Antisemitic incidents in Germany rose by 320% after Hamas attacked Israel, a monitoring group says
A group tracking antisemitism in Germany said Tuesday that it documented a drastic increase of antisemitic incidents in the country in the month after Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7.
The RIAS group said it recorded 994 incidents, which is an average of 29 incidents per day and an increase of 320% compared to the same time period in 2022. The group looked at the time period from Oct. 7 to Nov. 9.
Among the 994 antisemitic incidents, there were three cases of extreme violence, 29 attacks, targeted damage to 72 properties, 32 threats, four mass mailings and 854 cases of offensive behavior.
Many Jews in Germany experienced antisemitic incidents in their everyday lives and even those who weren’t exposed to any antisemitic incidents reported feelings of insecurity and fear, said RIAS, which is an abbreviation in German for the Department for Research and Information on Antisemitism.
Im just way more skeptical everytime i see the word "antisemitic" with how much its being used for criticism of Israel or support of palestinians.
Jewish people are attacked on the streets, synagogues are being attacked and smeared with swastikas etc.
You can condemn that and still think Israel is making a mistake in Gaza.
This is absolutely true. Antisemitism is on the rise in many places. At the same time some organizations (like the ADL) mark everything anti zionist as antisemitist. This muddies the water and takes away from the actual stuff some people have to go through with antisemitism. Their stories deserve to be heard and not getting drowned out by claims that have nothing to do with antisemitism.
I don’t think the OP you’re replying to means to say that antisemitism isn’t on the rise, it’s just hard to know how much is actual antisemitism and how much is marked as antisemitism when it’s just criticism of Zionism and/or the state of Israel.
The ADL has been calling the demonstrations by Jewish Voice for Peace anti-Semitic. I don't doubt there's a rise of incidents, but it's always a good idea to look at who's providing the numbers and what they consider an incident.
how do u differentiate antizionism and antisemitism? jews have the right to live buuuut.... not in Israel? please enlighten me
Zionism isnt "jews have the right to live". Its "jews have a divine right to land where people were already living so they kill and exile them"
The "kill and exile" part is not necessarily part of it (see e.g. Labour Zionism, Rabin was one of them) but granted the right-wing nutjobs have pretty much appropriated that label outside of Israel itself.
Oh speaking about divine right: There's also religious Antizionism, those people equate anything Zionist to trying to force the prophecy of the third temple and therefore as heretical.
oh I've seen a lot about labor zionism learning about the history of zionism in general. The kibbutzim, the jewish land funds, the buying up of land from colonial land owners and eviction of Palestinians, long before Israeli statehood. Look at the occupation in the West Bank for what Labor Zionism looks like. And what the kibbutzim at the Gaza border are waiting to do to Gaza.
Going in and helping in all kinds of humanitarian ways? At least that's what they did before Hamas slaughtered them all, it's a very lefty region.
Imagine Rabin not getting assassinated and the Oslo accords going into force. That's what Labor Zionism could've looked like.
And don't get me wrong I won't defend everything every Labour Zionist has ever done, either. My position is actually quite simple: Fascists on both sides are fucking it up for everyone. And no matter your gripes with any particular Labour Zionist thing, fascists they are fucking not.
do you think the humanitarian situation in Gaza was good? International Humanitarian organizations were pleading with Israel to let them do humanitarian work in the open air prison that is Gaza. I think Israel has been lying to you about how they've been handling Gaza, it has not been humanitarian in any way.
The situation wasn't just not good, it was atrocious. But also no, the Israelis going in and and helping weren't the Israeli government blockading it, same as Israelis helping West Bank Palestenians with the olive harvest so they don't get shot at by settlers aren't the IDF turning a blind eye to settlers shooting Palestinians.
Maybe, just for a second, consider that Israel is not a hive mind.
Was Rabin the one assassinated by a Zionist who was so close to making a good treaty? If so, we need more of those.
