Is this anti-semitism?

i can't even keep track of all the antisemitic incidents coming out. rioting against jewish owned stores in belgium, france, broken synagogue windows in belfast, the imam at berlin's al-nur mosque called for jews to be killed -- it's pretty sick. and i feel pretty fortunate to be living on the east coast in the US.

eerily reminiscent of the hysterical rhetoric from right-wing Israelis, which - how odd, how unpredictable - also results in even more violence. it all sounds the same after awhile.

xp

"the murder of innocent children"

nice scare quotes bro

i don't see other conflicts where children die during war are described this way. it's presented in the most emotionally manipulative, rhetorically incendiary way possible to enrage ppl's emotions. i have no doubt that ppl of all political persuasions do that but atm there aren't riots breaking out all over the world directed at muslims.

"murdering innocent children" is related to what howard jacobson writes about "are you against the slaughter in gaza" - the language pre-frames the conclusion. what are you supposed to say? "no, i'm in favor of the slaughter." it's very manipulative language.

this is what happens when you let a government become central to a religious identity

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call me crazy but i think ppl should be upset when children die in military strikes on homes and hospitals

excuse me but even if israel is fundamental to jewish life (and it has been since - you know - the origin of the jewish religion) that's some self-hating bullshit to explain violence against diaspora jews bc israel became "central to a religious identity." israel is important to me but still not in the top 5 aspects of my jewish faith.

"murdering innocent children" is related to what howard jacobson writes about "are you against the slaughter in gaza" - the language pre-frames the conclusion. what are you supposed to say? "no, i'm in favor of the slaughter." it's very manipulative language.

ah the "when did you stop beating your wife" scenario. the problem with using this defense is that there *is* actual wife-beating going on. You want to describe the deaths of innocent women and children as something else other than slaughter idk dude get one moral compass

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(and it has been since - you know - the origin of the jewish religion)

what is this bullshit, for thousands of years there was no jewish state - the diaspora was the fulcrum of the culture

i don't see the death of children in war described this way in any other conflict, which leads me to believe this isn't about having a functioning moral compass but particularly about inflaming hatred.

the diaspora was framed entirely around being a place that you are exiled from - that's what diaspora means bro

being in* a place

like i have seen pictures of more dead children on fb this week than i have my entire life. these graphic depictions do remind me strongly of those aborted fetus pictures. it's about being gruesome and inciting anger. it has nothing to do w/ moral justice.

atm there aren't riots breaking out all over the world directed at muslims.

"atm" doing a lot of heavy lifting here shall we go back to right after 9/11 or idk the invasion of Iraq etc etc. if a muslim country bombed and killed several hundred innocent women and children - particularly of a western country - you can bet your ass there would not only be riots there would be military action.

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the diaspora was framed entirely around being a place that you are exiled from - that's what diaspora means bro

place /= government

you're joking, right? now "particularly of a western country" is doing a ton of heavy lifting. how many hundreds of innocent women and children have been killed this week alone in iraq and syria?

what do you mean? the likud government? the jews being targeted in these riots are not pro-likud. pro-israel demonstrations in my area at least are super pan-denominational and include tons of groups that would be closer affiliated w/ labor or even shalom achshav.

The hatred is so deep the anti Israel component really does seem like a shallow excuse. You read the Hamas charter and you think man, this goes well beyond land. Ask the Christians in Mosul, who were asked to leave, convert or die, how that compares to Israel's so-called "genocide."

The hatred is so deep the anti Israel component really does seem like a shallow excuse.

oh it's def being used as an excuse by people who are probably anti-semitic no matter what Israel does.

at the same time, putting scare quotes around the murder of innocent women and children when innocent women and children are indisputably dying is just fucked up. abusing facts to score political points doesn't make the facts incorrect.

murder != dying. that's a very important point. even manslaughter != murder. murder implies something very incendiary and very specific.

as does 'genocide,' 'massacre,' 'slaughter,' 'cleansing'

how many hundreds of innocent women and children have been killed this week alone in iraq and syria?

I'm pretty sure the shi'a and shi'ites are rioting/killing each other in retaliation what is your point.

murder implies something very incendiary and very specific.

how is being killed by a military with a missile not murder

Intent?

like in discussions of other wars, have you ever heard the phrase, "X army murdered Y civilians" in any literature about it? that's not how we talk about civilian deaths during war. maybe you are radically anti-war and so believe that we should always consider civilian fatalities as murders, but as a rule humans don't use that type of language except about one particular conflict. and not even one particular targeted group - Assad is never said to have murdered civilians in the Syrian refugee camps when they drop ordinance on al-Yarmouk.

