This is a meaningless statement though. We can expect that nearly anyone that's antisemitic would be critical of a country run and mostly inhabited by Jewish people.

It becomes a problem when people try to extrapolate that fact to dismiss every criticism of Israel as "this guy's probably just antisemitic."

Its only true as a matter of probability throughout the entire world because its true in a particular region that has an enormous population padding those statistics.

There is antisemitism everywhere in some amounts and it is wrong like all forms of bigotry. However, in many countries, such as the US, you are just as likely to run into a person that criticizes Israel for reasons that have nothing to do with the religion of its inhabitants. You are still free to think that they are wrong, but people should stop using accusations of bigotry as a weapon to silence people simply for disagreeing with them. If you want to call someone a bigot, its pretty important to make sure you are right about it.

And for the record when it comes to that Israel/Palestine conflict I think neither side is even close to being innocent. I don't give a shit about their religions I just want families to stop being murdered by the actions of two shitty governments.

Huh? Are you seriously calling someones words who feels victimized, a weapon? Are you seriously holding fear of actual violence to an unsubstantiated standard?

"If you want to call someone a bigot, its pretty important to make sure you are right about it."

Please show me one other form of bigotry accusation you hold to the same standard.

This perspective is almost certainly a blindspot. Im not certain - but I definitely would not rely on you to stand up or defend folks from actual antisemitism.

How do people even think, let alone say these things and not get called out by everyone immediately?

Do you actually and critically think this is true or even appropriate to say?

The idea of figuratively describing something as a weapon isn't new or unusual. I'm not even sure what you mean by the second sentence. I was talking about people defaulting to claims of bigotry at any sign of criticism. If every criticism of Israel, even legitimate criticisms not coming from a sense of bigotry, makes a person feel victimized then there is something wrong with that person. If words cannot be used as a weapon exactly how do criticisms of Israel make a person feel victimized?

>Please show me one other form of bigotry accusation you hold to the same standard.

I hold all forms of bigotry accusations to the same standard. The example given was basically "a lot of people exist that are antisemitic so we can assume that criticism of Israel is probably antisemitic." Which is an argument that's basically uses the same sloppy logic that actual bigots use to justify their beliefs. Calling someone a bigot can have severe consequences for that person whether they are actually bigots or not. The key part of that sentence is that it can have consequences when they are not guilty. Yet people throw accusations around assuming someone's intentions simply because they said something they don't like. That's wrong so its important to try to only make those accusations against people that are actually bigots. I'm not sure how that's controversial. Some people do this because they genuinely think that anyone that criticizes a thing they like is a bigot. However, some people know better and intentionally falsely accuse people of being antisemitic because they know that it makes people afraid to voice their opinions. Thus, I called it a figurative weapon.

>but I definitely would not rely on you to stand up or defend folks from actual antisemitism.

Well whether you rely on me or not I will do the right thing if a genocidal antisemitic political party attempts to take over US politics. In the meantime, if I see people doing bigoted things I will stand up for people being targeted. Like I always have. This is kind of what I was talking about though, you seem to have labelled me as an enemy of yours simply because I suggested that there are people that criticize Israel for reasons other than antisemitism. There is no government in the world that doesn't sometimes deserve to be criticized.

>Do you actually and critically think this is true or even appropriate to say?

I don't understand. Are you saying its impossible to be critical of Israel without being antisemitic?

To be clear, what I was saying wasn't intended as a defense of the person OP was about. I think that the Google employee's letter was poorly worded and offensive. I don't know if he's antisemitic, but the phrasing saying that "Jews have an insatiable appetite for war" comes across as bigoted to me. It could be the result of poor phrasing causing someone to say something that they didn't mean, but it might not be. I can't blame someone for interpreting his statement as antisemitism because it was an overtly antisemitic statement. He could be a different person today, but no one made him publish that.

The idea that antisemitism is used to silence criticism of Israel is meant to do exactly that, victim shame them into silence - its an outrageous accusation without any factual basis.

