In a word, yes.
If you weren’t raised as a Jew, you have no standing to speak on this. As a Jew, I decide what is, and is not, antisemitic, just as POC will decide what is, and is not racism.
If you weren’t raised as a Jew, how dare you think you can be an arbiter of what is antisemitic? Notice that when a black person deems something/someone racist, he/she is taken seriously, and his/her view is respected…at least by the progressive left.
But Jews everywhere, since October 7, are being gaslighted constantly with indignant cries of I’m not antisemitic, it’s Israel’s government that I can’t tolerant.
As we all should know, Israel is far from being the worst country for human rights.
Moving on to global humanitarian crises, DR Congo is the largest hunger emergency in the world, with over 25 million people struggling daily to simply get enough to eat.
The country hosts one of the largest displaced populations (including refugees) in the world – approximately 5.5 million. One in seven women nationwide experienced sexual violence before the age of 18, and the problem is even more severe in conflict-affected communities. However, in 2022, the number of people in need in DRC was significantly higher than the amount of people in need in Ukraine, yet the amount of funding secured was 74% lower.
Have you heard any demands to stop the violent conflicts there? The country is experiencing outbreaks of monkey pox, cholera, measles, floods and landslides.
And in Sudan? Seven months of conflict there have resulted in 9,000 deaths and 5.6 million forced to flee their homes. Where are progressives wearing the Jalabia in protest?
I bet none of your friends are going around enraged on behalf of the Congolese or Sudanese. Because the only people who matter are Palestinians, and their plight is the only one worth marching for. If Jews aren’t involved, no one cares.
Look at the map above. Note the size of Israel. Note that it’s surrounded by countries with lamentable human rights, countries where women are second class citizens and gays are at risk of prison and death. Teeny tiny Israel is the focus of the worlds dismay and disapproval….why?? Is it “because our taxes prop up their apartheid government”? The taxes argument is absurd. The US gives foreign aid to countries all over the world, some with governments that progressives surely wouldn’t want to support.
(Ukraine was the top recipient of aid in 2022, having received nearly $12 billion from the U.S. that year following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.)
If you want to know the history of Israel, it’s easy to research. Historians and archaeologists agree that a Kingdom of Israel existed by ca. 900 BCE and that a Kingdom of Judah existed by ca. 700 BCE. The Jews have been deported from their ancestral homeland by various empires, thousands of years before Palestine was invented by the British division of land formerly governed by the Ottoman Empire.
Let’s get back to now. “The Hamas attack resembled a medieval Mongol raid for slaughter and human trophies—except it was recorded in real time and published to social media. Yet since October 7, Western academics, students, artists, and activists have denied, excused, or even celebrated the murders by a terrorist sect that proclaims an anti-Jewish genocidal program. Some of this is happening out in the open, some behind the masks of humanitarianism and justice, and some in code, most famously “from the river to the sea,” a chilling phrase that implicitly endorses the killing or deportation of the 9 million Israelis. The decolonization narrative has dehumanized Israelis to the extent that otherwise rational people excuse, deny, or support barbarity. It holds that Israel is an “imperialist-colonialist” force, that Israelis are “settler-colonialists,” and that Palestinians have a right to eliminate their oppressors.” *
Progressives have fallen to this fiction like they once fell for Stalin and Hitler. But their beloved Palestinians had every chance to build a thriving state instead of voting to be ruled by Hamas. Jews worked hard and created Israel out of a desert. Palestinians could have done the same if they weren’t so focused on killing Jews. (White savior complex much?)
What about the charge that Zionism is racism?
Prior to 1948, Zionism was an aspiration—the national liberation movement of the Jewish people, founded by Theodore Herzl in the late 19th century, to re-establish a Jewish nation as a solution to the antisemitism Jews faced in Europe. After 1948 until today, Zionism became a reality: a homeland not only to persecuted European Jews, but Jews from all over the globe, including Jews fleeing persecution from the Soviet Union, the Arab world, Turkey, Iran, and Ethiopia, amongst others. Israel is one of the most diverse countries in the world with over half of its population being from Africa, India, and other areas of the Middle East. The vast majority of Jews around the world identify as Zionists, meaning they support the existence of Israel as a Jewish State in the historic Land of Israel.
