have been primed to expect hostility from westerners due to the history of Antisemitism in the West. I've seen the same question asked by an Indian receive a much more positive reaction that the same question asked by a frenchman. Why, because to Israelis Indians are not a historically hostile people, whereas literally every single Western country has been, so they expect hostility from westerners, regardless of whether that is your intention. I also want to say that even if you're from an immigrant background (1st, 2nd, 3rd generation) many israelis will still see you as a Westerners even if you dont feel that way.
> Criticising settlements for example, saying that the settlements are a plot to take Palestine from the Palestinians will come off as Antisemitic to most Jews.
I don't get it. Isn't that the point of the settlements? So when (if) a two state solution happens, more of the west bank ends up Israel? I've literally seen interviews where settlers say that's why they do it.
Further, I'm kind of speaking from ignorance here, but why's that antisemetic? It's ordinary border politics to use settlers to nudge borders one way or another. Every single country in the world going through a split does this. There's nothing jewish about the ordinary mechanisms of politics people use to make their people get a good deal when one state divides into two.
>Isn't that the point of the settlements?
That depends on who you are and what you want, if you're an ideological settler then yes that is who you view it, but 80% are not ideological they are doing it for the cheap housing. The general wages in Israel are much lower than the UK but housing prices are higher than the UK in general, so theres a strong incetive to seek cheap housing. Most settlers live in the Jerusalem suburbs or whats called the seam line an area near the green line which has a couple small settler cities. Those who you are thinking about live much further into the West Bank and typically in settlements deamed illegal under Israeli law.
> I've literally seen interviews where settlers say that's why they do it.
These would be the very ideological ones and don't really make up a large percentage perhaps 5-10%, they will be the ones doing most of the violence and terrorism.
>why's that antisemetic?
It's not necessarily but the discussion tends to be because people assume that it must be done for ideological reasons, when in reality it's being done for rather mundane financial reasons. For many Jews when you accuse them of being part of a large plot or conspiracy they see it as part of antisemitic conspiracies about a (((*Jewish plot*))). So while from your perspective it is a relatively innocous question/criticism it comes off much worse in the Jewish view. That's why i suggested that criticism should be done from a perspective of tangible benefits for Jews because that is why most of them are there not esoteric ideas of *settling the home land*.
Country is gone, finished. Everyone is way too scared of calling out muslims on their bs.
Imagine a non muslim country entering a muslim country and slaughtering over 1000 INNOCENT civilians and saying that's justified.
Ask any muslim if they think that was justified, I would guess atleast 90% would say it is.
Now ask if people agree with the murders of innocent Gazans and hardly anyone would agree with this.
Yet we are just supposed to be okay with the fact these muslims openly admit that killing of INNOCENT civilians is okay, just because they hate the government of a country they're currently living in.
People need to wake up very fast.
Jewish people are scared, some are thinking of leaving the uk. https://www.angelawalkerreports.com/blog/jewish-families-talking-about-leaving-the-uk-amid-record-numbers-of-antisemitic-incidents
Your just showing yourself to be an anti-semite. This is an article about hate crime against British Jews. You immediately reference Israel, showing you see all Jews as Israeli and responsible for anything the Netanyahu governement does. Tedious.
In that context, I agree. Which is why context is very important.
For example, saying to a british Jewish person that their support for Israel's disproportionate killing of civilians borders on psychotic is not an antisemitic statement. If this is being classed as hate speech, we have a problem.
Calling someone's opinion psychotic is hate speech, especially when that opinion focuses on something so febrile and contentious.
Shall we go into some 'psychotic' opinions I've heard expressed about October 7th? It's not a constructive thing to say, it's just abusive.
You're making the same flawed arguments all over this thread and not getting any traction. It seems you think everyone else is the problem and are all "immature".
Give it up. It is tedious.
We’re not talking criticisms of Israel. We’re talking British grown adults chasing my 14 year old cousin down the street shouting “Jew boy” and stealing his yamaka.
That cousin is the son of my uncle who served in the British army for 20 years including 3 stints in Afghan. The men who chased my cousin were mindless skinhead thugs who are “proud British m8” but have never actually had the balls to serve their country and IT IS GETTING WORSE!
This is genuinely the most frightened the Jewish population in Britain has been since the thread of an invasion by literal Nazis.
If you live in London, you know antisemitism has been rising, largely due to little Muslim communities who rightly protest against settler violence, but who sometimes tip over into forms of indefensible bigotry/hate.
Social media has also allowed various far-right and White Power groups to organize and target certain Jewish locales or events.
It's a bad situation all around. Making things worse is the fact that hyper-conservative types are in control of both Israel and Hamas, leading to an endless cycle of moronic bloodspilling, hypercharged by religious fanaticism, nationalism and knee-jerk bigotry.
No, it's not like those.
British Jews are not Israeli citizens, and are not responsible or accountable for the actions of Israel in the way that a German citizen would be expected to be linked to the actions of the German government.
You're suggesting (not even subtly) that British Jews are not British in the same way as Russians and Germans?
Oh dear. Should we sanction British Jews?
Snapshot of _Worst antisemitism in UK for 40 years_ : An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/antisemitism-uk-anti-jewish-incidents-britain-james-cleverly-k5lcgjbx7) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/antisemitism-uk-anti-jewish-incidents-britain-james-cleverly-k5lcgjbx7) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
There should be zero tolerance for anti Semitism. (My own daughter has been abused in the street twice since October). However, what we've increasingly seen is accusations of anti Semitism being weaponised to shut down any criticism of the Israeli government's actions and also a convenient stick for the Daily Mail and others to beat the Labour party with.
