Is this anti-semitism?

fwiw there seems to some question of whether antisemitic incidents are actually increasing or whether there's just more attention being paid to them cf oppenheimer in wapost + frantzman. neither of whom i should make clear are remotely apologists for antisemitism or afaik for trump. i certainly don't think the current events and administration have been helpful and finding out that there is a correlation between increased hate crimes against jews and the trump admin would fit w/ my own biases + understandings. i was happy that trump unambiguously denounced antisemitism in his speech last night tho i do wonder about the ultimate value of that - he's stoking bigotry and anti-muslim bigots and anti-immigrant bigots are also anti-semites. you can't cleave one bigotry from another. there's a quote that i can't remember either the source of or its direct wording but it's something like "hate doesn't always begin w/ the jews but it always eventually gets there." (obviously the hatred that trump is stirring up is horrific enough even if he could somehow "protect" the jews from the wrath of the mob - but just speaking to the presumably measurable question of whether antisemitism is increasing in the US or not.)

I did see something on Twitter pointing out that his words ("Recent threats targeting Jewish Community Centers and vandalism of Jewish cemeteries, as well as last week's shooting in Kansas City, remind us that while we may be a Nation divided on policies, we are a country that stands united in condemning hate and evil in all its forms") weren't actually saying "Anti-semitism is bad", and that this was some form of Nazi-whistle - though I think they're probably reaching.

http://www.theonion.com/article/expert-international-jewish-conspiracy-has-never-b-55354

OMG they just arrested someone for the bomb threats and it's a former Intercept writer!

This story is really, really weird. http://abcnews.go.com/US/man-accused-making-threats-jewish-community-centers-arrested/story?id=45884069

this is the craziest shit ever. i hope ppl realize that this doesn't mean that bc he's nominally on the left it's fake antisemitism. it's left-wing antisemitism; it's not like intercept types have a big love affair w/ the jews.

Juan Thompson was fired from the Intercept for fabrication.

tweet from three days ago:

@JuanMThompson

The @SecretService visited me looked at my tweets, questioned my politics b/c some awful white woman I date reported me. I won't be silenced

xp he appears to be kind of an MRA type, too? I'm not sure there's a real clear left/right divide amongst those types, but idk. In any case, that still leaves a lot of these unexplained.

tweet from Feb 27:

Juan M. Thompson‏ @JuanMThompson Feb 27

Another week, another round of threats against Jewish ppl. In the middle of the day, you know who's at a JCC? Kids. KIDS.

+ obviously this dude hasn't been traveling the country desecrating cemeteries. still it's insane that at least some of these lead back to a former intercept guy. it's like this shit is scripted. (oh wait.)

This is great news. My gf just had to attend a JCC staff meeting with police last night that did nothing but freak her out more than she already was.

As far as I can tell, he's not implicated in the big national wave of calls, it sounds like he's an insane stalker who, seeing how much publicity the bomb threats were getting, decided to call in some more threats using his ex-girlfriend's name. What a fucking shit cocktail of terrible.

+ obviously this dude hasn't been traveling the country desecrating cemeteries.

Yeah, probably not, but he was arrested in St. Louis, where the first cemetery attack occurred.

http://imgur.com/sUWCRyL.jpg

fuck people forever

(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

i sincerely think we could be headed towards a better equilibrium in jewish-muslim relations in America in the face of a common threat

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/03/02/jews-rally-support-burned-florida-mosque-18-time/98630894/

Please tell me that tweet is a bad joke and not the end of a thread, please tell me that tweet is a bad joke and not the... Oh for fucks sake.

lots of MAGA types on twitter triumphantly posting screenshots of this headline from the other day:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C6Ak86lVAAAMrXE.jpg

the article is here, under a revised headline, but otherwise unaltered, Juan Thompson being arrested doesn't really contradict anything it says

https://theintercept.com/2017/02/28/trump-suggests-anti-semitic-acts-might-faked-make-movement-look-bad/

Looks like this has made it's way to the greater Cleveland area: http://www.clevescene.com/scene-and-heard/archives/2017/03/06/swastika-carved-into-door-of-lorain-synagogue

http://forward.com/fast-forward/366240/end-jewish-privilege-poster-circulates-on-chicago-college-campus/

it scans to me like a right-wing production (the use of the word goyim, discussing 'jews' forthright rather than using euphemisms) but it's interesting how it utilizes left-wing memes (the top 1%, 'privilege') to make its argument. this reminds me of the jacobin piece about compatibility btwn identity studies concepts & far-right racialists/racists.

