Cross-posting from the General US Politics thread: The US State Department has issued a Worldwide Caution travel alert
due to increased tensions around the world, advising US citizens to "exercise increased caution".
Edited by AngrokVa on Oct 19th 2023 at 2:28:23 PM
Stars of David have been sprayed on the Berlin homes of Jewish Residents
Certified: 48.0% West Asian, 6.5% South Asian, 15.8% North/West European, 15.7% English, 7.4% Balkan, 6.6% ScandinavianSarah Chowdhury, who was a high-ranked employee in the Illinois Comptroller's Office and the (now former) head of the South Asian Bar Association was fired for antisemitic instagram posts
. I haven't been able to read the initial posts in the exchange, but I understand that she was kind of being trolled by this Jewish/Israeli legal blogger. But in any event, she responded by calling Jews "vermin" and saying things like, "All Zionists should pay," and "Hitler should have eradicated all of you."
I know Gift is obviously at play in this situation, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that these probably reflect her actual views on Jews.
Also, a UC Davis professor, Jemma Decristo
made antisemitic tweets. This article doesn't go into the specifics, but as discussed in [1]
, she posted, "“one group of ppl we have easy access to in the US is all these zionist journalists who spread propaganda & misinformation they have houses w addresses, kids in school they can fear their bosses, but they should fear us more.” And she followed this comment with blood, hatchet, and knife emojis.
In this case too, obviously some deep-seated antisemitsm. And honestly in both cases, I suspect they are verbalizing what a lot of people actually think.
Edited by Hodor2 on Oct 20th 2023 at 7:34:51 AM
GIFT is not at play, as it requires anonymity and that’s not the case with social media accounts associated to your actual name.
GIFT has been proven false in the worst way, people don’t need the anonymity to say or do horrible things online, they just need the freedom from consequences.
Edited by Silasw on Oct 20th 2023 at 5:10:12 PM
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranGood point. I was kind of using gift to encompass the broader idea of "people being worse online than they would be in in-person interactions" / "not perceiving online as real life", but you're right, it's more about perceived lack of consequences
Honestly, with how much the word "Zionist" has been thrown around in social media and angry protests, I can't tell which tweets are genuinely criticizing Israel's government... and which ones are just thinly veiled covers for antisemitism. Some of the tweets I saw wouldn't be out of place in Nazi Germany.
@Mullon Not too hard to imagine, basically just imagine some 4Chan conspiracy theorist.
Leviticus 19:34It's very frustrating just how many antisemites across the political spectrum use "Zionist" specifically as a dogwhistle for Jewish people or Israelis in general, and not to talk about actual Zionism as an ideology or the people who strongly advocate for it. Sadly even a lot of leftists have been using the Zionist ideology to justify disparaging all Jewish people, even those who who are openly opposed to Israel's actions.
It doesn't help that Zionism itself is a broad collection of ideologies, encompassing Jewish supremacists/ethnonationalists/fundamentalists, to those who believe in an active and religious Jewish presence in the region for various reasons, or those who don't especially like Israel but simply think it's inhumane to completely purge all Jewish presence from the region (and I get that, considering a lot of leftists sadly like to argue that Jews are inherently foreign to the Levant, despite DNA studies proving most Ashkenazim have significant remaining Middle Eastern heritage).
Nor does it help that anti-Zionism can be similarly broad, going from people who are OK with Israel's past and continued existence but simply oppose further Israeli overreach beyond current borders, to those who think it was a mistake for them to have set their country up as they did but do not go so far as to desire the full eradication of the Israeli state or Jewish habitation in the region now that it's already become ingrained, to those who really do believe in forced deportation of all Jews from the region (and of course, those who identify as anti-Zionist because they're straight-up antisemites who oppose the idea of Jews having any place to live at all).