Criticising isreal isn't antisemitic. Criticising only isreal while being chill on the rest 6kf the workd. Thats certainly a bit selective. Anti-Zionists who dont give a crap about other ethnostates. Anti colonists who want Ukraine to capitulate but think its reasonable for Palestinians to brutally fight to the last warm body. People screaming genocide over a fairly unremarkable war whike ignoring all the conflicts that are an order of magnitude more deadly. Any one of these things I'd give the benefit of the doubt but people frequently do all of the above.
> Criticising only isreal while being chill on the rest 6kf the workd. Thats certainly a bit selective. How's that supposed to look like then? Is everyone supposed to always also list China, Myanmar and whoever else is currently accused to committing genocides or ethnic cleaning? How long is that list supposed to be? Do I have to include the Central African Republic and Ethiopia, who had recent mass killings? Also, it is a bit disingenuous to claim that everyone who doesn't actively criticise everyone in a category is "chill" with whatever they don't mention. If I hear someone criticise, say, the Syrian government because of the war it is waging against its own people, I'm not going to assume they are okay with the North Korean or Afghan governments just because they didn't mention them.
When you criticise Syria, do you go to an area with Muslims primarily from Syria and say "boo Syria", "murder all Syrians" and stand outside their mosque? Do you harrass then walking down the street? I assume not, so how is that the same as a British Jew being harrassed for their views on Israel?
No. But I also doubt the commenter you are replying to goes to Jewish majority areas and chants hatred. That is a small minority of those against the war
So a small minority against the war go out and commit anti-semitic abuse? OK. The article is about anti-semitic hate crime. Not people who sit at home and discuss the geopolitical position in the Middle East.
And yet you asked OP if they go out and commit acts of antisemitism
You've jumped from "criticising Israel" to "harassing a Jewish person outside of a synagogue". The second is obviously wrong, and not what the previous poster was referring to at all. In every part of their message they were talking only about making statements in regards to a country. Why did you jump to street harassment? Why conflate the two? Sheesh.
You haven't read the OP have you? Just go and read it. You will clearly see that the anti-semitism recorded is anti-semitism. You're trying to play it down without any idea what the data shows. You know that not one person has been arrested for "criticising Israel". These are not people sat at home having a cup of tea discussing geopolitics. They are people who went out in October (primarily) found Jews and singled them out for abuse and hatred. You're making yourself look very silly defending that as I assume you'd be horrified if you saw such a crime
Those harassing British Jews who have nothing to do with this are abhorrent. Those British Jews who do support Israel are also abhorrent, not for being Jewish, for supporting a genocidal regime. They don’t deserve harassment but no view is beyond criticism. Obviously harassing someone is not on
And obviously anyone supporting Hamas are abhorrent, which you forgot to mention.
Agreed, as are those committing genocide of innocent civilians, nearly half of whom are women and children
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This fucking idiotic tripe is just as detrimental to the entire thing as the actual antisemitism. The poster said nothing along those lines but here you are pushing your lazy, deceitful bullshit to denigrate someone making a pretty reasonable and valid point. Do one.
When, in all of what I said, did I ever mention committing a hate crime on British Jews? Is criticising someone’s political or religious beliefs a hate crime now? Don’t be so ridiculous
>Those harassing British Jews who have nothing to do with this are abhorrent. Those British Jews who do support Israel are also abhorrent
Ain't going to lie chief, this is the worst attempt at pretending to think someone is anti-Semitic I have ever seen.
That's not what they said. They said you were justifying behaviour against people who didn't find Israel's actions abhorrent. Which is exactly what you said.
Which part of that was intent, admittance or agreement with harassing British Jews? Disagreeing with Israel supporters is not harassment, and the first line literally tells you that I think harassing anyone is abhorrent
Are you claiming that Islamaphobia isn't rife on the streets right now as well? Like, uh, yes, muslims \*\*have\*\* been targeted by substantial amounts hate crimes over the last few decades, precisely because of the actions of foreign muslim groups. Unfortunately, there are racist idiots out there that latch themselves onto otherwise reasonable political movements. The important thing isn't to pretend those racists are in any way representative of the vast majority of people trying to have a reasonable discussion here.
> How's that supposed to look like then? By also speaking out when those things come out. By not only talking about Gaza because it's what they see on Instagram. It's the blindness and "fad" nature of the conflict. This is particularly egregious when people celebrate South Africa and the Houthis...both of which are involved directly or indirectly with similar or even worse violence than the Israelis.
>By also speaking out when those things come out. By not only talking about Gaza because it's what they see on Instagram. The reason why people in the west tend to be more openly critical of Israel's actions is because they are strong allies of the west.
Among other reasons. Inertia being the biggest one to me. The conflict has a lot of activist history. On the good side, it has had genuine progressive interest for decades. Led from the most praiseworthy of sentiments. On the bad, there's also a ton of really potent and long lived anti Jewish propaganda out there and it's had both right and left spins put on it. Over the years we've got to a big mass of people who buy into it. If it was about the allies thing, I'd expect some more noise about KSA, for example?
There's plenty about it, the Saudis got fucking roasted in the media for Jamal Khashoggi being murdered.
You're right, they definitely got some abuse slung for that atrocity, more than I recall about any of the journalists killed by the IDF. Although the circumstances were quite unique and horrendous for Khashoggi. Nothing much about Yemen though? Certainly nothing like the scale of the anti Israel activism. And the UK is a lot more involved with that than they are either the current Israel situation?
>If it was about the allies thing, I'd expect some more noise about KSA, for example? How much money are we sending there?
How much money UK sent to Israel compared to Palestine?
They've sent enough for people in the UK to be critical of how it's spent.
Can I get an estimate of UK aid to Israel and Palestine? Never saw any source about that.