By a religious Zionist, yes. And guess who back then variously called for, didn't push back against calls for, etc, his assassination: The current prime minister as well as the minister of national security.
As to more of those: You know the type of Jews living close to the west bank going in helping Palestinians with the olive harvest so that they're less likely to get shot at by settlers (because hurting Israelis would get them in trouble)? Many of those types also lived near the Gaza border, helping as they can, it's a region full of old hippie kibbutzim. And then Hamas came. Which gives yet another spin on why the Israeli government isn't terribly worried about the hostages: Most of them are leftists.
Generally speaking the average Israeli is left of centre, in its core it's a socdem country. After the failure of the Oslo accords a lot, a lot a lot of them bought the right-wing promise for safety, the "antagonise until they give up" path, but otherwise stayed centre left. As I think the Haaretz put it: "Yigal Amir [the assassin] has won". But then with the right wing now having proved that they can't provide safety their days in government are absolutely numbered, Netanyahu is not popular in Israel right now. They won't go for naive hippie kumba-ya, either, but a Realpolitik "keep the checkpoints, get rid of the settlements, stop antagonising and put the fucking Kahanites in padded cells" policy is currently definitely a vote-winner.
Considering the "settler" violence in the West Bank (backed by the Israeli military), it sure seems like they've appropriated it inside of Israel itself, too.
They've cornered state power by having found a willing stirrup holder (Netanyahu) whose only interest nowadays is staying in power to avoid going to prison for corruption and therefore able to form a coalition with the right-wingest of right-wing fascist fucks (people like Ben Gvir, who didn't get drafted as the IDF ruled him to be too extremist to serve). But label-wise, no, they don't equate Zionism with Kahanites and general ilk. Roughly like other countries don't equate patriotism with fascism.
Some Israelis - not all. The current government is absolutely zionist and there is a decent portion of the population that is aligned with that... but, to my knowledge, the majority of Israelis don't demand a one state solution. And it's absolutely true that the majority of jews don't advocate for that.
They were already living there as well. You do realise that, yes?
from the beginnings of Zionism? No, no they largely came from Europe, when Britain colonized the area after World War I. It's pretty fucked up, Britain promised Arab independence in Palestine if they revolted against the Ottoman colonizers during WWI, but then issued the Balfour Declaration promising a Jewish state there instead.
That's such an incredibly reduced "summary" that you can as well call it false. But in your eyes good and evil are strictly defined. Must be nice (for you). Sadly, that's neither helpful, nor good, nor a solution.
Whats false is the idea that they were already there. Its kind of a weird thing to believe, i feel like you'd be pretty well aware of the famous Jewish diaspora. Theres a reason over 700 thousand palestinians were killed or exiled and it wasnt to make room for people already living there.
What makes it "false" is that it deliberately leaves out multiple other factors that do not fit your narrative of "Israel = evil Jewish colonizers from Europe" and "Palestinians = poor victims being oppressed".
Directly neighbouring Arab and Muslim countries and areas exiled, killed and drove out Jews amounting to more than 850 thousand who went to Israel.
That the people who we call Palestinians today in the area denied the two-state solution at that time because they did not want Israel to exist. They wanted to rather have war instead of getting their own state and share the land.
The animosity and multiple wars that were started against Israel for purely religious and ideologic reasons from the other side as well. The religious zealots aren't only on Israel's side.
There are numerous countries that came into existence by wars and in a similar way as Israel. It's even less of an issue here because it's not even a part of a country which declared independence, there wasn't even a country in the first place!
Israel did not come into existence just because of Zionism. About half of the Jews in Israel are Mizrahim who are native to the area. They had an inferior status in the Islamic society. By your own logic it is understandable that they ultimately pushed back and declared independence after being treated as second class people for generations.
Im sure there were some, but the majority of this was their own choice. It's Zionism, of course they went to the holy land when Israel was formed, that was always the plan.
