Antisemitism Ruse
Updated 2024-03-25
2024-03-21 The False Charges of ‘Antisemitism’ by Apologists for Israel’s Atrocities in Gaza The gist of the trick is to equate Israel with the Jewish religion—and then to equate opposition to Israel with antisemitism.
If we condemn Hamas for its October 7 attacks in Israel, we’re not accused of anti-Arab bigotry. Nor should we be. But if we condemn Israel for its actions since then, we might be accused of antisemitism. Meanwhile, nothing could possibly justify the atrocities by Israel in Gaza, where the death toll is now estimated at 32,000, while uncounted thousands of other Palestinian people are buried under rubble. Seventy percent of the victims have been children and women.
The U.S. government continues to make the atrocities possible. As retired Israeli Major General Yitzhak Brick said midway through the second month of the war: “All of our missiles, the ammunition, the precision-guided bombs, all the airplanes and bombs, it’s all from the U.S.” He added: “Everyone understands that we can’t fight this war without the United States. Period.” https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/antisemitism-genocide-israel-gaza
2024-02-16 Caitlin Johnstone: Israel Needs to be Hated Perceived anti-semitism is cited as evidence for why Israel needs to be even more violent, militaristic and tyrannical than it already was, and why its brutal treatment of Palestinians is justified and correct.
There’s a certain particularly toxic personality type which thrives on being hated. They behave in wildly odious and destructive ways, and then when people react to this with hostility they plunge into poor-me victimhood, which they then use to justify more odious and destructive behavior.
We see a large-scale version of this same dynamic with the state of Israel. A Jewish anti-Zionist Israeli named Alon Mizrahi argues that Israel is actually intentionally generating hatred towards itself in order to shore up political power. Claiming that “Israel and American Jewish organizations took it upon themselves to keep Jews afraid and isolated” in a “strategy of intentional paranoia,” Mizrahi opines that when Oct. 7 hit, “the right wing, nationalistic, paranoid section of the Jewish political spectrum, realized it could be translated into political gold.” “It doesn’t seem like Israel is trying to be hated globally. It is actually what it’s doing,” Mizrahi writes. “It is intentionally airing its cruelty and barbarity so that it will remain closed up to the world, thus guaranteeing the continued rule of the paranoia camp.” https://consortiumnews.com/2024/02/16/caitlin-johnstone-israel-needs-to-be-hated/
2023-11-07 Understanding the Difference Between Anti-Semitism and Pro-Palestinian Activism We must be as clear as possible about what is anti-Semitism and what it is not, so that real political differences are not transformed into existential confrontations.
I’ve experienced anti-Semitism; fought anti-Semitism as a co-founder of an anti-hate group called Bloomington United; and served as the volunteer security guard at my local synagogue from 1999—when there was a neo-Nazi murder committed here—until 2004—long after 9-11.
American campuses are now awash with controversy–some of it nasty and some even threatening—and the controversy is often framed as a conflict between supporters of Israel and supporters of Palestine and also as a conflict between Jews and their supporters and the enemies of Jews.
It is also obvious to me that much of what is being called “anti-Semitism” on American college campuses, however callous, stupid, or politically foolish it may be, is not anti-Semitic, and that some of what is being called “anti-Semitism” is not even callous, stupid, or politically foolish—as the example of Rashida Tlaib, to which I will return, makes clear.
Such distinctions matter, intellectually, morally, and politically. To refuse to take them seriously is to promote hyperbole, recrimination and, ultimately, the closing of minds and the shutting down of freedoms at a time when reason and freedom are in too short supply.
But recent FBI reports do nothing to support one very dominant frame: that Jews are being singled out for threats by Hamas-inspired terrorism that has come to the U.S. with the intention of harming Jews, who are uniquely vulnerable and indeed especially vulnerable to Arabs and their supporters.
If some recent anti-Semitic incidents may have been initiated by “pro-Palestinian” individuals, it is equally likely that some anti-Muslim incidents have been initiated by “pro-Israeli” individuals (and on the White Christian far right, there are some pretty crazy so-called “Zionists”).