'the top 1%' is hardly and identity studies concept, though.

i was going to add a line noting the 1% something something socialism of fools vestige but i got lazy

To me it's more that abusers are always trying to turn their victims' words against themselves.

belief in exploitative jewish conspiracy theories is not limited to white supremacists

that jacobin piece is fucking stupid

That's one of the things about these assholes. They insist that they're 'using the lefts ideas against it' when all it shows is that they haven't even begun to understand the terms they're using.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/israeli-man-19-arrested-in-connection-with-threats-against-jewish-community-centers-in-us-other-nations/2017/03/23/15123300-0fcb-11e7-9d5a-a83e627dc120_story.html

A young Israeli man who also holds U.S. citizenship was arrested by Israeli police Thursday in connection with the wave of security-related threats made to Jewish communities and institutions in the United States and several other countries over the past few months, according to the FBI and local authorities.

bizarre

I wonder if Trump is going to crow about this.

don't really care, just glad it's a faraway nutcase and not somebody who might actually be planning to blow up a jcc

that said, i don't think this guy got on a plane and came to america to desecrate people's graves

No, he clearly wasn't responsible for domestic acts of anti-Semitism, and that's part of why I absolutely care that Trump is obviously going to get all DO U SEE about this. Just about the fucking worst case scenario, because now he'll actually have a legitimate example to point to when dismissing hate crimes, which will just further embolden people who are inclined to do this shit.

Has anyone confirmed the guy who called in the threats was Jewish? Or just Israeli? Is assuming every Israeli is Jewish ... anti-semitic?

Or anti-Arab, one of the two.

The religious affiliation of the Israeli population as of 2011 was 75.4% Jewish, 16.9% Muslim, 2.1% Christian, and 1.7% Druze, with the remaining 4.0% belonging to minor faiths such as Samaritanism, Baha'iism or no religion/

Let's blame it on the Druze, for once.

toi and haaretz both have that he's jewish (and american-israeli, and supposedly was rejected from serving in the IDF) - i don't think they'd run it without knowing for sure so i think it's safe to assume the information is correct.

Psh, it's clearly misinformation being spread, since we all know the Druze run the media.

oh man

The teenager, who was born in Israel, has a brain tumor that can affect his cognitive abilities and lead to “irrational” behavior, his lawyer, Galit Bash, said. She would not say whether her client, who she said did not have a criminal record, had admitted or denied involvement.

...

Israeli news outlets reported that when the teenager was arrested, he tried to grab an officer’s gun.

Yikes. But also...this is a fairly elaborate and sustained undertaking to blame on a brain tumor.

i heard they found bitcoins and stuff on his computer and there's speculation that he was being paid to do it?

fuck i hate how much i want to know who paid this kid

paid/groomed whatever

Front page of the London Review Of Books: article about Israel buying super expensive missiles from the US (haven't finished it yet, but didn't see anything objectionable in it so far - it's online at https://www.lrb.co.uk/v39/n07/daniel-soar/the-most-expensive-weapon-ever-built).

HOWEVER, on the bottom of the page, ads for two books from one publisher - one about the Hebrew language, the other about resistance and compliance within Jewish communities during the holocaust (looks interesting).

Is this probably just a coincidence of who bought the advertising space, or am I right in detecting a sort of hyper-defensive "don't you even try call us anti-semitic for this" stance in the placement?

Princeton university press always have that advertising slot under the first page of the first article, so I think it's probably a coincidence. (though looking back over past issues there does sometimes - not always - seem to be a thematic link between the subject of the article and the two books being promoted?)

i think it's reasonable to assume ppl reading about israel might also be interested in a book about hebrew + jews - i wouldn't read any nefariousness into it esp since LRB has run far more questionable articles before so it's not like they're afraid of controversy.

Having read the whole article now it's barely about Israel anyway so I certainly jumped the gun, sry.

https://www.commentarymagazine.com/anti-semitism/real-trump-link-threats-jews/

kinda tendentious if you ask me

Makes no mention of the swastikas/grave desecration, anything that wasn't done remotely.