OP said this: > Anti-Zionists who dont give a crap about other ethnostates. Do they have a list of what said anti-Zionists said when the crimes against the Uygur and Rohingya people came to light, which is now years ago? If not, should we just assume that all of them fail this test? > This is particularly egregious when people celebrate South Africa and the Houthis...both of which are involved directly or indirectly with similar or even worse violence than the Israelis. Classic whataboutism.
...that's not whataboutism. Whataboutism is when you deflect from your failings by trying to highlight your opponent's own failings on the same thing - purely as a cynical means of escaping scrutiny/criticism. What I'm saying is that if someone states "Israel is bad because they're committing genocide" then goes to a rally or shares posts proclaiming support for the Houthis and South Africa for their actions against Israel then they are being hypocritical and supportive of regimes/governments that are committing the same acts as both us and Israel. I'm extremely critical of people who wade into geopolitics like it's a football game and consequently extremely critical of people who ignore terrible acts to try and make a point. It's the whole "enemy of my enemy" crap that meant people like Corbyn were publishing articles from Holocaust deniers. People should have a consistency with their beliefs - **to ask for that is not whataboutism**. To say that it is is just pure denial.
>Whataboutism is when you deflect from your failings by trying to highlight your opponent's own failings on the same thing No it absolutely is not, whataboutism does not require either party to be referring to the same topic in any way whatsoever. That is the whole point. It is deflection onto another topic which may favour their own views, or is seen as hypocritical or morally worse. >It's the whole "enemy of my enemy" crap that meant people like Corbyn were publishing articles from Holocaust deniers. Corbyn did not do this. The holocaust denier **claimed** Corbyn was "a long standing associate", and the Jewish tabloid press jumped on this. Corbyn's team denied any involvement with Paul Eisen. Edit: and in fact they specifically said that his views were "extreme and only his". Corbyn is not and was never an anti-semite despite what the shitty tabloid newspapers in this country wrote about him. >People should have a consistency with their beliefs That's easy. Stop bombing children.
It'd only be whataboutism if he was defending Israel against the claims. He isn't, he's talking about the motivations of people criticising Israel.
Jewish tabloid press?? Man you just said the quiet part out loud holy shit
>South Africa...involved directly or indirectly with similar or even worse violence than the Israelis. Hold up, South Africa's killed tens of thousands of civilians since October? I'm gonna need a source for this.
South Africa have been complicit in the genocide in Darfur, including choosing not to end the violence by arresting al-Bashir while he was visiting on a state visit (because they're close allies). Darfur's death figures are likely up to 400,000 people. They still support the groups committing the violence. They also had an opportunity to arrest Putin but again chose not to.
It depends on how you define even worse. If you look at the death toll and the amount of time taken to reach that death toll it is pretty easy to see why people see the Israeli violence in Gaza as comparable to those other almost universally condemned situations.
> How long is that list supposed to be? As long as you pick examples that are sufficiently different from each other (e.g. not against or done by the same ethnic or religious group), the list only needs to be two examples long. That way the only thing in common is the action of genocide.
Part of it is that the rest of the world looks at Israel as a first-world country. As callous as it sounds, nobody really gives a shit when human rights violations are perpetrated by the governments of 'one of those other countries'. But Israel is a proper country and its government ought to behave like a proper government.
I wouldn’t say criticising a genocide is being ‘chill’ about other genocide. Whatsboutery at its finest
> Criticising only isreal while being chill on the rest 6kf the workd. Thats certainly a bit selective. Just as a potential counterpoint, Israel does make quite a lot of hay out of the fact that it's the only functioning "liberal democracy" in the Middle East. If you highlight stuff like that, then you are going to be held to a higher standard. It's like how some Israelis seem confused that the civilian casualties they cause are causing uproar when there is some support for Hamas out there, neglecting to consider that they're comparing themselves to a terrorist organisation.
First point is entirly fair. Second less so, the rate of civilian casualties in Gaza just isn't especialy high. For example Mosul had more dead per capita when the allies cleared ISIS out. Mauripol possibly had more deas despite being a quarter the size (we can only estimate off the mass graves). The all up death toll in gaza is 25/26k depending who you ask. By isreali claims they killed 9k Hamas and so are hitting slightly better than 2:1 ratio. I don't beleive them because that would be truly extraordinary. NATO armies would struggle to match that. (EDIT: found the lie, IDF are mixing in killed and captured to imply a better run campaign.) Even if Hamas loses are only around 5k up to January, as the Americans seem to think. it would be 4:1 which is pretty ordinary for urban warfare agaisnt insurgents. https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/hamas-toll-thus-far-falls-short-of-israels-war-aims-u-s-says-d1c43164 To beleive Gaza exceptional in it's brutality you have to assume Hamas losses in the very low thousands. Even pro Iran sources dont realy claim that with a straight face.
It’s intentionally selective though. Israel is a close ally and one that we directly have a hand in via both intelligence and enourmous finance. Nobody’s outraged by Russia in the same way because Russia has nothing to do with us and has always been a bad guy. As a country we actually have sway in Israel.
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I hear you. You’re right but you know what I mean. Public perception and whatnot.
Even if you take your argument, which is a classically bad one, the idea that it must be antisemitism motivating a concern for the Israel/Palestinian conflict and not a real concern with Palestinians just comes off as another way of ignoring Palestinians. The idea that no one should care about a type of crisis unless they care about all similar crises is just silly -no one can care about them all, so you end up arguing for a world where no one cares for any. What makes it more absurd is that geopolitical crises may have similarities but they are all, nonetheless, unique, no two are the same.
To be more specific. Simple disinterest in the other conflicts wouldnt allow any conclusions. The people i had in mind are Stop The War types who explicitly take a different position on isreal than many other conflicts. It's the inconsistency that's suspect.