They were damn right to not want it, it's gone horribly for them. Palestinians opposed Zionism from the beginning as Jews started settling and evicting them from their land.
I always love people saying “they should have just accepted the two state solution and none of this would be going on”. Glad to see they would all willingly hand over 80% of their country and get a shit deal even for the 20% you have left.
Should Ukraine also just let Russia have Crimea? Hell throw in some extra land to sweeten the deal for Russia and there will be peace again in the region.
Honest to God that argument is… interesting to say the least.
If that gives them a right to exile Palestinians it gives hamas the right to fight back because so were Palestinians.
Than if Palestinians now want to exile Israelis that also gives them the right to fight back.
Yea, so let's not kick out anyone and learn to coexist.
I can also define words however I want and change facts to make my bias sound not crazy
feel free to bring in any definitions for zionism you can find that just call it a right to live. Heck, look up why it's called Zionism. It's about Jews establishing a nation around Jerusalem. Palestinians were and still are living there already during this movement. hundreds of thousands have been killed or exiled.
so there were 0 jews in palestine before that?
No, "palestinian" doesn't mean muslim... there were plenty of palestinian jews.
The difference is that palestinian jews were allowed to integrate into Israel while palestinian muslims were not.
I do still want you to go find definitions for zionism. And look into the history while you're at it. There was no notable amount of jews in Palestine at the time, it was a long established largely islamic arabic people. Jews were famously a diaspora, which means not living in that area. Zionists largely moved in from Europe.
Jews are people, Israel is a colonial entity. The abolishment of Israel as a state does not mean the death of its inhabitants.
So you people actually want Israel to be gone? Where shall all the Israelis go, in your opinion? And why do the Israelis have less of a right for a country than the Palestinians?
Well first generation settlers should definitely move back to their homes, wherever they have citizenship and it's feasible (not refugees etc).
But as for the rest I never said expel everyone in Israeli occupied territory. I said abolish the state. They can still live there, but not under a genocidal ethnostate in which you have higher status for being a member of one faith.
Land will have to be redistributed, and reparations paid as well.
Who is supposed to pay those reparations if Israel doesn't exist anymore and there are no Israelis?
How are the Jews supposed to protect themselves from the people who want them out of the country or dead (which is the reason why Israel came into existence in the first place)?
What kind of state do you think Palestine would be? Or is it okay to have a Muslim ethnostate but not a Jewish one?
Never said all the people currently there had to leave
Maybe when they're not stealing Palestinian land and genociding Palestinians, there wouldn't be so much animosity.
One representative of those that live there, a mix.
You don't seem to know a lot about the area.
I am curious, how would genocide of non-muslims and LGBT individuals along with religious oppression of women be prevented in your suggested scenario where the state of Israel is abolished?
It is possibly the most diverse nation on planet Earth, and a beacon of personal liberties, stability and democracy when compared to other MENA countries (if you disagree here, please do give a counter-example!)
so threw all jews out of Israel got it.
You are the problem highlighted by this thread.
I think brainwashed circlejerkimg is the problem highlighted in this thread, but to each his own
I think they mean they just share the land with the Palestinians, the people who they threw out when they got there.
If the US can manage it with African Americans or Native Americans, or South Africa can manage it post apartheid, or the UK can manage it after the Troubles, I think it's possible. It won't be easy, but it's worth the work to stop the violence.
People are really uneducated about how Israel came into existence. This is a country from a group of people who already lived there. It wasn't external conquerers who came to the land.
It was external settlers generally, especially starting around the Law of Return being a thing. Wikipedia and other sources says about 50% come from Europe and Russia, and the other generally from the surrounding Middle Eastern countries once Israel became a thing and started calling people towards it. Even today, lots of people immigrate there from Europe or the US.
Are you talking from thousands of years ago? That's a strange justification to kick people out of their houses in the last 70 years, but I am down to read other sources if you've got them. I am admittedly still pretty new to this whole subject.
