Imo it is reactionary to discourage people who do not have a stake in I/P from learning about and speaking against Israeli settler colonialism and its ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.
At the same time, I think non-Jewish white leftists need to be mindful about *how* they speak about this when they do not have any stake in the matter.
The evil the state of Israel commits is not a free pass for you to be antisemitic.
(non-Jewish white leftist here and if I’m out of line at all, please tell me)
However, being called anti-Semitic because you’re critical of Israel’s policies in regards to Palestine is wrong, right?
One of my friends is Palestinian. She’s lived through three wars. She’s told me horror stories. She makes light of it but she’s seen some serious shit and I know it’s killing her that she can’t go home. It can’t be anti-Semitic to be against the hurting of innocents?
I only say this because I’ve heard Jewish people on the radio compare any criticism of Israel today to people supporting the Holocaust, claiming that Jews can’t be doing something bad now because something bad happened to them 70 years ago. (I also recognise that not all Jewish people will share this opinion, but it is something that has been claimed)
Listen to me when I say this is EXACTLY the kind of comment I did not want to get on this post because now you’re positioning me, a Jew, to guide you on the proper way to morally field this, when I think we both know that objectively no, it is not antisemitic to be generally critical of Israel…
But that’s literally all an affirmation you wanted and frankly that’s not a good enough critical self-examination and is a very shallow evaluative way to ask yourself whether or not you’ve been antisemitic in the way you advocate for Palestine.
Further
Invoking your Palestinian friend and saying “it can’t be antisemitic to be against the hurting of innocents” sounds like you’re both obfuscating an accusation of antisemitism to be both wildly absurd and morally repugnant, and I’m not gonna give that to you…
Further.
Stop homogenizing What Jews Think And Feel regarding I/P by a few people you heard on the radio with the caveat: “but I know not all Jews feel that way.” This is a classic example of antisemitically positioning Jews as incapable of understanding that “the hurting of innocents” is wrong. You’re trying to, implicitly at best, position all Jews as monsters for you, the benevolent white leftist, to ideologically correct with your Unique perspective that the killing of innocents is wrong. It’s not your job to morally evaluate the entirety of the Jewish people by a metric of how much they do or do not support the liberation of Palestine and the absolishment of the state of Israel.
You’re not Jewish, you’re not even Palestinian, you are white and simply an ally. Remember that you have *no* material stake in this lol.
Gonna be honest that you are the type of white leftist that probably gives me anxiety about the way you talk to Jews generally and are not interested in conversing with/seeing us as people, let alone people who can be flawed and grow and change in their perspective… and are more interested in branding every run of the mill liberal Jew you come across as a Zionist for woke points, after maybe your only engagement with said Jew is: “do you support Israel?” Or similar questions… You are not your Palestinian friend, need I remind you that you LITERALLY have no stake in this.
Further..
It’s disrespectful to refer to the Holocaust as just “something wrong,” and is indicative to me that you have no solid grasp on its devastation or the complicated ways this trauma has shaped Jewish consciousness generally because you have already morally positioned Jews in your mind as nothing more than absolute monsters that levy their own trauma to justify Israel. (Except some good ones of course!) lol
FURTHER!
Yeah I know this response seems rather over-the-top and your question was well meaning… (as are most white goyishe leftists who ask these sorts of questions). But I’m begging you not to use The Good Jews as your moral guide while already positioning the rest as Bad… this is a reaction generally speaking to the prevailing attitude I’ve seen among white non-Jewish leftists whose engagement with the matter starts and ends with the simple idea that those who support the state of Israel are my enemy because I support Palestinian liberation, and most Jews do, so most Jews are my enemy (and the enemy of all liberation!) until I ask/harass/impose the question about it to them in which I fundamentally and casually judge their humanity for a social justice cause I have absolutely no stake in.
Further…
Consider that most Jews are actually not blathering idiots about I/P (we may actually know more than you, shocking! I know) or blood hungry monsters. But all you wanted to ask me was whether or not [x] was antisemitic, and I’m just going to tell you that’s not a sufficient enough engagement with yourself regarding whether or not you are antisemitic/being antisemitic about the way you engage with Jews regarding I/P.
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