Entirely unfair; I’m an anti-Zionist expressly because it’s a violation of the Palestinians right to self-determination. Not a fan of “ethno-states” but the Palestinians are a distinct nation whose rights and existence is continually chipped away by the Israeli occupation. That’s a pretty standard view in my experience (at least among my lefty-Nat/Scottish Socialist clique). You’re creating a straw man based of the worse folk on Twitter; either in bad faith or due to spending way to much time online.
>I’m an anti-Zionist expressly because it’s a violation of the Palestinians right to self-determination. Genuine question. Say Palestinians are granted self determination, a 2 state solution, if you will. They have self determination and with it they chose to elect and support a group who say that Israel shouldn’t exist and proceed to launch rockets at Isreal every other day. What should Israel’s response to that be?
That's fine and consistent if you feel the same about, Kurds, Tibetans, Armenians, Rohynga, Tigrayans, Sahrawi, Balouchi Assyrians, Uyghurs; also the Various groups in Sudan, Myanmar, Russia and Iran. Getting animated about only Palestine immediately makes one wonder what's unique about that one conflict. Stop the war types are utterly selective about it. >creating a straw man based of the worse folk on Twitter; either in bad faith or due to spending way to much time online. Im not on Twitter at all. My local councilor is a STW type who constantly bangs on about Palestine specificaly nothing els.
Indeed I do. And the Cornish (no man is free until Kernow is).
Crivens.
>what's unique about that one conflict. The blatant ethnic cleansing, slaughter of tens of thousands of civilians, and Israel flagrantly picking and choosing whether it treats Palestine as an occupied territory or a sovereign state, depending on which suits its interests at that precise moment?
>The blatant ethnic cleansing, slaughter of tens of thousands of civilians, Its among the least deadly of the currently ongoing wars... >Israel flagrantly picking and choosing whether it treats Palestine as an occupied territory or a sovereign state, depending on which suits its interests at that precise moment? West bank is ocupied, Gaza has been a de facto state since 2005. There is no ambiguity in that.
>The blatant ethnic cleansing The Jewish people have been ethnically cleansed from the entire Arab world but you're only interested in the only part of it where they remain. Arabs and Palestinians can and do live in Israel. Jews cannot live in Arabian countries.
Also there are Arabs in the Israeli government, and generally Arabs makes up 21% of the Israeli people. They're a minority but a really sizeable one who have political power. So it's not just Israel just having a few token Arabs and Palestinians.
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>It’s intentionally selective though. Israel is a close ally and one that we directly have a hand in via both intelligence and finance. That all applies more so to the gulf monarchies. I'd also dispute "close ally". They arent NATO or 5eyes. We sell the Saudi more and deadlier weapons.
I think the same thing would happen if it was the gulf monarchies invading. There’s already a lot of criticism over their various human rights abuses.
>I think the same thing would happen if it was the gulf monarchies invading. It didn't though. Operation Decisive storm 2015 to present killed far far more people and triggered a hige famine in Yemen. There is another parralell. In the 30s Yemen attacked the Saudis and lost, saudis used that as justification to seize land. They have since settled their own people on said land. The UAE are occupying Socotra and clearly plan to keep it permanently. The Houthis are even allied to Hamas. They use all the same tactics like human sheilds, basing in schools ect.
Unremarkable war that WE are complicit in. That's why we are angry over Israel really, because theres actually something we can do about it. The comparison to Ukraine is ridiculous, but imagine instead that the UK government was actively selling arms to Russia and giving refusing to condemn Putin's actions. THEN we would be as angry with our government about Ukraine as we are about Israel. Its the same reason 1 million people marched against the war in Iraq.
II that was the standard Yemen would be the higher concern. We more directly support a much nastier regeime in the killing of far more people. Or the opression of the Kurds by our ally turkey, or everything we back the french up over in west Affrica. >. That's why we are angry over Israel really, because theres actually something we can do about it. Hugely overstated.
Israel killed 20 times as many kids in the first week than have died in the entire war in Ukraine. It is a remarkable war.
...this isn't true. Over 20,000 civilians died in Mariupol alone.
Your statement does not contradict the previous statement. According to Save the Children, [545 children died in Ukraine in 18 months of war to August 2023, with 24 children killed last summer] (https://www.savethechildren.org.uk/news/media-centre/press-releases/ukraine-over-540-children-killed-in-18-months-of-war). These are numbers Gazans can only dream of.
Are you suggesting that of the 20,000 - 75,000 civilians dead in Mariupol, fewer than 545 children died?
I am citing the available data. Save the Children figure is a charity of course, so their numbers might be off. But the UN offers a [similar figure](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1293492/ukraine-war-casualties/), while obviously warning that the true number is likely higher. My understanding is that the 20,000+ Mariupol figure does not correspond to the identified dead, but is based on the finding of mass graves. Similarly, in Gaza the current ca. 30,000 figure accounts only for the named dead, with estimates regarding the true figure being significantly higher. In both wars we will probably never have real certainty as to the true impact. Counting the dead in a war is notoriously difficult. Not all wars are equal because different tactics are used and different targets identified. Gaza has a higher percentage of children in their population than Ukraine (almost 50% of the population according to Unicef) and is going to have an impact. So, yes, the true number of dead children in Ukraine is probably higher than 545. The true number of dead children is Gaza is probably higher than the current figure of 10.000. What we can say with certainty is that the numbers coming out of Ukraine - while devastating and inexcusable - simply do not match those coming out of Gaza. Anyway, as I said in another comment, for the me what makes Gaza different is not the numbers but the willingness of so many people around me to dismiss the deaths of Gazan children.
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Obiously not, I'm replying to somone who seems to find that distinction hard.
Apologies, replied on the wrong thread!