Just calling them settlers would be ignoring a huge part of history, and missing out on a lot of nuance - as would calling them natives of the area. Some certainly were, but many, if not most were refugees to varying degrees.
To any reader, keep in mind this is not intended as a moral judgement in any direction, rather an important historic context to the situation. It's a long read.
My writing of this context begins, loosely, in the 19th century. Jews are an almost omnipresent and incredibly diverse minority culture in Europe and have been persecuted to varying degrees for more than a millenia. This persecution has however usually been less systematic and more spontaneous. That changed with concepts such as nationalism, nation-states and more centralised governments.
Minority cultures were considered a detriment to national unity, and hence more "formalised" discussion of "the Jewish Question" (yes, the one the NSDAP in the 20th century attempted to "solve") entered the European political discourse. Keep in mind, jews were far from the only persecuted group. Roma, for instance, was another, along with many local groups such as the Basque, Sapmi and Tatars.
It was in this enviroment that an idea sprung up among jewish intellectuals, that of Zionism. There are many different opinions on the motives behind it, but the goal was a jewish homeland, where they could be free from persecution. British Mandatory Palestine, heralded as the home of the jewish people in religious texts became the dream. Long before that "Shana Haba'ah B'Yerushalayim" ("Next year in Jerusalem") had been a commonly used phrase during passover. Europeans invented and enforced nationalism, and Zionism became the jewish dream of their own nation, free from persecution. A trickle of jews to Israel would begin, but the events of the 20th century would turn that trickle into a flood.
Antisemitism continues to proliferate during the early 20th century and the German NSDAP (commonly known as the Nazi Party) would take things to the next level. Following 1933, Jews would attempt to flee Germany, sensing impending doom, yet be refused visas almost wherever they turned (with a few notable exceptions). The Western World was perfectly content to stand by and watch as Germany slowly commenced the horrors, and send back those desperate refugees who pleaded for their lives to their doom. On a personal note, I wonder if Germany would have been allowed to complete their genocide, had it not been for them starting yet another World War.
I will not elaborate on the Holocaust of WW2. I expect that you all are familiar, and if not, do yourselves a service and read about it.
The aftermath of it was just as gruesome. Nobody had wanted the jewish refugees before the war, and nobody wanted the "few" hundred thousands of survivors either. So, they were kept in camps. They had lost their homes, their posessions, most of their loved ones, along with any trust they had had for their local communities which had sent them off to die at the hands of Nazis.
Many of the refugees before, during and in the aftermath of WW2 would make their way to Israel, where burgeoning jewish communities would welcome them - pooling their resources along with using aid from mainly american jews to purchase land and build homes for them. The British were keeping the peace - and attempting to prevent the influx of people. This along with growing jewish communities meant freedom from persecution (mostly).
The British kept the peace, until they didn't. I won't elaborate on the details here as I would prefer to avoid controversy. Besides, I'd have to double the length of this text to just scratch the surface. The summary is that the State of Israel came into existence, born with a collective memory of the recent holocaust and a determination to never let it happen again, along with a huge dose of distrust against much of the Western World. Whatever the reasons, the law of return is implemented. I'd like to think it was an act of compassion, a reaction to the fact that jews had nowhere to go before, during or after the holocaust.
One would've hoped that the story ended there, but no.
In the aftermath of the war, and following other Arab-Israeli wars anti-semitism would blossom further in the Arab world, alongside Islamic Arab nationalism. With varied reasons, some of their own volition and some displaced, a mass exodus of jews occurred from Arab countries, some 80% of which moved to Israel, many without any of their possessions. By 2019 the number of Jews in Arab countries was less than 13'000 and 15'000 in Turkey, compared to a rough million people who were living there in 1948.
In the communist Bloc, antisemitism continued under soviet rule, continuing the ancient Russian traditions of pogroms. Despite efforts to prevent jewish emigration from Warsaw Pact communist republics, many managed to escape. When the bloc fell in the 90s, many more would find their way to Israel.