Antisemitism has existed now for millennia, and the prevailing ideas about Jews running everything, about how “good” they have it, is just as stupid as the Elders of Zion.
As the saying goes, “Germany will never forgive the Jews for the Holocaust.” Jews are despised for being weak, and also when they fight back. Jews are somehow responsible for everything bad. Why? The term “Jew” at various times in history has been connected to both materialism and intellectualism, socialism and capitalism, worldly cosmopolitanism and clannish parochialism, eternal chosenness and unending accursedness.
Even the UN is rife with antisemitism. So is the Red Cross.
In closing, you intellectuals arguing about whether Jewish babies were actually beheaded or just burned alive need to get a fucking grip.
Jews are the indigenous people of Israel, their ancestral homeland. Deal with it. War isn’t genocide or ethnic cleansing. And apartheid does not apply to the state of Israel, as much as you love the word.
L’chaim for now.
In 2 words, fuck yes. Like you, I could go on for hours about this subject, perhaps days. Did any of the protestors or human rights faux experts on social media lift a hand for the Palestinians before Oct. 7th? Are they helping now? Will they leave their comfortable homes and handy keyboards to go to Gaza to help the beleaguered Palestinians. Again, in two words, Fuck No. To be graphic, if they or their daughters were raped, maimed, tortured and killed by an indigenous American Indian descendant, would they say, “Oh well, he and his people have been so downtrodden it’s okay, I understand.” They are Antisemitic hypocrites every bit as stupid, uninformed, biased as the worst of the MAGA’s.
I would never dare to speak for anyone else’s experience of anything at all— not even how a chicken sandwich tasted— because it’s not my experience. How would I know? I won’t make a comment on the content of your incredibly moving article, which, as you so rightly point out, I may not. But Jesus Christ you’re a good writer. I feel pretty strongly about that. Thank you so much.
Thank you so much for speaking up. You clearly put a lot of time and research into this eloquent post. Couldn’t agree more.
As a fellow Jewish person, I have been unable to watch the news for some time now, but this latest spike in antisemitism has frightened me on a level I did not expect to feel in my lifetime. We are about the same age but I was raised by two parents who were holocaust survivors. I was raised in a household that was over the top patriotic and my parents taught us to be grateful to be living in this country. This is the case with many immigrant parents, they pass along their love of country to their children. I was often told that the holocaust would never happen again, especially in this great country. Why are there so many people who have become so enraged and full of hate for Jewish people? The answer to hate has always been education and yet the schools want to ban books that teach valuable lessons of love and acceptance. Please keep speaking out on this topic. I am counting on you to use your immense writing talent to teach others. Thank you sister. xoxo
Thomas Isenberg – And now we have AOC and cohorts saying that Jesus was a Palestinian! It does not get more bonkers, does it??
Alison -You are much too nice! I’m mostly spouting facts from being immersed in history for the last few weeks. My own personal arguments seem so obvious to me, but evidently not to others. Thank you for taking the time to read this one!
SWJ – Yay, I’m glad we’re are the right side!
AR – Growing up with Holocaust survivors must have had it’s own intensity, I’m sure! It’s almost surreal to witness the anti-Israel and antisemitic wave that is sweeping the whole world. Every day I learn something new to stoke my anger… like the verb “israeled” being added to the dictionary of slang.
Articulate and informative as always SW. Why won’t antisemitism go away already? We aren’t hearing enough about this, the first I heard from this perspective in Australia was from aussie Josh Szeps podcast and it really opened my eyes.
Sally – It will never go away. I can’t say why, except as the world’s most ancient prejudice, it still seems to be useful whenever a scapegoat is needed.
Thank you for this clarity. There are many people who agree with you ( in Australia at least) but their voices are not as loud as the others. The world feels crazy and out of control, my optimism has become shaken over the years. I hope 2024 brings some compassion and common sense. Happy New Year Sis xxx
PS However, At the risk of making this about me, I did want to report to you that my relationship with my daughter has improved (I have made comments over the years about how difficult it was ). I always appreciate how you seemed to find the right words. Pure Grace!
Mary – I’m so glad to hear about you and your daughter! That is great news. xoxo