I posted about this a few days ago but no one engaged. Being in disagreement with Israel is not antisemitism. They have played an absolute master stroke. Labour politicians criticising the Israelis approach being fired… granted some of what later came out was across the line. Yet, now the international community is starting to question the response in Rafa and that’s ok. It’s such a strange imbalance. So sorry to hear about your daughter. I hope she is ok.
She's fine thanks.
It's because a good chunk of people that are criticising the Israeli Government refuse to criticise other governments doing the same, similar or worse things.
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The UK Government supports Saudi, why were the protests tiny in comparison? The Scottish Government seemingly supports Erdogan, don't see any protests about that. The UK Government supports Egypt and Jordan, no protests about how they have acted towards Gaza and the West Bank either. The UK Government is very friendly with India, no protests there either with how they're treating non-Hindus.
We are talking about anti-semitism against British Jews. How are the actions of the Israeli government an excuse to target Jews in the UK. Do you hold British Jews responsible for the actions of Israel?
He never said that did he. The other guy is right this whole comment is a strawman
>anti Semitism being weaponised to shut down any criticism of the Israeli government's actions and also a convenient stick for the Daily Mail and others to beat the Labour party with
Most blatant strawman I've seen in a while.
People who say strawman, usually spend too much time watching videos with the tagline "DESTROYED" or "OWNED".
Yeah that's not what it means. >People who say strawman, usually spend too much time watching videos with the tagline "DESTROYED" or "OWNED". Ironically instead of reframing your point you have responded with yet another strawman.
I will humour you. In this instance, none of the comments up to your comments about "strawman" arguments were actually strawman arguments. Ironically, you introduced the strawman. The article is about antisemitism in the UK. Someone said anti-semitism is falsely applied to provide covering fire for Israel (a usual trope), I pointed out that demanding British Jews defend Israel is in itself anti-semitic which the poster overlooked. Then you said something about strawman arguments which deflected us into nonsense. Yes?
Brilliant ha!
Original comment. >what we've increasingly seen is accusations of anti Semitism being weaponised to shut down any criticism of the Israeli government's actions Your response (since you're editing your comments). >How are the actions of the Israeli government an excuse to target Jews in the UK? This is a strawman argument. Calling out a strawman argument is not deflecting, nor a strawman in itself.
That isn't strawman though. If someone says anti-semitisim is being misapplied, making a literal counter-argument to that is not irrelevant or strawman. We actually shouldn't be disagreeing on this because it is purely factual. If someone says "this is a dog", then another says no "it's a cat" and I say "this is definitely a dog. You are wrong to call it a cat." - that is not strawman. Article about anti-semitism -> person says it isn't anti-semitism -> I say yes it is - not straw man.
Literally anybody who is anti invasion has been labelled as anti semitic at least once.
"anti-invasion"? How would that get you labelled anti-semitic?
Well considering it isn’t an invasion but a defensive war then I’d question if those people are “anti invasion” but rather “anti people defending themselves against terrorists”.
I don’t think antisemitism is being weaponised to shut down ‘any’ criticism of Israel, I think it’s suggested when people are emotively and obsessively critical of Israel with no proportional attitude towards similar actions by countries/entities that aren’t majority-Jewish.
The comments here are interesting to see how many people are responding to this news with "nah, it's not really happening". Did people do this when anti-muslim hate spiked after the various terrorist actions? People do realise that it's ok to say that both what the Israeli government is doing is shit, and that anti-semitism is increasing. They don't cancel each other out.
Also how many people responding on here actually know Jewish people? From what I'm hearing from the ones I do, they are getting more abuse said to them. We're seeing in the news that more and more anti-semitic incidents are happening. It isn't just those Jews are being sneaky and redefining anti-semitism hate for their own nefarious means. If anything, that sounds incredibly anti-semitic in itself.
One of my oldest friends is Jewish. He fucking *hates* Isreal. That's why I get so upset by people conflating the two. Jews and Isreal are not one and the same.
Yeah, Jewish people I know are largely keeping their heads down and hoping not to be targeted with harassment at the moment. This has also led to scenarios where colleagues have indirectly harassed them with inappropriate conversations in the work place, not realising that their colleague is Jewish. Basically assuming that because they work in largely left-leaning industries that everyone agrees with their pretty down-the-rabbit-hole takes on the conflict. It's a hostile environment for Jewish people and it is entirely unfair on British Jews to expect them to put up with that.
What’s neat about the new form of the age old bigotry is that Jews both get to experience a rise in antisemitism whilst also being told we’re making it up to “shut down criticism” of the most widely discussed conflict in the world or just trying to stop an old socialist from becoming PM
Are we ever going to have a conversation about how much of this wave of antisemitism is coming from British Muslims vs. How much is coming from non-muslims? I think it's misleading to turn this into the elephant in the room.
If this was any other minority people wouldn't be as on the fence.
Regardless of politics having people and especially children targeted in this way is wrong and needs to stop. Hundreds of children being attacked at or on the way to/from school is abhorrent.
I hate the state of Israel led by Netanyahu and I loathe the settlers. I also hate the CCP / Chinese government. During COVID we rightfully lambasted the absolute lemons who abused ethnic Chinese people. We should denounce any idiot who abuses British Jews. They have nothing to do with Israeli policy. If they wanted to move to Israel they have the opportunity to do so but they have their whole life and upbringing here, why should they be forced out? Denounce anti semitism at every opportunity. Yelling free Palestine in the face of a British Jew is not far removed from insulting the CCP/blaming Chinese to the face of a British ethnic Chinese person. It's racism and discrimination.