Both vulnerable minority groups are experiencing heightened vulnerability. And there is every reason to believe that the primary source of this vulnerability is not either of these groups, but “lone wolf” haters or people associated with White supremacist groups. https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/anti-semitism-2666175824
2023-07-06 How Israel and Its Right-Wing Allies Weaponize Anti-Semitism to Discredit Left-Wing Politicians such as Jeremy Corbyn. When the socialist Jeremy Corbyn became the leader of the Labour Party in Britain in 2015 and mounted a grassroots campaign in 2017 to become the British Prime Minister the ruling corporate elites, along with the war industry, panicked. They conspired with the Israel lobby to mount a vicious campaign of character assassination against Corbyn and his supporters, accusing them, even if they were Jewish, of anti-Semitism. Corbyn has been a long-time champion of Palestinian rights.
The purging of Corbyn and his supporters effectively emasculated the left within the Labour Party. This was its goal. The unholy alliance between Israel, the war industry and the corporatists raise the question of whether it is possible in Britain or the United States to reform the system from within. https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/the-chris-hedges-report-podcast-with-ac8#details
2021-07-19 Israel’s Antisemitism Ruse: When Racists Claim Victimhood Historically, one of Israel’s services to empire was to make the false victimhood of the powerful sound persuasive – to lend the “reverse racism” ruse legitimacy. In a cruel irony, pro-Israel smear campaigns thus played into some of the most dangerous themes of holocaust “revisionism.” One of the main objectives of holocaust “revisionists” is to disavow Western responsibility for Nazi antisemitism by projecting responsibility for it onto the traditional targets of Western hate. For the notorious German revisionist Eric Nolte, the Nazi holocaust, since it was evil, could not have been Western; it must have been an “Asiatic deed.” White supremacy emerges from this narrative all but unscathed. Pro-Israel attempts to depict the targets of Israeli racism as the real antisemites play into this game.
As anti-Palestinian racism consumes Israeli politics, the “new antisemitism” ruse is radicalizing. Netanyahu was so single-minded in his anti-Palestinian hate that he embraced holocaust revisionism of the crudest sort. It was a spectacular disgrace. Netanyahu literally fabricated evidence in an attempt to shift blame for the Nazi holocaust from Germany onto the Palestinians, earning neo-Nazi praise and a dishonorable mention in Federico Finchelstein’s Brief History of Fascist Lies. https://justinpodur.substack.com/p/10415820_dfm-on-as
2019-09-25 New Israeli report lies about anti-Semitism Israel always wants to claim that all its crimes and achievements are Jewish crimes and achievements, and that therefore anyone who condemns Israel’s crimes is condemning all Jews. But principled critics of Israel must and do insist that Israel’s crimes are not committed in the name of all Jews. Yet two groups share an interest in erasing the distinction between Israel, on the one hand, and Jews individually and collectively, on the other.
The first group is anti-Semites who want to seize on Israel’s crimes to justify their bigotry against Jews – such people are not motivated by genuine solidarity with Palestinians.
The second group is Israel and its supporters around the world, who – by implicating Jews in Israel’s crimes – want to use Jews and genuine concern about anti-Semitism as a shield for Israel. By crying wolf, this second group harms the struggle against real anti-Jewish bigotry, which all anti-racists must support.
Leaders in the Palestine solidarity movement have always been the first to condemn any expression of racism, including anti-Semitism. They have emphasized that there is no place to blame Jews collectively for Israel’s criminal acts against Palestinians and that – despite its insistence – Israel does not represent all Jews. Israel has no defense for its crimes, so all that is left is to try to smear an entire movement for freedom, justice and equality. In that spirit, Israel published a report on Wednesday claiming to “unmask” the BDS – boycott, divestment and sanctions – movement as inherently anti-Semitic https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/new-israeli-report-lies-about-anti-semitism
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