Is this anti-semitism?

Antonescu was oddly lenient when it came to Romanian Jews he viewed as 'assimilated'. By 1942, after countless pogroms carried out in Moldova and Transnistria, he refused to deport the remaining Jewish population to Poland. He was a two-faced genocidal psychopath who also protected 'his' Jews when it suited him. Anyway, most Romanians who haven't emigrated (and some of those who have) continue to spread vaguely antisemitic 'wisdom' within the community and are generally indifferent to the role our country played in the Holocaust, when they don't outright deny it. I get the sense that this is fairly common in Eastern Europe, perhaps because we tend to suffer from a titanic inferiority complex.

Bulgaria ceded loads of territory after Paris '19 and came out a definite loser. yeah so maybe their Ottoman Empire days (when they were a classic "melting pot") are seen as a golden era? Fuck knows.

xpost

watched Shoah in my 10th grade English class (1985-86)

Is that how long it took your class to watch it?

the most dangerous parts of europe were parts entirely outside the german legal system

'The Anatomy of Fascism' talks about this too, how fascism was increasingly radicalised in the lawless regions, moving it to it's conclusion in the holocaust in Poland (iirc).

i know some teachers whose post-millenial students share sort of anti-semitic memes on social media (ostensibly anti-"zionist" but infused with classic anti-semitic themes) and are probably into "light" holocaust denialism.

wtf world?

(is "post-millenial" what we're calling them btw?)

honestly if i had a student like that... yeah i dunno.

gen z

gen (Na)z

every new generation name just sounds like some cyberpunk novel from the '80s.

xxxp hopefully you'd educate them

hopefully!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2019/01/25/jewish-family-was-booted-flight-over-body-odor-says-anti-semitism-is-blame/

Gonna say ... no? None of this makes sense to me.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/27/one-in-20-britons-does-not-believe-holocaust-happened

One in 20 British adults do not believe the Holocaust happened, and 8% say that the scale of the genocide has been exaggerated, according to a poll marking Holocaust Memorial Day.

I'm afraid that the numbers will continue to rise as WWII further recedes into the sands of time.

they should force some of these wilfully ignorant motherfuckers to read the Victor Klemperer Dairies, I swear.

I once gave a lecture on Edmond Jabès, a francophone Jewish Egyptian poet who settled in France in the late 1950s, as a result of the Suez Crisis. Although Egypt's Jewish community suffered throughout WWII (tensions in neighbouring Palestine leading to a spike in hateful propaganda, employment quotas, sporadic pogroms, etc.) it was a relatively safe haven when set against the calculated extermination taking place throughout most of Europe. After the war, distressed by then-emerging reports, Jabès began writing – obliquely, poetically, almost biblically – about the Shoah as an indirect witness, although I'm sure the Egyptian government's growing hostility towards the Jewish community was also a motivating factor. Anyway, we briefly discussed all this as a lead-up to our reading of Jabès's The Book of Questions (a genuinely beautiful volume of prose poetry, by the way, in addition to its historical import, although I haven't read the English translation), and it went well.

After the lecture, a student came to see me, dead set on letting me know that he would be dropping the course (this was mid-semester, so there would be penalties) because he was sick and tired of my 'obvious Jewish bias'. He found it especially upsetting that I had chosen to devote so much attention to WWII – and to the Shoah in particular – at the supposed expense of the Algerian War (which I did discuss in another lecture, without sparing the French by any stretch of the imagination). As expected, he asked me 'whether I really believed' that so many Jews had died during the war. Arguing with him was predictably pointless, since he felt like acknowledging Jewish suffering was simply not compatible with his ethnic and religious identity, and I never saw him again. I wish I could say it was the last time I encountered this attitude, but it's fairly widespread (more so in France, in part due to its specific colonial history, or so it seems to me), and it's always grounded in the same twisted narrative: 'Jews are doing amazingly well for themselves whereas my community is not – clearly a cabal of puppeteers is at work here'.

Holocaust ignorance is just that, and probably inevitable, given we live at a time when knowledge and information has never been more readily or easily available and yet people still argue and quibble about what is right in front of their faces on a daily basis. But Holocaust denial is a specific strain of hatred, either self imposed or culturally imposed, and probably more virulent and widespread in and around the middle east than anywhere else, for lots of reasons, some or several of which you just laid out. I do feel bad for people who have been living for generations on the losing end of geopolitical malfeasance, often with no one specific to blame. But at the same time, fuck them for denying the Holocaust. The very existence of genocides that people generally don't deny is demonstration enough that the scale of the Holocaust is at least feasible, and that doesn't even take into account all the diaries, news reports, movies, and photos, and public accounts. I mean, jeez, the *Nazis* kept careful records!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-47019350