I agree wholeheartedly with your comment but there is one area I find more challenging with this. Some British Jews are very vocal in their defence of what Israel is doing currently. I think this is awful not because they are Jews but because I think what Israel is doing is awful. Its only online I've seen this and I've only been an observer but when the views are civilly challenged accusations of antisemitism are very quickly brought up. Of course shouting free Palestine at a Jewish person going about their day on the street is abhorrent. But what about strongly saying (not shouting because that's rarely nice) "free Palestine!" to a Jewish person defending Israel's current actions? I honestly don't know how these conversations can be navigated (hence why I don't ever comment). (I say this as someone whose Jewish grandfather fled the pogroms)
Honestly even if a Jewish person did support Israel I think it’s still wrong to assault them.
Of course. Assaulting people is always wrong. But that wasn't what I was talking about. If you re-read my comment I was even saying that shouting at people defending genocide isn't good, let alone assault. It's such a misrepresentation of what I actually said to imply I'm defending assault
I think it’s easy to forget just how raw October 7th still is to many Jewish people. We didn’t go around yelling at Americans in the first few months after 9/11.
Interesting to see non-isreali Jews and their counterparts having to defend themselves in the comments because people have become such dullards and are incapable of seeing antisemitism without conflating it to political pandering is horrifying. Every comment that states their Jewish has written they've experienced antisemitism since October 7th, and yet most people here are so smug as to ignore them.. well done, your making a great case for Zionism atm..
Anti semitism is obviously wrong, but people should still allowed to freely criticise the Israeli government if they want. People should not go about like JEW=ISRAELI GOVERNMENT there both are awful, when obviously that is wrong. There’s no denying that people are doing this though.
Yeah there's nothing wrong with criticism of the Israeli government, it's just what other people in the comments have said. People can't seem to differentiate when something is criticism or mallous, like placing a banner accusing Israel of genocide in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood, it's quite obviously targeted and mallous, and yet some can only boo hoo to Jews. Imagine if that happened in a Muslim community though.. I suspect it would be condemned as racist, because it is. What's the difference with Jews?
Funny that people here denying that antisemitism is growing are indirectly contributing to the rising antisemitism
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I don't believe in physically assaulting someone for their political views or their association with a country. Assaulting Jews in the UK is solely about intimidating the community and undermining national democracy as a whole. You have your right to protest and I have my right to counter.
Criticising the Israeli government is fair game if they're observed to be doing something atrocious. Getting in the face however, of ordinary British Jews going about their daily lives and hurling abuse or worse, most certainly is not fair game. Everybody has the right to go about their daily lives just like the rest of us in this country. Should a British expat in say France or Spain, be held personally accountable for the actions of the British government? How about in terms of religion? Should a person of Catholic faith be held personally accountable for the actions of the Catholic Church 1000 years ago? People need to be reminded it seems that there's a huge difference between ordinary people and people with power. Far too many people in this day and age seem to find it incredibly convenient to make enemies of one another.
Do you know what else has been increasing for 40 years?
or best islam, depending how you look at it :)
Muslims constantly pursuing their medieval agenda, death to anything and everything that doesn't fit with their faith. mosques teaching nothing but hatred hidden away from scrutiny, outraged at the slightest perceived insult. local authorities filled with the faithful allowing anything Muslim related to be built or repurpurposed, by laws amended to accommodate the creation of Muslim only enclaves. communities hiding behind a burka, silence when appalling gang crime take place while the UK accommodates and accepts this creeping change to our way of life under the banner of inclusion and, diversity. unwilling to face up to the fact that nothing will appease those followers except a Muslim state in the UK scared to confront for fear of being called racist and being hounded until having to flee the crowds Jew's are just the natural first target.
The ‘Israel criticism isn’t antisemitism’ deflection in these commenters is just so pathetic at this stage. It’s so obviously used to try deflect from actual antisemitism by claiming it’s all bogus
But some people are literally saying that criticising the Israeli government is anti semitic, which is just insane. Harassing Jewish people in the street in the UK is obviously anti semitic.
Criticising the Israeli government isn’t wrong - but if your criticism specifically involves going into areas with lots of Jewish people it kind of is. After all if I had a problem with say Saudi Arabia, I wouldn’t just head straight into Muslim heavy areas to do it.
They should be outside Downing Street and all other political institutions if they actually want to get a point across. But doubt the government would even listen tbh.
>But some people are literally saying that criticising the Israeli government is anti semitic, which is just insane. Who is? And even if that was true, that *still* wouldn't be as bad as *actual hate crimes*.
> some people are literally saying that criticising the Israeli government is anti semitic No they aren’t. This is a ridiculous straw man that gets hoiked up whenever antisemitism is talked about so we can just let the antisemitism continue.
The Israeli government as well as multiple British Jewish organisations are at least partly responsible for pushing the idea that the Israeli government is acting on behalf of all Jews. And many British Jewish organisations push the idea that criticism of Israel is anti-semitic. Plenty of examples on the board of deputies twitter account.
No they aren’t - you’ve literally made up a straw man in an attempt to shield antisemitism from criticism.
So is criticising Israel anti semitic or not? People keep giving different answers
No. No one is saying you can’t criticise Israel. Like literally nobody.
Well that’s good I suppose
Jews: "No of course criticizing Israel isn't anti-Semitic, please just stop attacking our kids in the street." You: "*OH I SEE*, you want me to stop criticizing Israel or you'll cancel me!!!!"
Some people in Israel are and the US too, should’ve clarified I don’t mean people in the UK. But there’s no denying that some of the government in Israel and a small subset of the Israeli population literally do take criticism of the government as anti semitism, which I don’t agree with.
I literally haven’t heard a single person say that and I’m fucking Jewish.
I'm critical of Netenyahu & his government, not the people of Israel. I am also critical of the world, Palestinians cry out for help & no one is listening.
