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Let's ask the world's leading expert in urban warfare, then:

https://www.newsweek.com/israel-has-created-new-standard-urb...

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/johnwspencer2018_israel-has-d...

Note the falsification of Hamas casualty figures:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/hamas-quietly-drops-thousands-dea...

https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/how-hama...

Save The Children estimates 50,000 births in Gaza in the first 9 months of the war, when the fighting was the most intense: https://www.savethechildren.net/news/women-self-inducing-lab...

Unless there have been zero births since this article was published, even if you take the 50,000 death estimate from Hamas at face value, the population has increased since the start of the war. Of course, there is reason to suspect the Hamas figures, since they have been systematically manipulated, don't distinguish combatant deaths, don't separate out deaths from natural causes, and don't call out deaths caused by misfired Palestinian rockets.

The central camps have been almost totally untouched since the hostages are being kept there: https://www.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-804993 (article is a few months old but this is still true). And even outside of these camps, 16+ hospitals remain operational in Gaza despite serving as terror HQ.

A) It's hard to argue that the war in Gaza was indiscriminate when the IDF achieved the highest combatant-to-civilian casualty ratio in the history of urban combat, despite Hamas hiding in tunnels underneath population centers.

B) When soldiers flood across your border from a neighboring polity by the thousands, it would be an abdication of sovereignty not to defend against that immediate threat, regardless of the enemy's funding sources.

Zionism to me means that the Jews are entitled to self-determination, and that the modern state of Israel is the fulfillment of that promise.

Anti-Zionism is the negation of that idea; namely that Jews are not entitled to self-determination and therefore should live at the whims of the countries where they are a minority for their security.

Merely objecting to an Israeli policy or even a Jewish value is not intrinsically antisemitic. But if you criticize only Israel about some issue, and grant a free pass to everyone else on that same issue, that's when things become problematic.

Well I obviously don't believe they are committing genocide.

If Israel wanted to commit genocide, why are there more Gazans alive today than this time two years ago? Israel could turn Gaza into a parking lot overnight; why didn't they?

> Israel has a right to annihilate Hamas

How should they go about this? What rules should they follow? And when other countries violate these rules, are you commensurately outraged?

If the Palestinians are risking their lives to protest against Hamas in Gaza, why can't the alleged pro-Palestinian protesters demonstrate in support of this viewpoint?

Yes, they are called Neturei Karta, and there are maybe 100 of them out there.

But it doesn't matter who is espousing the idea: just because a Jew says something doesn't make it _not_ antisemitic. I have yet to hear an argument that convinces me that it is not bigoted to selectively deny the Jewish people a right to a state from which to defend themselves.

1. OK, great: this is a legitimate argument against the existence of Israel. So we can then expect Israel to be the focus of 0.5% of anti-nationalist protests, since it is one of ~200 countries.

2. What is the "correct" number of fatalities when fighting a defensive war against an enemy committed to annihilating your country? And besides, even Hamas now admits that 72% of combat-aged fatalities they have recorded were men.

3. I never said carte blanche; I just find it curious that people find so much time in their day to protest against Israel, but when Alawites are massacred in Syria, civilians slaughtered in Sudan, or hundreds of thousands of children starve in Yemen, nobody says "boo". Surely you value the lives of innocent Muslims everywhere the same?

> If anything negative you can say about Israel is equated to antisemitism then Israel gets a free pass.

I am not arguing this. Everyone is free to criticize Israel; when it becomes antisemitic is when you hold Jews to a different standard than you hold everyone else.

> but Israel's response was out of proportion

Why do you say this? What would a proportionate response have looked like to an attempt to conquer your country by firing 5,000 rockets while 6,000 people invaded and murdered everyone they could find? Bear in mind, that immediately afterwards, Hamas leaders promised to repeat October 7th again and again until Israel was annihilated.

Can you give me a real example of anti-Zionism that isn't antisemitic?

I am eager to see someone who genuinely applies the same standard to Jews and non-Jews, and then concludes that Israel shouldn't exist.

When I hear people criticize Israel today, 90% of the time it is from people who want to make sure Jews can't defend themselves against genocidal enemies by denying the Jewish people the right to self-determination.

And 90% of the rest of the time, it is from people who selectively criticize Israel when they defend themselves, but stay suspiciously quiet when confronted with literal genocide and ethnic cleansing by Muslims.

