This isnt true at all. The far right, for example, are pretty openly antisemitic. If somebody takes pains to distinguish the two on the other hand they're rarely bullshitting.
The converse is true though. Attempts to conflate antizionism and antisemitism by are almost always ultimately driven by a staunch belief in Jewish racial supremacy and racism against Arabs.
This is reflected by the views of the President of Israel, who is openly against miscegenation. That is a view you can only hold as a committed racist. Few would argue that a white president who doesnt want any white daughters to marry a black man is anything else.
For some reason the Israeli state not only gets a pass, they are granted the authority to judge what constitutes racism not only by America, but also by IHRA.
Sorry if this is nitpicking, but who are you talking about here? The President of Israel is Isaac Herzog, formerly the leader of the opposition and on the left side of the political map. I'd be highly surprised if he held such opinions.
If you are talking about the Prime Minister (Israel is one of those countries where the Prime Minister has the most power and the President is mostly a ceremonial position, so maybe you got confused due to that?) then the current one is Yair Lapid, which I'd also be highly surprised if he held such opinions.
Maybe the previous one, Naftali Bennett? I guess I could believe that, though I'd love to see exactly what public statements you are referring to.
If you visit the occupied territories around, say, Hebron it will be far less surprising that even somebody on the left would hold such views.
His was a useful example not because it's the most heinous but because he is at the top and clearly representative rather than a crazed rando, because he was very unambiguous about what he meant and because he doubled down on it when challenged.
It's hard, if not impossible, to find examples in the west that meet all of those 3 conditions.
Racism permeates their society to its very core. There are plenty of examples that are way, way worse.
I just gave numerous examples that I've seen personally. Centrists who don't care one way or the other about Zionism certainly aren't the ones beating up Jews on the streets of London when Israel does something bad.
There is close to no overlap between these people and the people who take pains to explain for the 15th time to a likely racist skeptic that they dont hate jews it's the state of israel they have a problem with.
On the other hand, ive yet to hear a single person who purposefully conflates the two condemn Isaac Herzog - the president of israel as a racist for what he definitely said. Literally zero. You would be the first if you were to do it in any such argument ive had. The closest I got was "his views are unfortunate".
I generally interpret this silence as a signal that his views on racial supremacy, his state and its institutions are thoroughly and comprehensively endorsed.
> There is close to no overlap between these people and the people who take pains to explain for the 15th time to a likely racist skeptic that they dont hate jews it's the state of israel they have a problem with.
Yes, those specific anti-Zionists aren't anti-semites. These are the types of anti-Zionists that you'll find in tech circles who are educated, egalitarian minded people that are cognitively capable of separating the crimes of a state and the ethnic group inside it. That doesn't detract from the observation that there's an intersection and correlation between people who are anti-Zionist and people who are anti-semitic. You see this correlation manifest in alt-right neo-Nazi communities, who both hate Israel and hate Jews, go and read Stormfront or 4chan. And you see it manifest among Arab-Muslim nationalists. There isn't a group that hates Jews and don't also hate Israel.
Regarding the guy who was screaming "fuck Jews", he was probably motivated to action by what Israel was doing a day before. It didn't happen in a vacuum where his anti-semitism can be cleanly separated from his dislike of Israel. The two are related.
It's the same underlying psychology as people who are racist against Muslims because of Al Qaeda or ISIS, or people who are racist against Russians because of Putin, and so on.
https://musliminstitute.org/freethinking/culture/sorry-truth...
Israel hates these people the most. It's not hard to see why. Random people who attack Jews arent a threat - they get condemned and sent to prison quickly. BDS, on the other hand, has a history of successfully taking down apartheid states.
>That doesn't detract from the observation that there's an intersection and correlation between people who are anti-Zionist and people who are anti-semitic.
It really is curious. Every person I've observed who has tried to make this point has staunchly avoided condemning the publicly stated highly racist views of the President of Israel after I raised them.
It's not a correlation. It's literally 100%, even among people who are supposedly egalitarian and educated.
This does detract from your observation, Im afraid.
There is a very clear anti-zionism correlation to committed anti-racism, and an even higher correlation between being antiracist and those accused of antisemitism who deny it.
One or two nazis holding up a palestinian flag (not somethingk they tend to do a lot) doesnt change that.
