Anti-Israel is not Anti-Semitic
Updated 2024-07-15
Jewish Voice for Peace JVP isn’t just organizing our people to demand a ceasefire: We’re challenging our opposition’s narrative — one that conflates Jewishness with support for the state of Israel.
Below, you’ll find a roundup of our national staff discussing the dangers of conflating anti-Zionism with antisemitism, the role of Jewish organizing in the movement for Palestinian liberation, and the Jewish-led protests for a ceasefire happening in cities across the U.S. right now.
2024-04-27 Criticism of Israel is not Antisemitism https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkLu4PIRtOg
2024-02-16 Palestine Talks | Professor Avi Shlaim says “anti-Semitism was an European, not Arab problem” ritish-Israeli historian Professor Avi Shlaim was born in Iraq to Jewish parents in 1945, and moved to the newly established State of Israel as a 5-year-old. He speaks to TRT World about how Jews lived peacefully in the Arab and Muslim world before Zionism and the import of anti-Semitism from Europe. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krOE1QOWziA&list=PLUW304lJeu3Vg_nM0WQfWDZTDyu6h6PlD&index=12&t=12s
2023-12-08 Equating Anti-Zionism to Antisemitism a Slap in the Face to Jews Like Me Jewish people of conscience know that Israel’s massacre of Palestine is also an assault on the Jewish faith. I am a Jewish person who opposes the settler colonial state of Israel. This is not despite my Judaism, but because of it.
My Jewish elders taught me that governments can manipulate and confuse the public to distract from genocide. I learned that media and political leaders dehumanize and demonize the oppressed, turning their backs on mass suffering as an unquestioning public continues to go about their daily lives. I was also instilled with the belief that this is never acceptable, no matter who the oppressor is. So while Jewish people certainly have a right to exist, genocidal settler colonies constructed on mass indigenous graves, do not. Palestinians have an inalienable right to return to their homeland and live in peace.
According to the US House of Representatives, this viewpoint now makes me antisemitic. https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/anti-zionism-does-not-equal-antisemitism
2023-11-25 Justifying the Unjustifiable in Palestine Ralph is joined by author and human rights activist Miko Peled. They discuss the excuses that Israel uses to defend the atrocities they commit against Palestinians, and the truth behind all the propaganda.
Anybody who is not courageous enough to stand up and speak the truth and stand up for what is right, because they might be called this name or that name—it’s cowardice, it’s hypocrisy. Being called antisemitic is a small price to pay when you talk about standing for the rights of millions of people who have been living under such terror for so many decades.
This is pure revenge. What we’re seeing is vengeance of a military force and a state that have been humiliated. And just like any bully, any gangster who’s been humiliated, they take it out on the weakest people they can find, people who cannot defend themselves… It’s revenge for the sake of revenge. It’s savagery for the sake of savagery. It’s brutality in its purest form. There’s no other reason than the brutality itself.
Palestinians deserve nothing less than the lifting of the siege, release of all prisoners, and the dismantling of the apartheid state. Nothing less than that should be demanded. And all we’re seeing people talk about is ceasefires, as though a ceasefire is some great accomplishment. Ceasefire does not provide the possibility of a future where this is not repeated. What needs to be demanded now is a political solution that will ensure the safety and security of Palestinians—and that is never part of the conversation. A ceasefire does not secure the lives or the security of Palestinians, because we know Israel will violate it a week later.
It’s not going to collapse because Israelis agree. It’s not going to collapse because Israelis wake up one morning in a good mood. Israel is going to have to be forced on its knees. Just like in South Africa, whites in South Africa were on their knees. We’re talking about severe sanctions. We’re talking about closing down all diplomatic missions. We’re talking about not allowing Israelis to participate in sporting events, cultural events, any events, academic arenas. They need to be shunned. Israeli society and the apartheid state that they created need to be brought on their knees. https://www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/p/justifying-the-unjustifiable-in-palestine
2023-11-27 NYC councilwoman blasts failure of ‘modern progressivism’ after anti-Israel high school riot “I was sickened by what I saw at Hillcrest HS, but sadly I was not surprised,” Republican New York City Councilwoman Vickie Paladino told Fox News Digital on Sunday. “Our education system is fundamentally broken, and antisemitic riots like this are sadly the natural result of years of woke leftist indoctrination replacing real education. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/nyc-councilwoman-blasts-failure-of-modern-progressivism-after-anti-israel-high-school-riot/ar-AA1kAfhe
2023-11-26 NYC Mayor Eric Adams blasts students’ ‘vile show of antisemitism’ that forced teacher to hide in office New York City Mayor Eric Adams said city officials are investigating a “vile show of antisemitism” in which students at a high school in Queens reportedly rioted after learning a teacher attended a pro-Israel rally. The incident shut down Hillcrest High School in Jamaica Hills, Queens, for two hours on Monday and forced the teacher to hide inside a locked office while the students rampaged down the halls, the New York Post first reported. “The vile show of antisemitism at Hillcrest High School was motivated by ignorance-fueled hatred, plain and simple, and it will not be tolerated in any of our schools, let alone anywhere else in our city,” Adams wrote on X.https://www.foxnews.com/politics/nyc-mayor-eric-adams-blasts-students-vile-show-of-antisemitism-forced-teacher-hide-office
2023-11-11 Doctors Are Being Fired After Pro-Hamas Posts A prominent watchdog group has been calling attention to doctors who have posted messages in support of Hamas, and several of those doctors have since reportedly been fired. StopAntisemitism, an American nonprofit watchdog organization, began resharing alleged pro-Hamas posts from doctors following the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/doctors-are-being-fired-after-pro-hamas-posts/ar-AA1jJoq2
2021-05-16 The Most Ardent Practitioners Of “Identity Politics” Are “Pro-Israel” Advocates But have you noticed that the IDW’s disdain for “identity politics” and all its attendant excesses — the cheap performative outrage, capricious offense-taking, and over-eagerness to ascribe bigoted motivations — seem to go completely out the window when when the discussion turns to Israel? Leading figures in the Intellectual Dark Web responded with such ferocious, emotionally-reactive indignation to Congresswoman Ilhan Omar’s recent allegedly “anti-semitic” comments that they began to deploy exactly the same stultifying argumentative tactics they’d almost certainly deplore in virtually any other context. https://mtracey.substack.com/p/the-most-ardent-practitioners-of
2015-If Americans Knew (About Israel) with Alison Weir Being against the policies Israel is not being anti-Semitic http://cindysheehanssoapbox.blogspot.com/2015/10/if-americans-knew-about-israel-with.html
.
Categorized Directory: News and Articles about Israel- Palestine Conflict
.
progressiveissuesblog 