For those of you who read this far, thank you and I hope you found it informative and/or interesting. It is not the story of Israel, but rather that of a people who have been persecuted for a long, long time, and still, to a somewhat lesser degree, is being persecuted.
[Redacted]
The historical context makes the ongoing situation even more tragic, and I sincerely hope that there will be some sort of peaceful resolution.
E: removed some possibly personal info
Really good write up! I appreciate the effort put into it.
It is really sad the persecution of Jewish people, and I definitely sympathize. But the only part I want to clarify is that you kind of glossed over the nakba in that part where the British stopped holding the peace. If it was just a small continuous trickle of Jewish refugees into Palestine, no one would have a problem with it, except for the normal anti-immigration folks. But it's that part where you decide to give part of the country away and then the violent disposession of people from their homes to enforce it that seems wrong, and should ring familiar with those who know about the genocide of the Indians in the US.
But I blame the British and UN, too. They're the ones who offered to cut pieces away from a country to offer to the immigrants. It's like if your landlord came in and said you're going to have to rent one of your bedrooms to his nephew, and even though you're the one who lives there and pays rent, you can't argue because he's the landlord.
And I even understand the desire to secure a homeland at all costs after such a huge, terrible event of the holocaust. But that doesn't mean I agree with it, and the consequences continue to reverberate to this day show partly why. Working for peace and seeing the signs of fascism to prevent it from happening again is the answer, not a might makes right apartheid ethnostate. There's some lesson here about violence leading to violence.
Black people have gone through their own shit here in the United States, and while some people have suggested just leaving the country and making their own place in Africa, I think Martin Luther King, Jr's dream was a much better idea (seriously, read the history of Liberia, it's filled with violence and oppression towards the natives followed by them rising up, and then civil wars even into the 2000's). Just make the place here the kind of place that's better. And while it's not perfect, it's way better than it used to be, and I think he was proven right.
Yes - in fact, I didn't write about it at all. The history of the jewish people is but one part of the context to the conflict, which is more complex than most people realize. I intentionally limited myself to the situation outside Israel, given that there are very heated opinions on what happened within.
Some further reading on the situation in Mandatory Palestine is linked below. Of note is that the british often attempted to include Arabs in their decisionmaking processes, but were met with refusal and violence. Even so, the British would implement the White Paper of 1939, significantly restricting jewish migration to mandatory Palestine and effectively forbidding jewish purchases of land in 95% of the area.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandatory_Palestine
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Paper_of_1939
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peel_Commission
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_in_the_United_Kingdom
Ah I see. Thanks again!
What about the approximately 20 % Palestinian Israelis? And do all of the Israelis have to disappear somehow and look for a place to live in other countries? Or only those who are first generation immigrants? Are you against immigration in general, btw?
"Kick people out of their homes", so are you talking about the illegal settlements in the Westbank now?
You could start reading about in on Wikipedia.
Holy strawman! I never said all the Israelis have to leave. I said they should share the land, like every other developed country in the world that has black people and white people that live in the same areas, or natives and immigrants, etc. I'm not against immigration, I'm against using it as manpower to violently disposess natives and sweep people from their homes, then giving the immigrants better rights while pushing the people who lived there to smaller and farther areas until you get all their land. You know, settler colonialism. Just give everyone the same rights and protections.
There's a reason there's only 20% Palestinian Israelis. They were all violently kicked out, then kept in these small, dense settlements of Gaza and the West Banks, and they need special citizenship and passports to travel to Israel or even from one to the other.
I was talking about the nakba, but the West Bank settlements also applies, I suppose. We can call them illegal, but Netanyahu has christened a bunch of them despite what the international community thinks, and it's still happening.
u sound reasonable enough, may I ask what in your honest opinion Israel should do instesd in gaza?
It's really damn complicated. There is so much history to this conflict. I honestly don't know what Israel's best move would be.