Where are the pro-Palestinian activists who are standing up for the Gazans who have the courage to risk their lives by protesting against Hamas?

At the heart of most antisemitism is holding a double standard against Jews. If you're anti-Israel, is it because:

- You don't think Israel should exist? If so, why are Jews not entitled to self-determination?

- You disagree with how Israel has prosecuted this war? If so, what would you have done differently in the wake of an attempt at driving the Jews into the sea?

- You think the world should be united under a fundamentalist Islamic empire? OK, well try leading with that.

But surely they count as genocide for you, because hitting a hospital with an airstrike is the test, right?

The US led airstrikes on hospitals in Afghanistan and Iraq. NATO forces struck hospitals in Yugoslavia. Were those genocides too?

I could link-dump on you too, but that doesn't make for a very interesting discussion.

Why do you think it constitutes a genocide? What argument do you find convincing among those articles?

Declaring something a "fact" without presenting evidence doesn't make it true. If we're talking about genocide, a clear, deliberate mass extermination campaign is usually what's meant, something akin to what the Jewish people experienced during the Holocaust.

You claim that Israel has an intent to wipe out Palestinians and steal their land. But if that was truly their aim, why hasn't it happened already? Israel has the military capacity to wipe out Gaza or any other area, but they haven't. The absence of full-scale destruction calls into question the assertion of genocidal intent.

In contrast, Palestinian factions like Hamas have repeatedly expressed their goal of annihilating Israel and its Jewish population. They acted on this intent with the October 7th attacks, promising more violence to come. They’ve openly stated their goal of driving Jews "into the sea", that’s genocidal intent, not from Israel, but from groups like Hamas.

So, if we're talking about genocide, where’s the evidence of Israel carrying out systematic, widespread destruction of Palestinians? On the other hand, if we look at Palestinian actions, the genocide you accuse Israel of seems to mirror the actions and rhetoric of those who seek Israel’s complete destruction.

Accusations like these are heavy and need more than just rhetoric. Without solid evidence, they become a diversion, not a reasoned argument.

You and I must be operating with different sets of facts if this merits a one syllable response for you.

With all due humility and intellectual curiosity, why is it obviously never an antisemitic slur for you?

Well, partial good news, then: we have a secular, pluralistic state that covers at least most of that territory, namely the State of Israel, and the Jews, Christians Muslims and Druze living there assent to peaceful coexistence.

And entirely different matter is the fate of the people who are not citizens of the state of Israel. Where do you hope for them to live (and why)? Surely not in the pluralistic state we just talked about, since peaceful coexistence is far from a mainstream viewpoint among that population, to put it mildly.

A relevant Ask Project video from recent memory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Grq1Ro9vlyU - note that none of the Palestinians consent to living peacefully with the Jews in one state.

Accusing Israel of genocide is very often antisemitic, though, since it typically involves holding Jews to a different standard than everyone else.

Why do you presume that it is obviously not a bigoted assertion?

Criticizing Israel is not antisemitism, and nobody is arguing that.

Holding Israel to a double standard or denying Jews the right to self-determination is however broadly considered antisemitism[0][1]. "Today, it is used by over 1,000 other governments, universities, NGOs, and other key institutions, demonstrating a clear international consensus."[2]

[0] https://holocaustremembrance.com/resources/working-definitio... [1] https://www.ajc.org/use-of-the-working-definition-in-the-us [2] https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounder/about-ihra-workin...

If the protests about Israel were largely about their treatment of Palestinians, why did the world erupt in protest against Israel, largely in unison, mere hours after they were invaded by Hamas terrorists on October 7th?

On October 8th, 2023 in Times Square while the blood was still fresh on the ground from the massacres in Israel, protesters chanted "Long live the intifada" and "Smash the settler Zionist state". Visibly Jewish people were followed and had "Hamas should have killed more of you" shouted at them. All only hours after the invasion.

Harvard's Palestine Solidarity Committee (in)famously issued a memorandum right after the attack "hold[ing] the Israeli regime entirely responsible for allunfolding violence."

On October 9th at the Sydney Opera House, hundreds of protesters chanted "F** the Jews" (and allegedly "Gas the Jews").

In Grand Central on October 9th, protestors marched for the "resistance" (i.e. Hamas) and "right of return" (i.e. banishment of Jews from Israel).