I don't know anyone that defaults that way about every criticism of Israel...but there are many types of critiques that are clearly antisemitic - for example blaming Jews or even Israelies collectively for their governments actions - or holding Israel to a standard you dont hold anyone else to or leveling criticism at Israel with no attempt to even get the facts on the ground correct.

Can a claim of antisemitism be taken at face value without accusing the victim of weaponizing it to silence criticism of Israel?

Why are you looking for reasons to dismiss accusations of anti semitism?

Why isn't your default compassion and understanding?

I am critical of some of Israel’s behavior, but by no means calling for its complete destruction.

By and large, for example, the UN security council resolutions that the US keeps single-handedly vetoing are not calling for any destruction. They simply condemn Israel's violent behavior.

For what it is worth I have visited Israel and the West Bank, and my sympathies are with Israel as the only democracy in the region.

That does not mean I cannot criticize when it acts wrongly. Sure the whole conflict is incredibly difficult with no easy solutions, but some people want to use it to stay in power.

Of course Hamas is not better, but that is not the expectation for Israel.

It's also an entirely an uneven playing field. No other country is condemned and attacked by the international community as often, and as widely despite other countries' far worse offense.

Criticisms of Israel is unique and direct and no other country is held to the same standard.

How much of a joke is it that Saudi Arabia was on the human rights commission at the UN for so long. Or the lack of similar statements against China for their decimation of Uighurs.

This isn't a finger blaming game, its recognizing that the UN demonstrates a massive bias against a single country with standards that no other nation has to face

Based solely on the merits, you'd think that Israel's ethno-state bona fides wouldn't be any worse than dozens of other countries'. In fact, they're far less problematic. You can be Arabic/Muslim in Israel and rise to the highest levels of government with full rights of citizenship. I can point to many other countries where that wouldn't be the case for ethnically/religiously mal-aligned individuals. But somehow those other countries aren't constantly in the news cycle for defending their ongoing right to exist.

The vast majority of people are criticizing the government not the population. It’s unusual for people to consider a nation’s population rather than their government because a nation’s population is largely irrelevant. It’s not random Americans that have a history of overthrowing democratically elected governments, it’s the US government that does so etc.

Israel’s government, like all governments, does plenty of things people disagree with and as such often gets legitimate criticism on it’s own merits.

And yet, Jews are today. It wasn't too long ago that people marched in Charlottesville chanting jews will not replace us. Now there's a massive rise in violence

Yes, they are. The US State Department issues travel advisories over such issues. It’s safer to travel in many places as a Canadian rather than American.

Let’s be very clear, any criticisms of Israels actions should not apply to Jews as a race, people or religion and even more so not be used as an excuse to harm or treat any single Jewish person negatively.

You don’t think there’s anything about it’s recent creation that makes this a special case?

There's plenty of states with ongoing ethnic strife, and they do face a lot of deserved criticism. However I can't really recall popular, internationally supported calls for their abolition altogether.

The age of state again has not much to with it: for example Lebanon is younger than Israel and has a rich history of ethnic/sectarian conflict. Now there must be people who want to abolish Lebanon, but somehow you never hear them.

So when some are shouting to end Israel, it’s not unreasonable to think the next step is finish the genocide.

What people usually find particularly offensive is the de-facto annexation and settlement of territories that exceed the UN resolution that created the State of Israel, along with the complete imbalance in both military power and casualties of both sides. It's not just ethnic/sectarian conflict. In many aspects, it would qualify as genocide.

Hell, even outright Nazism wasn't deemed a reason enough to dissolve Germany (although at some point it was seriously considered).

The Israeli government and its people need to take a hard look at what it is doing, whether they'd like to be subjected to it by a foreign military power, and how they'd react against it. If they wouldn't like it, and if they would react violently against it, then I believe we'd have a lesson to learn and understand what Palestinians are experiencing and why a more peaceful solution would be a more constructive way to move forward. Some of the pain points can be immediately addressed.