This is irrelevant to the question being discussed which is whether anti-Zionism is correlated with anti-semitism. However, I did look up his statements now and yes it appears he is indeed some kind of racist. That's still besides the point.
> very clear anti-zionism correlation to committed anti-racism
Yes, that correlation also exists. That's not at all mutually exclusive with a correlation between anti-Zionism and anti-semitism. As I described above, anti-Zionism is a wide tent with some racist genocidal crackpot conspiracy theorist ethnoreligious nationalists mixed together with true egalitarian anti-racist leftists and liberals.
> One or two nazis holding up a palestinian flag (not somethingk they tend to do a lot) doesnt change that.
Dishonestly euphemistic and you know it.
It's completely relevant. The point being that being anti zionist is a necessary precondition of being consistently antiracist.
I will condemn clear and open anti semitism. I have no problem with that.
I cant in good faith condemn anti semitism and not condemn Isaac Herzog's comments. Anti semitism is racism. Isaac made some very clear and very obvious racist remarks as the head of the zionist state too. To be consistently antiracist I have to condemn those too, as well as the sheer overwhelming levels of racism inherent in the state he leads.
It is also a natural consequence of holding these views that you will, inevitably be accused of antisemitism. The correlation on that is nearly 100% as far as I can see - it happened to me, it happened to all of my friends, it happened to everyone involved in BDS.
Consistent antiracism guarantees that you will falsely be accused of antisemitism...by racists.
>As I described above, anti-Zionism is a wide tent with some racist genocidal crackpot conspiracy theorist
And pro zionism is a wide tent with a self declared racist at the very top whose racism is endorsed, whether implicitly or explicitly by damn near everybody in the tent.
I keep asking pro zionists and zionist apologists to prove themselves exceptions to this rule and they consistently refuse - thereby implicitly placing themselves in the "pro racism" group, i suppose.
>Dishonestly euphemistic and you know it.
No, not really. I tend to view the president of a cause to be a bit more representative of it than I do a few crackpots who hold up a flag. I similarly dont view Baruch Goldstein as representative of all zionists.
Unlike most other people who conflate antisemitism and antizionism, I dont just have a preferred flavor of racism.
Anti-Zionism being a precondition to antiracism doesn't imply that all anti-Zionists are antiracists. That's fallacious. As I've said, and provided examples for, anti-Zionists contain both principled antiracists and nationalist racist genocidal antisemitic crackpots. It's a union of two distinct sets of people. Anti-Zionism ~= {principled and commendable anti-racists}U{antisemitic neo-nazis and Arab-Muslim ethoreligious nationalists}. The first set of people arrive at their anti-Zionism because of egalitarian principles, the latter are just a broken clock that happens to align with antiracists on this one issue but otherwise they get their views from hatred and ethnonationalism. It's not hard to understand.
Edit reply due to rate limit: Corbyn also laid a wreath for one of the terrorists, presumably also in the pursuit of peace.
Oddly Corbyn also advocated for the IRA and claims that was about peace too, but the people that negotiated Good Friday state he didn’t have anything to do with the NI peace process either.
It clearly wasnt racism that motivated him to say "friends" it was obviously a desire for peace. Most of his more intelligent detractors understood the context but were avowedly pro war - for them that actually made it worse.
Isaac Herzog's abhorrent views had no such excuse, he doubled down on them and yet British centrists demonstrate pretty much unconditional support for him.
A contingent from the UK Labour party even visited him to apologize in person for the other guy's "antisemitism". In the process of apologizing for somebody who wasnt a racist, they were sucking up to somebody who was. They werent looking for peace when they did that though, only approval.
Corbyn also laid a wreath for one of the terrorists, presumably also in the pursuit of peace.
Oddly Corbyn also advocated for the IRA and claims that was about peace too, but the people that negotiated Good Friday state he didn’t have anything to do with the NI peace process either.
Adding to that:
> A contingent from the UK Labour party even visited him to apologize in person for the other guy's "antisemitism".
Excellent. That said, it's not just one other guy - Corbyn's not the only person in the far left.
> Isaac Herzog's abhorrent views
The worst I've seen so far is someone saying Herzog thinks Palestinians fly planes into buildings, which is demonstrably false (in a video he discusses 'terrorists' doing that) and someone else saying he doesn't want his daughter to marry a black man - not wanting your children to marry outside your race is a fairly common view worldwide although rarely said in public in the UK. Oddly Labour is very keen on conservative views when it comes to some races but not others.