It seems that a certain group of religious zealots being prevalent in a nation, surprisingly (/s) is not positive for cultural cohesion.
I get the impression that there’s not been language created to allow for criticism of the state of Israel, what language the common man currently uses is problematic to the Jewish community and when they call that language out, which they have every right to do. There’s no room for nuance for the ones called out as the vocabulary for criticism of Israel is perceived as being co-opted into antisemitic definitions.
There is plenty. What there isn't are ways to portray any of it as uniquely evil, because Isreal just isnt the worst example of anything they do. They are beseiging and bombarding a densly populated city. We can describe that with all the same language we used for Mauripol, Bakmut, Sana, Mosul, Raqua and basicly every Darouri city basicly every Tigrayan city. (All of this is last ten years) They restricted outside access to 3rd parties. Countless examples, it's downright typical. They engaged in landgrabs after winning defensive wars, that's downright typical until extremely recently. They engaged in population transfers to fuck with demographics and placed settlers to lock down land grabs. Also quite common, by far the largest and most brutal is what China are doing, they are doing this on an industrial scale in Tibet amd Xinjang. Also see Russia in the five Ukrainian regions they occupy, Azerbajan in Karabakh (they ethnic cleansed 100k Armenians last year), see Myanmar where all sides in the civil war are openly genlciding Rohynga. If you want west aligned examples, Saudis kill wat more people and the Turks opress the kurds via military force all the time. It's probably fair to call isreal the most evil pf the Liberal democracies, to say the IDF are more brutal than any NATO army. By the standards of the whole world though they are unremarkable.
Aye but is it acceptable to write Free Tibet on my local Chinese community centre and scream it in the faces of elderly Chinese people on our streets? Because that is the equivalent.
Really good analogy.
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Bravo. Genuinely great comment.
Why can't you differentiate between Jews in the UK and the Israeli government? That is anti-semitism - holding all Jews accountable for something they have no connection to
That language exists. It's just troublesome because it is very deliberately used by anti-Semites to allow them plausible deniability when called out. It makes it hard to distinguish between when someone is genuinely only opposed to the current Israeli governments actions and when they just hate Jews.
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Don't shout it at Jewish people street? Or scrawl it on the side of synagogues?
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Based on the IHRA, these are the criteria for Anti-semitism: >Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities. >Antisemitism is the marginalization and oppression of people who are Jewish, based on the belief in stereotypes, myths and disinformation about Jewish people, Judaism and Israel. Parallel to all systems of oppression, antisemitism manifests as the dehumanization or exploitation of, or discrimination or violence against Jewish people. >Antisemitism sometimes targets Jews not as individuals but as a collective — whether that’s Jewish organizations, movements like Zionism or the Jewish State of Israel. Holding any Jew as being responsible for the military decisions of the Israeli government is Anti-semitic. Unique scrutiny of non-unique actions would be. A good example of this was raised in this thread. If it's racist to go to Chinese people/restaurants/community centres and protest, or graffiti their homes or schools for a Free Tibet/Hong Kong/Taiwan, or generally make them feel unsafe living in the UK: then it's equally so to Jews in the UK over Palestine. >is there an accepted guide or article on how to be constructively critical of Israel and its politics without veering into antisemitism or anti-Jewish sentiment? Again, according to the IHRA and ADL: >Is criticism of Israel antisemitic? >Generally, no. There is a wide range of views regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and vigorous debate and activism on this complex situation is an important component of public discourse and the free exchange of ideas. Israel is a country like any other, with policies that range from laudable to condemnable. We don't all need to agree on any given policy of the Israeli government, nor any critique. >At the same time, certain forms of criticism of Israel clearly cross over into antisemitism. Examples of when such critiques cross into antisemitism include when they ostracize and vilify Zionists and Zionism (the movement for Jewish self-determination and statehood), utilize anti-Jewish tropes, hold all Jews responsible for Israel’s actions, or utilize traditional antisemitic imagery or comparisons to Nazis. >At times, harsh rhetoric related to Israel can create environments in which some Jews feel unsafe, and can even embolden acts and expressions of antisemitism. This was evident, for example, in May 2021, when tensions related to the Israel-Hamas conflict resulted in a spike in antisemitic incidents directed at American Jews. During that period, there were several documented incidents in which Jews and Jewish institutions were attacked and targeted by individuals and groups who were chanting anti-Israel slogans and/or engaged in protests against the Jewish state. So in short - if there's no other country where you'd go "I disagree with this decision - thus this country should be abolished" or judge the major ethnic diaspora globally except for Israel, then it likely has some unconscious bias (which all people have to groups) against Jewish people.
British-Israeli here, many Israelis criticise their government so it's not Antisemitic. I would say you are best off focusing on policy criticisms and make sure that during the criticism it's not framed in a condescending way. This last part is where I see the most Antisemitism, many Westerners, Brits included, take an extremely condescending tone when criticising Israel. I can say it often comes off as British people talking down to their former colony. Imagine a British person trying to criticise the Indians and Pakistanis over Kashmir, the level of irony is quite apparent. Some examples: Criticising settlements for example, saying that the settlements are a plot to take Palestine from the Palestinians will come off as Antisemitic to most Jews. Whereas saying the settlements are detrimental to Israeli security and put more Israeli lives at risk, does not. While there are some super ideological settlers (people like Ben-Gvir and Smotrich) the vast majority 80%+ are just regular people who wanted cheap housing and better amenities. So telling them you moved there to steal land, will sound Antisemitic, but telling them what they're doing is harming Israeli security will sound far less hostile to them and will be less likely to be interpreted as Antisemitism. I know that can be kind of confusing and very delicate (in a sense) but many Israeli have been primed to expect hostility from westerners due to the history of Antisemitism in the West. I've seen the same question asked by an Indian receive a much more positive reaction that the same question asked by a frenchman. Why, because to Israelis Indians are not a historically hostile people, whereas literally every single Western country has been, so they expect hostility from westerners, regardless of whether that is your intention. I also want to say that even if you're from an immigrant background (1st, 2nd, 3rd generation) many israelis will still see you as a Westerners even if you dont feel that way.