And Germany was, in fact, dissolved into two smaller and very different countries for a long, long time after WWII. Their own wounds and the memory of the horrors they perpetrated, and the lesson that very normal people can do unimaginable evil is a tough one to learn, but one we must learn nevertheless if we decide to be better than our ancestors.

And yes, plenty people do advocate for dissolution of Israel, it's in fact a mainstream (but not the only one) position among pro-Palestinian activists.

That's exactly what many advocate. It's in the charter political documents of the Palestinian ruling authorities. Major US politicians hold this position who receive a lot of political and media support. Notable celebrities have tweeted/said "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free". What do you think they mean by that besides the utter destruction of the state of Israel?

whether they'd like to be subjected to it by a foreign military power

Since the Israelis only are responding to being attacked, I fail to see how they're in any way being hypocritical.

Sorry. I meant nobody respectable is suggesting that. Not even the respectable Palestinians.

> "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free". What do you think they mean by that besides the utter destruction of the state of Israel?

A single-state solution where Israelis and Palestinians share the same rights and live under the same democratic government.

> Since the Israelis only are responding to being attacked

The said attacks are extremely ineffective. They always were, since well before Iron Dome became operational.

BDS is doing so precisely in the guise of

>A single-state solution where Israelis and Palestinians share the same rights and live under the same democratic government [and gerrymandered borders and immigration policy to create a Palestinian majority]

There is an elephant in the room and we must acknowledge it’s there so we can deal with it.

So only True Scotsman are to be considered respectable? Rashida Talieb, Ilhan Omar, and other overt anti-semites who appear regularly on national media aren't "respectable"? Let me know when they're abandoned by the media and their own party like Steve King was for making racist-adjacent statements.

A single-state solution where Israelis and Palestinians share the same rights and live under the same democratic government.

Voting residents in the region don't agree with you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas_Covenant

The said attacks are extremely ineffective.

The attempt to make this about body counts and not the initiation of hostile military action baffles me. But I disagree with "ineffective". People in Israel are being injured and dying in rocket attacks. That's not ineffective. And then if you want to think this through a bit more, you'd realize that the degree to which it is ineffective is due to the fact that Israel counter-attacks to destroy the ability of Hamas/PLO terrorists to attack them. If they didn't respond to the degree that they do, there would be more Israeli casualties.

It also has a surprisingly long list of separatist movements[0], which it has has thus far refrained from bombing with US-funded F16s.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_active_separatist_move...

What makes it strange is sense of normalcy people (sorry, I mean racists) have about a sense of white / Islamic supremacy over Jews, that makes them think it's ok to say things like 'we will wipe every Jew off the face of the planet' etc.

Just fanning the flames, let’s work together to find a solution instead of gaslighting.

This tactic of saying "oh try to find Israel on the map, it's so tiny, oh poor state of Israel" is often pushed by Zionists, also often trying to link anti-zionism with anti-semitism.

I saw a talk with Ruth Wisse, a professor at Harvard University pushing this narrative.

If Israel weren't Jewish, nobody would care about it. You can go line by line describing Israel and its so-called "atrocities" and I'll show you countries that are far more appropriately accused of those types of atrocities... yet those other countries never make it into the international news cycle.

I'm not Jewish. I'm not religious.

But the singling out of Israel by political/antisemitic forces has not escaped my notice.

Plenty of countries get criticised for their treatment of minorities when they do something wrong.

But instead, we see more media coverage in a single day of Israel's counter attacks from rocket fire than we do for a year of Uighur genocide.

There were plenty of news stories about the Uighurs last year.

The international community is not doing much about Israel either.

Anyone who looks at the power dynamic knows the truth of the saying: If the Palestinians put down their weapons, there would be peace. If the Israelis put down their weapons, they would be slaughtered.

Agreed. In practice, antizionists (folks who believe that Israel shouldn't exist) virtually are virtually always antisemitic. Whatever you think of him, Bret Stephens makes a pretty insightful analogy that it's like how there could theoretically be segregationists that aren't racist, but they don't exist in practice.