All of this happened weeks before the ground invasion in Gaza began on October 27th. Two days later, dozens of travelers were injured as hundreds of protesters stormed a flight from Tel Aviv landing in Dagestan, Russia, as they sought to harrass "Jewish refugees" (i.e. Israelis). Of course, the global antisemitism only continued to climb, with 10,000 incidents recorded in the 11 months following 10/7.

Even this week, a pro-Hamas group organized a shutdown of Grand Central Terminal, while in the real Gaza, protests are sweeping the strip _against_ Hamas. If the mission is solidarity with Gazans, why not protest in favor of the issue that Gazans themselves are risking their lives to advocate for: the removal of Hamas?

Great, so we're in agreement: Gaza has forfeited its right to statehood after committing the October 7th massacre, literally aimed at destroying Israel. Quoting the Hamas spokesman Ghazi Hamad: "Hamas is prepared to repeat the October 7 Al-Aqsa Flood Operation time and again until Israel is annihilated."

https://www.memri.org/reports/hamas-official-ghazi-hamad-we-...

There are many legitimate possible criticisms of the state of Israel, and protesting around those criticisms is a frequent occurrence within Israel.

But how many protests have you seen outside of Israel that were debating a narrow Israel domestic policy issue, versus calling into question the legitimacy of the "Zionist entity"?

Well, it depends on why you're protesting against Israel.

If you're supporting the dismantlement of the only Jewish state, like Hamas is, then you are in a precarious situation: why do you argue uniquely against Jewish self-determination?

Do you routinely protest in support of tear down all nations without prejudice, or just focus your antinationalism on the one liberal, democratic Jewish state? If so, why do you feel that only the Jews lack the right to defend themselves as a nation? Is it because you prefer to see the Jews defenseless against harassment and attempts at their genocide?

The Columbia protests were plainly and unabashedly pro-Hamas, e.g. the chant "يا حماس يا حبيب اضرب اضرب تل ابيب" (Oh Hamas, oh beloved, strike strike Tel Aviv), or the protestors exclaiming "We are Hamas", or any of the other explicit pro-Hamas statements that have been caught on camera.

But I'm not sure what other pro-Palestinian protests have occurred since 2023 other than pro-Hamas protests. Have there been any explicitly pro-Palestinian protests that have advocated against Hamas, or for any other political entity?

Let me just summarize your position: European Jews, facing extermination, should have tried harder to stop Hitler, trusted the same governments that sold them out, stayed put in countries that were turning into slaughterhouses and politely avoided seeking refuge in the only place in the world that would take them just because it might offend your sensibilities. And now, after a few of them survived the industrial attempt to wipe them out, you want to tell them they were wrong to have escaped.

You dress up your objection to Zionism behind a pseudomoralistic veneer of Palestinian rights, but your real position is that Jewish survival was a problem because it confuses your personal narrative of Palestinian nationalism. That’s not a serious moral argument. That’s historical cruelty crudely disguised as moral purity.

And no, I never insulted you, but the position that European Jews should have just tried harder against the Nazis is a laughably sadistic viewpoint regardless of who holds it.

No, you're dodging the point. You're basically saying Jews deserved self-determination only if they could pull off the impossible: either magically prevent fascism, or create a homeland without upsetting anyone. That's not how history works. Zionism wasn't a luxury ideology, it was a response to existential threat. Jews didn't have the option to stay in Europe: Europe made that brutally clear. And yes, the land was inhabited, but so what? Every nationalist movement has had to contend with messy realities. The alternative you're proposing amounts to telling the Jews: stay stateless, stay vulnerable, or wait for miracles. That's not a serious moral position; at best it's an abdication, at worst a double standard against the Jews (i.e. antisemitism).

Got it, so you only specifically object to the Jews settling in their ancestral homeland which they immigrated to legally and was 98% less populated than today, because the Nazi-aligned mufti of Jerusalem objected to their presence.

Care to suggest a superior choice of venue for Jewish sovereignty where the Jews had a better claim to the land, and the locals were prepared to welcome their national project?

This isn't a serious argument. You want the Jews to have self determination if and only if they can conjure into existence a magical fairy land free of compromise or can will into existence powers like militarily defeating the Nazis despite lacking even a basic police force.

> Only a small percentage of them wanted to pack up and go to Palestine, a far-away place they knew nothing about.

And pray tell, what happened to the ones who stayed?