I just think there has to be a way to have less civilian casualties. People are suffering greatly in Gaza and it somehow needs to stop.
On the other hand I understand that the Israeli government has to react to the Hamas attacks. Hundreds of innocents were slaughtered and Israel is surrounded by enemies. Constantly in danger. They need to make sure nobody else dares to attack.
In a perfect world they would (or rather: could) treat Gaza like the US treated Germany after WWII. But I'm afraid even with massive humanitarian and economic help there would still be terror and violence from Hamas. This conflict is too old and too dogmatic to be solved in a matter of weeks or even years.
Look around in this thread - even people who don't have any personal stakes in the conflict have such radical options about it. I can't imagine what it must feel like to be a Palestinian or Israeli who has lost family members to this.
the most honest and down to earth answer I've seen tbh.
I think most people in this and every other thread on the conflict have no stakes in it, and not enough knowledge on the issue and that's the problem having such strong opinions on it.
Considering how well the temporary ceasefire is going, extending that to permanent would be a great first step. Then maybe begin real negotiations on how to move forward without Israel continuing to control the region and deciding who deserves to live and where. Sure dealing with terrorism is complicated but realizing that you're increasing the recruitment rates with every bombing is pretty basic.
everything u said was already tried and failed.
Let's try it again because it's the right thing to do.
What is supposed to be done about the rockets shot at Israel and about the terrorist attacks?
Admonish and forgive. If you require a proportional response to every action you'll inevitably exist in a state of perpetual war.
No, I don't mean those in the past. But those happening right now.
That's the thing about hatred and forgiveness, at some point it was always highly personal. Reparations certainly need to be made but Palestine has been starved of money and doesn't have much to give. Isreal will have to forgive some of these most recent ills if the country is going to move forward peacefully.
Adjusted for inflation Palestine had been given 71 billion USD in international aid over the years, so saying "Palestine has been starved of money" is not an understatement but a blatant lie.
If you'd say Palestinian people starved of money I'd probably agree: as their corrupt leaders stole most of those funds, and used the rest to fund and enable terror activities as well as children indoctrination in hatred
Someone firebombed a synagogue.
I'm pretty sure that's "genuine" antisemitism.
No ones saying theres no genuine antisemitism going on. Even in the 854 incidents of "offensive behavior" im sure is plenty of nazi ideology eugenics wanting jews killed. But im skeptical of the totality of this number being antisemitism.
I'm not sure how important it is that every one of these 854 incidents be slurs versus miscounted anti-Zionist remarks, violent attacks and assaults on Jews minding their own business in grocery stores is alarming and deplorable. Jews in Germany aren't, like, participating in Israeli politics. The IDF doesn't poll Jews across the globe asking who they should shoot. Jews shouldn't be concerned about hiding their Judaism to avoid being the target of hate.
The number of incidents is the whole thing being discussed, a notable rise in antisemitic incidents. Jews shouldnt face any hate crimes, but neither should any group that also regularly faces them.
So you basically don't want the news or anyone to talk about it because it's a non-issue?
Im talking about it
You are talking about how every group can be discriminated against and how you aren't even sure if it really is antisemitism and how anti-semitism is often just misunderstood totally valid Israeli criticism.
Hmmm.... Sounds to me like you don't want to see the issue here.
no, valid israeli criticism is misunderstood to be anti-semitism
That's definitely a genuine piece of antisemitism and people doing shit like that need to be arrested pronto... but I'm still uncertain like the OP. Though maybe the uncertainty is just being jaded by American organizations like the AJC.
how come ur so uncertain when it comes to jews suffering, but never doubt when it comes to other groups?
I'm quite sympathetic to any people suffering, but broad statistics like these are very easy to interpret in a wide array of manners and, as I mentioned, organizations like the AJC and similar have really eroded my trust.
who didn't erode your unbiased trust then? BBC? aljazeera?