That said, there's a distinction to be made between antizionism (i.e., "Israel shouldn't exist") and criticism of Israel (e.g., "Israel's settlement policy violates human rights"). The former is de facto (but not de jure) antisemitism while the latter is not.

EDIT: I'm getting a lot of downvotes for this, I'm guessing I've offended a lot of people who identify strongly with antizionism/antisemitism. My intention wasn't offense, but rather observation. That said, I make no apology for any offense taken--enjoy my Internet Points! (:

At that point, it's not a very interesting statement

A colony of what empire exactly? Jews were a group of massacred refugees.

> massive support from the United States

There is no massive support from the United States actually, at least not monetary. There is military help that is needed because Israel's enemies want to destroy it, still to this day. And it's not that big compared to Israel's gdp (4 billion to 400 gdp = 1%) and is completely meaningless to the U.S budget. The other support is vetoing U.N decisions that constantly target Israel. Which is needed for the same reason the military aid is needed.

> Israel (the colonial ethnostate) should not exist

Should the U.S exist? Last I checked California used to be part of Mexico - why isn't it being returned to it's rightful owners? How about West Europe? Maybe it should be dismantled and have all it's assets transferred to Africa? I've never heard anyone say stuff like that but when it comes to Israel sure let's destroy the evil ethno state.

Also, the US wasn't born out of a revolution against equal voting rights for people regardless of national origin, Israel, like Rhodesia at the time, was.

In both cases, minority groups rebelled against British attempts to impose majority-rule democracy, Israel has just succeeded more than Rhodesia did at the time.

Last time I checked Israel just changed the prime minister after having an election, while Palestine had its last election in 2006 and chose a party that literally killed its opponents.

The Jewish insurgency in mandatory Palestine was prompted by British indications that it was going to create a multi-racial, democratic state in Palestine, as they did in many of their other colonies once they departed. I believe there was a policy white paper published but I don't recall the name.

After substantial British civilian/government worker deaths at the hands of insurgent bombs (ie. King David Hotel bombing), the British retreated and gave it to the UN, who did the partition.

> Palestine had its last election in 2006 and chose a party that literally killed its opponents.

I may be misremembering, but I believe a large reason elections haven't been held since then was because the party elected in 2006 was ejected in a coup by the party supported by the US and Israel.

So, 14 years since an election in Palestine, and Netanyahu has been prime minister for 14 years.

Israel doesn't have that law either, there are black Jews and Indian Jews and white Jews as you probably know. Israel is an anomaly because of 2000 years of persecution that culminated in the holocaust. Maybe when there is no more any antisemitism (yeah, right) Israel will happily dismantle itself. Until that day it seems to me quite clear why Jews need a nation state.

Yes, the U.S. is also a colonial state. Not all states owe their existence to colonialism and occupation, but the U.S. is definitely one of them. We committed a genocide on an unimaginable scale, and took all the line of the people whose territory this was rightfully theirs. Not a good example of states to emulate.

> How about West Europe? Maybe it should be dismantled and have all it's assets transferred to Africa?

Its colonial territories in Africa should have been, and were, transferred to Africa.

Who is actively calling for the dismantling of the United States? No one. But Israel is fair game.

> Its colonial territories in Africa should have been, and were, transferred to Africa.

How is that enough though when comparing with the much more minor "crimes" Israel did? Israel displaced 700000 people as part of a brutal civil war where it also suffered major casualties. Belgium, Germany, France and others destroyed millions of Africans and robbed their nations. How is it enough for them to simply retreat from their colonies? If you actively call out for Israel to be dismantled I would expect for Europe to at least give away 50% of it's wealth to the people it destroyed. That sounds somehow fair to me or at least morally consistent. If what happened 73 years ago in Palestine must not be forgiven I don't see why everybody else gets a pass.

Because we "won". There are almost no indigenous people left in the United States, because we killed nearly all of them and destroyed their culture and civilization. I hope that this does not happen to Palestinians. For those indigenous people that remain, I definitely support greatly expanded rights and territory.