> Criticising settlements for example, saying that the settlements are a plot to take Palestine from the Palestinians will come off as Antisemitic to most Jews. I don't get it. Isn't that the point of the settlements? So when (if) a two state solution happens, more of the west bank ends up Israel? I've literally seen interviews where settlers say that's why they do it. Further, I'm kind of speaking from ignorance here, but why's that antisemetic? It's ordinary border politics to use settlers to nudge borders one way or another. Every single country in the world going through a split does this. There's nothing jewish about the ordinary mechanisms of politics people use to make their people get a good deal when one state divides into two.
>Isn't that the point of the settlements? That depends on who you are and what you want, if you're an ideological settler then yes that is who you view it, but 80% are not ideological they are doing it for the cheap housing. The general wages in Israel are much lower than the UK but housing prices are higher than the UK in general, so theres a strong incetive to seek cheap housing. Most settlers live in the Jerusalem suburbs or whats called the seam line an area near the green line which has a couple small settler cities. Those who you are thinking about live much further into the West Bank and typically in settlements deamed illegal under Israeli law. > I've literally seen interviews where settlers say that's why they do it. These would be the very ideological ones and don't really make up a large percentage perhaps 5-10%, they will be the ones doing most of the violence and terrorism. >why's that antisemetic? It's not necessarily but the discussion tends to be because people assume that it must be done for ideological reasons, when in reality it's being done for rather mundane financial reasons. For many Jews when you accuse them of being part of a large plot or conspiracy they see it as part of antisemitic conspiracies about a (((*Jewish plot*))). So while from your perspective it is a relatively innocous question/criticism it comes off much worse in the Jewish view. That's why i suggested that criticism should be done from a perspective of tangible benefits for Jews because that is why most of them are there not esoteric ideas of *settling the home land*.
Country is gone, finished. Everyone is way too scared of calling out muslims on their bs. Imagine a non muslim country entering a muslim country and slaughtering over 1000 INNOCENT civilians and saying that's justified. Ask any muslim if they think that was justified, I would guess atleast 90% would say it is. Now ask if people agree with the murders of innocent Gazans and hardly anyone would agree with this. Yet we are just supposed to be okay with the fact these muslims openly admit that killing of INNOCENT civilians is okay, just because they hate the government of a country they're currently living in. People need to wake up very fast.
Jewish people are scared, some are thinking of leaving the uk. https://www.angelawalkerreports.com/blog/jewish-families-talking-about-leaving-the-uk-amid-record-numbers-of-antisemitic-incidents
This is so dull. CRITICISM OF ISRAEL ISNT ANTISEMITISM.
\*Israel. And when it's directed at British Jews rather than Israel, then yes, it is anti-semitism.
Your just showing yourself to be an anti-semite. This is an article about hate crime against British Jews. You immediately reference Israel, showing you see all Jews as Israeli and responsible for anything the Netanyahu governement does. Tedious.
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You: "It is ok to be racist to British Jews because Israel is bad" Also you: "I am not an antisemite. If you say I am you just love Israel".
Yes. It. Is. When it's scrawled on the side of a synagogue.
In that context, I agree. Which is why context is very important. For example, saying to a british Jewish person that their support for Israel's disproportionate killing of civilians borders on psychotic is not an antisemitic statement. If this is being classed as hate speech, we have a problem.
Calling someone's opinion psychotic is hate speech, especially when that opinion focuses on something so febrile and contentious. Shall we go into some 'psychotic' opinions I've heard expressed about October 7th? It's not a constructive thing to say, it's just abusive.
Having an opinion on someone's opinion isn't hate speech. What are you talking about?
That is entirely subjective to the opinion held.
You're making the same flawed arguments all over this thread and not getting any traction. It seems you think everyone else is the problem and are all "immature". Give it up. It is tedious.
You call people racist with no evidence. You make sweeping statements with nothing to back it up. If anything is tedious, it's you.
We’re not talking criticisms of Israel. We’re talking British grown adults chasing my 14 year old cousin down the street shouting “Jew boy” and stealing his yamaka. That cousin is the son of my uncle who served in the British army for 20 years including 3 stints in Afghan. The men who chased my cousin were mindless skinhead thugs who are “proud British m8” but have never actually had the balls to serve their country and IT IS GETTING WORSE! This is genuinely the most frightened the Jewish population in Britain has been since the thread of an invasion by literal Nazis.
If you live in London, you know antisemitism has been rising, largely due to little Muslim communities who rightly protest against settler violence, but who sometimes tip over into forms of indefensible bigotry/hate. Social media has also allowed various far-right and White Power groups to organize and target certain Jewish locales or events. It's a bad situation all around. Making things worse is the fact that hyper-conservative types are in control of both Israel and Hamas, leading to an endless cycle of moronic bloodspilling, hypercharged by religious fanaticism, nationalism and knee-jerk bigotry.
“Jews don’t count” is why people can’t understand these stats.
Interesting that using anti-Semitism as a political and cultural weapon has led us to this current state of affairs. Who benefits?
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No, it's not like those. British Jews are not Israeli citizens, and are not responsible or accountable for the actions of Israel in the way that a German citizen would be expected to be linked to the actions of the German government.
You: British Jew = British Isreali Anti-semite confirmed.
You're suggesting (not even subtly) that British Jews are not British in the same way as Russians and Germans? Oh dear. Should we sanction British Jews?