Your statement isn't clear, and I don't understand your question, but news outlets generally do have biases which makes it important to sample different sources. Al Jazeera is a very good source to balance against western ones but they're also heavily biased... but the AJC I had mentioned earlier isn't a news outlet, it's just a proganda think tank that declared themselves the authority on what's antisemitic in America... and they're not representative of jewish-americans. This might be new england bias but most jews I've met are antizionist.
Probably has something to do with being called antisemitic because we think zionism is poison. I've never been called Islamophobic for calling out Islamic extremists, why am I antisemitic for calling out Jewish extremists?
no, u didn't "called out" Jewish extremists, u literally said every zionist is poison
Read my words again. I didn't say anything about people I said the belief is poison. If you continue to put words into people's mouths you're going to continue to view the world the way you want and not the way it is.
When the fuck did he (or anybody in this thread) say that? Why are you making shit up in order to ascribe invented bias to people?
So at least 10% of this number are actual violence.
Gonna need a firm definition of "offensive behavior" to call this one though. The word "offensive" is already overloaded with all sorts of meaning.
That's why I just disregarded it, focusing only on actual violence/destruction
Way too vague a term for me
Wtf Germany, no, we got America to worry about rn
Someone will say something similar any time antisemitism is discussed in any context. Whatever your intention, it has the effect of minimizing and normalizing antisemitism. The article is clear that only a fifth of incidents are even tangentially related to Israel at all. Attacking or threatening German Jews or destroying their property isn't criticism of Israel. Marking Jewish homes with a Star of David or firebombing synagogues isn't supporting Palestinians.
'Criticism of Israel' shouldn't mean giving cover to Nazis.
While I agree that’s true, it’s also the case that Israel has both conflated itself with Jewish people globally to claim criticism of itself as antisemitism, as well as committed actual atrocities against non-Israeli Jewish people as a means of propaganda to promote the idea that nowhere is safe for Jewish people except Israel. This muddies the water and makes it difficult to accurately discuss and criticize actual antisemitism, to the benefit of Israel and to the detriment of Jewish people.
Even if that's true, Jewish people are not collectively responsible for the actions of the Israeli government. In that case, you'd have an argument for not trusting the Israeli government. You can't extend that to German Jews (in this case) or groups that monitor antisemitism in Germany without it also being an implicit argument about why you can't trust Jews.
It’s more of a “boy who cried wolf” scenario. Many have become numb to accusations of antisemitism, because the term is frequently used incorrectly. Israel, along with Pro-Israel groups in Europe and the US (who may or may not themselves be Jewish) are frequently guilty of misusing the term. This article even states that 21% of counted incidents were anti-Israel, and a further 5% were anti-imperialist. Including those in the overall count is just incorrect unless they are also antisemitic in some other way, and because of that people are right to be skeptical of claims like in this headline. It’s not skepticism of Jewish people, it’s skepticism of people who seem motivated to call anti-Israeli acts antisemitic.
The solution here also isn’t to stop reporting on antisemitism. Doing so is important and should be recorded and reported correctly. The solution is that anti-Israeli acts cannot be included in those statistics, and people with a specific motivation to do so shouldn’t be the ones reporting.
Saying 'the boy who cried wolf' when Nazis and state actors are both active in this space just isn't good enough. It isn't that hard to say that criticism of Israel isn't inherently antisemitic and say that antisemitism is vile. Reflexively dismissing claims of antisemitism gives cover to Nazis to commit antisemitic acts. People aren't jumping into every discussion of antisemitism to say, "Golly, I sure hope they aren't including valid criticism of Israel in these numbers!" They're saying (or at least implying) that the actions described were either justifiable or ought to be dismissed.
