Is it real antisemitism or just not supporting Israel?
About when they start going on about “Zionists” Is where I draw the line and where it typically takes a turn.
As a Jewish person, I find it healthy to criticize the Israeli government. Most young Israelis do. Their government has been steamrolled by a wannabe dictator that is corrupt as hell and his team of racist, backwards conservative orthodox buddies.
They were just protesting in the streets weeks ago and now we’re expected to turn around and support the government? Nah. This doesn’t change anything.
The problem is a lot of people don’t differentiate between the israeli government and the israeli people as a whole - i’ve seen some straight up ‘they had it coming’ style bullshit that is verrry careful to place Good Jews and Bad Jews (the festival goers) to try and get a pass on antisemitsm and maaaan it is transparent as fuck.
I must admit, it’s quite refreshing to hear a critical take on the Israeli government from a Jewish person. I don’t know if it’s due to the news sources and forums I typically frequent (e.g. BBC, Guardian, etc), but I feel like it’s quite rare to hear an opinion from someone who actually lives there or who practices the religion.
It’s also quite reassuring (as a fairly ignorant outside observer who is only beginning to learn the tiniest bit about the complex and bloody history of this region) to hear that not every Jewish person or every Israeli likes the way that the state is developing.
Edit: I made some language changes because upon re-reading the parent comment I realised that the poster didn’t actually say whether they lived in Israel or not and I had made a faulty assumption.
Is it real antisemitism or just not supporting Israel?
About when they start going on about “Zionists” Is where I draw the line and where it typically takes a turn.
As a Jewish person, I find it healthy to criticize the Israeli government. Most young Israelis do. Their government has been steamrolled by a wannabe dictator that is corrupt as hell and his team of racist, backwards conservative orthodox buddies.
They were just protesting in the streets weeks ago and now we’re expected to turn around and support the government? Nah. This doesn’t change anything.
The problem is a lot of people don’t differentiate between the israeli government and the israeli people as a whole - i’ve seen some straight up ‘they had it coming’ style bullshit that is verrry careful to place Good Jews and Bad Jews (the festival goers) to try and get a pass on antisemitsm and maaaan it is transparent as fuck.
I must admit, it’s quite refreshing to hear a critical take on the Israeli government from a Jewish person. I don’t know if it’s due to the news sources and forums I typically frequent (e.g. BBC, Guardian, etc), but I feel like it’s quite rare to hear an opinion from someone who actually lives there or who practices the religion.
It’s also quite reassuring (as a fairly ignorant outside observer who is only beginning to learn the tiniest bit about the complex and bloody history of this region) to hear that not every Jewish person or every Israeli likes the way that the state is developing.
Edit: I made some language changes because upon re-reading the parent comment I realised that the poster didn’t actually say whether they lived in Israel or not and I had made a faulty assumption.
I’m one of the Israelis who frequently attended the anti-government protest.
I expect you not to support the Israeli government, but to support the Israeli people’s right to defend ourselves from terrorists.
Regardless of whether Israel has a right wing or left wing government, we will not allow thousands of us to be massacred.
We won’t stand by and twiddling our thumbs waiting for the next Hamas attack to kill more of us without responding with our full force.
None of this contradicts the fight to end the occupation. You can be anti-Hamas and anti-occupation at the same time.
Nuance is possible!
I would say isreal has a right to defend itself, but not if they keep stealing land and oppressing the people who attack them.
If you want to defend yourself, first, you have to stop attacking the people who you claim to be defending against.
Hamnas is human garbage, but one can not separate the creation of Israel from the ghettoizing of the Palestinian people.
Nobody deserves terrorist attacks, but this didn’t come out of the blue.
Isreal needs to own up to it’s complicity in the violence before they try to claim to be the sole victims of it.