Reminds me of my folks' stories of how communist Chinese propaganda during the 70s would regularly use "capitalist" to mean anyone living in a capitalist country, or who supports the ideology because they're OK with some degree of privatization, as opposed to "capitalist" in the sense of the ownership class i.e the people with capital. And so whenever they and people who align with them talked about killing capitalists, it's not so clear whether they mean fighting the elites directly, or engaging in dehumanization campaigns against the civilians living in countries where capitalism is the dominant ideology.
Edited by AlleyOop on Oct 22nd 2023 at 1:28:11 AM
Part of the issue comes from just how old antisemitism is. It's existed in some form or the other for over 2000 years, and thus doesn't always map to how bigotry and oppression is understood, especially on the left.
And that's not even getting into how baked antisemitism is into our culture. Certain antisemitic tropes have existed since the middle ages (or before) and are still seen today.
@Hodor: theirs also this lecturer at Stanford.
Who I think is the most extreme.
The teacher told the Jewish students to take their belongings, stand in a corner, and said, “This is what Israel does to the Palestinians,” Greenberg said, citing the student accounts. The instructor then asked, “How many people died in the Holocaust?” When a student answered, “Six million,” the lecturer said, “Colonizers killed more than 6 million. Israel is a colonizer.”
I dunno what American Jewish students have to do with a country that many of them prbaobly haven't even been too but okay.
Also it's weird how clueless this dude seems to be about history. Is he implying that are jews are responsible for all victims of colonization world wide. (which Is a beyond stupid statement). Does he not know what the nazis conquest of Eastern Europe was.
Edited by miraculous on Oct 20th 2023 at 1:55:54 AM
"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."I saw that, but hesitated about posting it because it seemed like it was unconfirmed at the time I read it and I thought I'd look bad if it turned out that the students were exaggerating or making up the allegation.
At the time I saw it, I didn't really expect someone to say that kind of thing out loud. I was naïve.
Edit - As a broader thing, I always think about this point made by Jonathan Sachs about how antisemites always view Jews in terms of whatever they hate the most. So like if you don't like Communists, Jews are Communists, if you don't like Capitalists, Jews are Capitalists.
And you can see that play out in how for people who don't like colonialism (a not unreasonable opinion) Jews are the worst colonizers and/or behind colonialism.
Similarly, you have the interesting dichotomy of how for the far right, Jews are fake white people, whereas for leftist antisemites, we are the whitest white people. Sort of amusingly, you have the Khazar Theory being raised on both sides of that equation.
Edited by Hodor2 on Oct 20th 2023 at 1:58:11 AM
that we have gotten to the point that discourse considers "supporting the faction of ultranationalist ultrafundamentalist warhawks hellbent on killing civilians is bad, actually" as a centrist hot take is absolutely goddamn horrible
(which faction? yes)
im as leftist as they come and i am not white or jewish, and occasionally i will doom loop by going through the flaming garbage heap that is twitter; i have to bitterly laugh when some accounts will translate Hezbollah or Hamas propaganda and put a disclaimer for "they just mean zionists" when the propaganda specifically calls to kill jews
the fact that Macklemore had his image rehabilitated for supporting a ceasefire was not in my 2023 bingo either. (im not saying Macklemore was a creep, it was just that twitblr used to beat the shit out of him for being a milquetoast white rapper)
i really do think that fascist fat fucker is going to have control of israel forever. i saw footage of anti-war Israelis getting beaten by Israeli cops
as a side note, i remember when the discourse was for people to use 'anti-coloniser' because 'anti-Zionist' was often used as a shield by antisemites. ive had to remind myself to say anticoloniser. good thing we backslid, i guess...
Edited by MsOranjeDiscoDancer on Oct 20th 2023 at 3:13:27 AM
i may be dead inside but at least i have Mystery :,)I've literally never seen this discourse before and I don't know if I agree with it.
Also, I thought we weren't supposed to discuss the Israel/Palestine conflict outside of the main thread?

Police in Berlin and German intelligence are beefing up security on places like the Holocaust Memorial.