If there's something big about Herzog we haven't seen in this thread please spill it here.
I guess youve never googled isaac herzog miscegenation.
It's a more useful example than most not because its necessarily his worsr remark but because it wasnt an offhand comment he later denied and because theres zero potential ambiguity about it being a racist belief.
>not wanting your children to marry outside your race is a fairly common view worldwide although rarely said in public in the UK.
Right. Racism is fairly common worldwide.
There is still a near complete overlap between people who preach antizionism and against racism (including antisemitism) and a willingness to let their daughter marry outside their race and people who will inevitably be accused of being antisemitic.
There is also almost a complete overlap between people who preach that this antizionism and antisemitism are equivalent and endorsement of racism - whether covert or overt.
I believe that this thread and the absolute unwavering commitment of everybody in it to the avoidance of condemming Isaac's remarks inadvertently underscores this...though Im still willing to be proven mistaken.
It's just as true for the centrist wing of the Labour party - e.g. when a group of them visited Israel to make a cringeworthy pledge of fealty to Isaac and were lauded for doing so.
Yes racism is common worldwide. But the UK left let Dianne Abbot and various orthodox Islam-associated ethnicities (who have similar views about their kid’s partners) and anyone else off Scott free. They really don’t like it when Jews want their kids to marry other Jews though. Odd isn’t it?
> There is still a near complete overlap between people who preach antizionism and against racism
You keep saying things like that but at least in the UK it really isn’t. The difference between the ‘anti Zionist but not racist’ person and the racist person is about two pints or how many other far left people they have around them.
They definitely dont but they always get accused of it.
The Israeli state (headed by the guy who openly doesnt want his daughter to marry a black guy) has several organizations (ADL, etc) set up specifically for the purpose of rooting out and mischaracterizing these examples for the purposes of furthering the aims of the state. They also happen to go after real antisemitism. Sometimes. They didnt give a fuck about viktor orban using hook nosed jew tropes in his campaign adverts though, because "friend of israel" > "friend of jews".
This isnt a "Jewish conspiracy". After all they go after antizionist Jews too. Even an antizionist holocaust survivor in one case.
It's an avowedly pro racism enterprise headed by a committed racist who explained his views without metaphors or tropes using anti-racism and "oh look, tropes!" as a figleaf.
Likewise, the Soviet Union was the first nation to recognize Israel and the Russian Jewish community was very important in the creation of Israel. More than 25% of the Jewish colonists came from Russia and other Soviet countries. The same Russia where pogroms were a routine in the XIX century.
Zionism was a pretty convenient idea for a lot of ultra-nationalists that didn't want Jewish people in their countries.
It's almost like the Jews who fled Judea / Beta Israel following the Roman crackdown after Bar Kochba weren't welcome in Russia. Someone should find a way to let them return there and live in peace.
The vast majority of anti-zionists reject jewish peoplehood (especially the ones who claim to be jewish, which in general just means of jewish descent, not anything that makes them uniquely jewish vs. non jewish). why? I'd argue because that makes it much easier to say good guy / bad guy. If jews are a distinct people who have indigenous ties to the land, then makes it difficult and complicated.
So while criticism of Israel isn't inherently anti-semitic (criticism can come from love as a simple example), it is very possible that the vast majority of anti-zionists are by definition anti-semites due to said rejection of identity.
One reason people say that is perceptions of double standards. They see China get an easier time on their treatment of Uyghurs.
Another reason people say that is because anti-Zionism is demonstrably correlated with anti-semitism. They see photos of someone at an anti-Israel rally giving the roman salute. They see people attacking Jews at random on the street whenever Israel does something shitty. They see a photo of a neo-Nazi group holding up the Palestinian flag in solidarity. They see anti-semitic tropes being shared in online forums that focus on criticism on Zionism and Israel.
A third reason is that anti-"Zionism" is a broad tent with a lot of different opinions, some of which Jewish Israelis view as genocidal in outcome if not in intent.
Of course, that doesn't mean criticism of Israel is automatically anti-semitic. That would be ridiculous, and there isn't really many people who actually say that in earnest.