It's wrong to say that criticism of Israel is inherently antisemitic. It's also wrong to say that it's impossible to be antisemitic as long as you're criticizing Israel. Every Nazi in the world is critical of Israel. They'd be overjoyed to attack Jews in the name of Palestine so long as they get to attack Jews. Protesters chanting "Death to Jews" is antisemitism, even if it occurs at a pro-Palestinian rally. To use an example from the article, harassing a Jewish student in Germany for the actions of the Israeli government isn't valid criticism of Israel, regardless of the criticism; the idea that Jews are collectively responsible for those actions is racist. That's not remotely the same thing as criticism or opposition to Israeli settlements in the West Bank, for example. They don't deserve a blanket defense. Regarding the two examples of antisemitism above, we should be furious that racist dipshits are smuggling that bullshit into Palestinian solidarity movements, not offering them protection.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Death to Jews
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
And whenever groups criticize israel or support palestinians someone will call it anti-semitism, minimizing and normalizing the genocide of palestinians.
whataboutwhataboutwhataboutwhataboutwhatabout
You don't have to be a useful idiot for Nazis. That's what you're doing when you pop into a discussion about antisemitism to say that sometimes it's valid or maybe not happening at all. Opposition to antisemitism has absolutely nothing to say about Palestinians at all.
You're missing the point. The overuse of accusing others of antisemitism for simple, honest criticisms of Isreals actions and/or expressing support for the people they are committing genocide on, is why the word is being devalued.
You are correct that the article makes it clear that actual antisemitism is on the rise. But it doesn't change the fact that "antisemitism" accusations are being overused, and that people are naturally suspicious at every claim.
The boy who cried wolf.
I'd argue that you're missing the point: reflexively dismissing claims of antisemitism gives cover to Nazis to commit acts of antisemitism.
This article isn't even about Israel. Only 21% of the incidents are even related to anti-Israel activism. Is there some valid criticism here I'm missing? Is blaming some random Jewish student for the actions of the Israeli government what passes for valid criticism these days? Even if you dismiss those incidents (and you shouldn't), this is overwhelmingly about antisemitism. Chiming in to suggest that whatever occurred was either justified or imaginary isn't helpful.
I'd also argue that you're missing an opportunity to say that solidarity with Jews against antisemitism and solidarity with Palestinians aren't mutually exclusive. We can do both.
I'm sorry, but while you seem to be an intelligent and thoughtful enough person, your arguments seem to be in bad faith.
The article is specifically framed as since the Hamas / Isreal conflict began. That's specifically Isreal related. It's in the title.
I never claimed, nor would I ever, that attacks on innocents because of their religion/ethnic background, is valid criticism. Nor did I chime in to justify it. You're intelligent enough to understand my prior point, but you intentionally misrepresent it.
And my comment clearly made a distinction between jews and Isreal as a state. To me, that's at least implying that I show solidarity with the Jewish people, because I do not lump the actions of the Isreal government, which I condemn, to be representative of the Jewish people. That was more subtext, so I'll give you that one.
But, this all goes to reinforce my earlier assertion that "the boy who cried wolf" is in full effect here. This is all very exhausting to dive into the minutiae of stances in every comment thread related to Isreal or Palestine. And I can forgive anyone who glances at a topic related to either with antisemitism as the topic to approach it with skepticism.
I just want to point out there are multiple accounts replying in this chain. It's easy to get confused, and people aren't necessarily arguing in bad faith. Good points have been brought up by multiple accounts, and this is an understandably emotional/controversial topic.
I think there's some confusion from the chain of replies and some from me not writing clearly enough.
I responded to someone and you responded in defense of OP. My response was partially explaining/justifying my initial comment. My statement about people "chiming in" was about people dismissing reports of antisemitism in every discussion regardless of context. I also probably should have said that "we" or "they" are missing an opportunity instead of "you." Just to be clear: I don't think that you make no distinction between Jewish people and the Israeli government. I'm not accusing you of racism or antisemitism. Sorry!
Propaganda is a double edged sword.
Right, what Susan Serandon said in a less than ideal way is equated with firebombing.
there is a difference between criticizing Israel and refusing to accept their right to exist
Me too. Having a blue octopus cuddly toy is antisemitic according to the crazies.