> If you actively call out for Israel to be dismantled I would expect for Europe to at least give away 50% of it's wealth to the people it destroyed.

One could argue on the number and logistics, but I absolutely support stronger European reparations for the damage done by colonialism.

Huh? What expanded rights some tiny resorts? Give them everything back - it's theirs. Even if there are only 1 million of them left make a referendum and ask them if you are allowed to stay. Also California is Mexican! Boy we have a lot of fixing to do! But basically I can infer from what you're saying this isn't about morals at all but about how strong you are. The U.S is super strong so no one calls for it's destruction (at least not seriously). Israel is tiny and weak and surrounded by enemies that want to see it go down. That's what this is about.

More importantly, I keep hearing about the Israeli colony and am a truly interested to know what empire my family are representing. As far as I heard they were massacred pretty much everywhere and came to Palestine with literally nothing, some being jailed in Cyprus by the Brits to prevent them from entering the country. No one told them about the big empire that was backing them up.

However Before Israel there was the British mandate. Before that Ottoman Empire.

The Palestinians in Gaza never controlled the land.

Doesn't that just mean “they were never powerful”? If they were living there, does it matter who was in power? English rule never stopped the Welsh being Welsh, or Wales from “belonging to” them. (I don't know how applicable this analogy is to this situation – probably not very, given there isn't a territorial dispute over who should have Wales.)

Not necessarily. It could also mean that the people living in Gaza today were not historically from Gaza but were from Egypt or elsewhere.

That's a strange view on the situation. Let's say I give you a choice. 1. Be a practicing Jew living in Palestinian-controlled territory. 2. Be a practicing Muslim living in Israel.

I'd definitely choose 2, choosing 1 would be suicide.

who rightfully controls the area occupied by Israel

The Jewish people were the indigenous people of that territory. In what way do they not rightfully control and occupy Israel?

Isn't choice 1 called being a settler? As far as I know they make up 10% or so of the Jewish population in the region, a far cry from suicide.

My maternal ancestry is of the Bering Strait islander and First peoples. Does that make me an indigenous person for the entirety of Americas and thus give me the right to control and occupy the entirety of America and expel all the "recent" migrants? Because that's the equivalent of claiming a blond haired blue eyed German Ashkenazi with a couple of generations in New York is somehow indigenous to the area of historic Judea and thus has the right to expel a different tribe of Semitic people who have only been there for say what, a thousand years?

I'm no expert but doesn't the Torah directly say that the Jews took Canaan from the Canaanites as directed by Yahweh? Wouldn't that make Canaanites the actual indigenous people of that territory? So would Canaanites thus be accorded the right to control and occupy that territory using your logic?

No. Even according to their/our [1] own mythology, the indigenous people were the Canaanites.

[1] I am ethnically Jewish. My parents were both born in Israel (except that it was still Palestine at the time). I grew up speaking Hebrew. But I do not self-identify as a Jew and I am highly critical of the conduct of the state of Israel. It has quite clearly become an apartheid state, and think that is reprehensible. But I am also a descendant of Holocaust survivors, so I am mindful of the very real historical oppression of Jews, and the importance of Israel is pushing back against that oppression. It's a very thorny problem with very few unambiguous protagonists. But no matter how you slice it, promulgating falsehoods like that Jews are the indigenous people of Palestine is unhelpful.

This is a fictional narrative constructed to justify the state of Israel. It has no basis in historical fact -- there never existed a Jewish ethnostate in the territory known as Palestine, this is a modern construction. Regardless, I don't believe in ethnostates -- of any ethnicity, anywhere.

When? The region of Palestine was majority Muslim when Israel was founded. That your ancestors lived in a region doesn't give you any rights to it. If anyone has a birthright to a region, it's those who were born there and no one else.

What matters is who's being born there now, not where your grandparents were born

A single state solution is not going to have good consequences.

Moreover, why is this a strong rejoinder? Black South Africa was never recognized as a country either, does that mean there was no moral concern?