Is Israel even allowed to win, or is victory totally off the table, because, you know, Jews?

what do you mean? the likud government?

this is maybe for the Israel thread but I mean a specific state, a government, regardless of its actual composition. separation of church and state is a really, really good idea for all kinds of reasons and this is one of them.

xxp

like in discussions of other wars, have you ever heard the phrase, "X army murdered Y civilians" in any literature about it?

idk I'm reading the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich right now and um yeah. And then there's stuff like Mai Lai, Hiroshima/Nagasaki, the rape of Nanking, I could go on and on but it gets depressing

of course rape of nanking killed more civilians in first 10 minutes than all ppl killed in gaza conflict over last 2 weeks. by 1941 they were killing 2,000 civilians per hour in Auschwitz. when militaries intentionally target civilians, the numbers put the israeli attack on gaza into very obv contrast.

Assad is never said to have murdered civilians in the Syrian refugee camps when they drop ordinance on al-Yarmouk.

uh ... really?

innocent children

well yeah that's why I think terms like genocide or ethnic cleansing are not really accurate. as far as numbers in general being way lower, modern warfare is not nearly as deadly as it used to be - both because of the weapons involved and because of countries' actions being more closely scrutinized and harder to hide. (I assume the worst about most people in military power, they'd happily kill as many of the enemy as they could if they didn't think there would be any repercussions)

but it's true I am really anti-war in general

is it a moral failing to distinguish between an army inflicting civilian casualties (while, by all reports, making enormous effects to limit them - and obv every honest person realizes that every civilian israel kills hurts them; they have a huge interest in not killing civilians) and an army intentionally committing genocide against a civilian body? i feel like you think so, but i can't get on page with that. i hate war too, but i don't think these are minor distinctions. and i think trying to characterize the former as the latter is a blatant attempt to stir up violence against jews. "jews are children killers" is a trope that long predates the establishment of the state of israel.

VHS, the redundancy of 'innocent children' (and accompanying irony) isn't mine. it's the language i've seen online for the last two weeks. it's an attempt to emotionally color the conflict in as inflammatory a way as possible.

speaking to your larger point, I don't think it's disputable that yes the phrase "X army murdered Y civilians" comes up all the time in reporting on military conflicts, particularly when there's no battlefield and there's a lot of indiscriminate bombing going on, or when a town/city gets taken and there's widespread chaos and a bunch of people die. Maybe I've just read too many morbid accounts of military adventures (Robert Fisk's reportage on Iraq/Iran or the Algerian civil war spring to mind)

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oh yeah, i agree with you Mordy on the manipulative rhetoric.

but maybe it's not a calculated and deliberate attempt to color the conflict in as inflammatory a way as possible, perhaps it's an expression of widespread revulsion and outrage against israeli actions?

i've seen 'murder' and similar language used a lot in regard to civilian deaths in iraq, syria, libya, drone strikes, et al. i'm not totally antiwar but i think civilian casualties ought to horrify and disgust us, never really excusable imo and i don't think it's particularly 'radical' to think so.

i agree that the protestors find israel's actions more outrageous than any other world conflict

why?

an army inflicting civilian casualties (while, by all reports, making enormous effects to limit them - and obv every honest person realizes that every civilian israel kills hurts them; they have a huge interest in not killing civilians) and an army intentionally committing genocide against a civilian body?

lol "by all reports" you mean by the IDF's own propaganda I assume. I doubt anyone who was killed while lying in a hospital thought Israel was doing everything they could to limit civilian deaths. And yeah you would think that Israel realizes that civilian deaths are not in their interest and yet it doesn't seem to deter them *that* much - they play this game of chicken of "well if we kill fewer than X civilians it will be worth political goal Y" - which is just the sickest most cynical fucking shit, I cannot abide by it, even moreso because I am associated with it by virtue of the state's identification with the Jewish people.

I think the distinction you draw between civilian casualties and intentional genocide is primarily one of scale, and that's pretty much it. Which is why I would not call this a genocide. But it is death at the hands of a military, which I consider murder, and I consider it wrong.

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take a look at the thread title xp

by "protests" i don't mean breaking windows

if you're question is why i think the I/P conflict moves so many ppl despite being relatively inconsequential by global standards (involving very few ppl, not dealing w/ areas of high economic value) there are a lot of good reasons. a) it has been going on for so long. b) it has a dramatic arc that involves the UN. c) it's an easy target for anti-colonialism, anti-western leftism. d) protests primarily occurring in areas w/ large immigrant arab populations who obv have very high affinity w/ palestinians. e) idk you could think of many more reasons i'm sure. but why leftists, who are often scrupulous about facts + reality [having a left-wing bent], would call this operation a 'genocide,' and post pictures of dead children on fb? i think anti-semitism + hate. or emotions stoked by ppl who have an interest in fomenting anti-semitism + hate (eg Erdogan, Hamas, etc).

your*

idk why anyone posts anything on facebook tbh

I do think its weird to suspect American leftists of being (not so secret) anti-semites that just doesn't reflect the reality of any of the leftists I've ever run with

like maybe they are just really appalled at Israel and America's complicity in it and go overboard with the strongest rhetoric at hand (leftists def prone to hyper-extreme flights of rhetoric)

i think the part about the complicity of western governments is a big thing

why are people not protesting against assad? because our government is already applying pressure to get rid of him.