Anti-jews among French Arabs are vile and widespread.

xpost See, I don't even know what to make of that. Thailand was occupied by Japan in WWII, so assuming one knows about that, one would presumably know about the Germans/Nazis as well. But is it possible a young person in Thailand doesn't know they were once occupied by Japan? I have no idea. Probably.

https://www.vice.com/sv/article/xd5bdd/nazis-chic-is-asias-offensive-fashion-craze-456

One in 20 British adults do not believe the Holocaust happened, and 8% say that the scale of the genocide has been exaggerated, according to a poll marking Holocaust Memorial Day.

i know this sounds a little, uh, UKIP, but what's the overlap b/w that 8% and the growing number of british muslims? i imagine ignorance is growing among younger generations regardless of ethnicity/background, but i also wonder if the worst of this is a product of the rampant anti-semitism within that particular community or communities.

there's a bar graph about 1/3 down in this article that suggests that ignorance and denial of the Holocaust is much greater in the middle east than elsewhere:
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/05/the-world-is-full-of-holocaust-deniers/370870/

uh, not b/w but b/t

Well that 8% compares to 9% in the US (per the first poll mentioned in this bump), where the Muslim population is proportionately smaller. This could be a common ratio in Western countries.

"It's not that I like Hitler," a Thai führer-chic designer who goes by the name Hut told the Jerusalem Post in 2012, "but he looks funny and the shirts are very popular with young people."

punk's not dead

behind every artschool-edgelord nazi-chic lover is a conservative reactionary bursting to get out. well that is what I learned from UK Punk.

British Muslims are overwhelmingly of Pakistani or Bangladeshi origin and not, in my experience, as exercised about Jews and/or Israel as Arabs and North Africans are. Also the Muslim population of the UK is 5%, despite what Fox News might be telling you people over there.

fuckin yikes to this from harry potter theme park social media

https://i.redd.it/4hei93mjqxe21.jpg

Sorry, this New York Jew is not taking instruction about what constitutes anti-Semitism from Kevin McCarthy, Chelsea Clinton, and Nancy Pelosi. pic.twitter.com/Bks7BuNnE2

— corey robin (@CoreyRobin) February 11, 2019

that is 100% how i feel.

my congressman tweeted some fake outrage about this and i called him and asked if he had any jews in his office. the communications director declined to comment. i suggested that if they were so outraged by anti-semitism they might have considered not spreading anti-semitic libels about george soros during the 2018 campaign. also, in my mind, i said "eat shit and die," but i'm not sure if that made it out of my mouth.

On a FB discussion post populated by MN5 voters, we had one vocal Zionist (“when I went to Israel I saw why armed guards and walls are necessary there, go Bibi!”) wondering what Ilhan says in private if that’s what she says in public, who wants her thrown off committees, one Reform person saying they accepted the apology, one very hard left Jewish person saying AIPAC is the NRA for Dems, and three non-Jewish people who grew up in a very Jewish community pretty much taking the middle path.

The Omar smearing felt like a bit of a last straw for me in anti-semitism-mongering, and I'm not exactly a JVP type.

Personally her comment didn't strike me as problematic but enough people who I trust explained their feelings in good faith that I don't think it's just bullshit. Among the things that made an impression on me are that it isn't her first comment so it's harder to dismiss as accidentally provocative, the song she picked to quote has antisemitic lyrics, and that she reduced a complex/multifaceted relationship to bribery. Again, I'm not really bothered by her comments but since I try to defer to people's sensibilities about bigotry/offensiveness even when they don't strike me as offensive I'm willing to accept that ppl were legitimately bothered.

It's complex/multifaceted bribery, and is in no way unique among lobbying in that regard.

The reason America supports Israel is not because AIPAC pays congresspeople.

AIPAC does not directly pay congresspeople, its network of bundlers and donors do though.

I mean, is that the ONLY reason? No. If you could imagine a world where, tomorrow, Palestine had an equally powerful lobby, I think the current alignment of US interests would still shift things in favor of Israel. But it's ridiculous to pretend lobbying and campaign donations haven't played a significant role.

From what I understand donations that come through AIPAC are fairly insignificant vis-a-vis campaign contributions as a whole and that their role is primarily educational + organizing trips. The reason American congressmen support Israel is because they're a regional strategic asset as well as there being significant cultural and religious affinity between the countries. Someone trying to disrupt that relationship (and btw you can't discount how much just the intent of 'trying to disrupt the Israel/America relationship' will scan as antisemitic to many ppl) needs to address these other issues. Reducing it to "Benjamins" indicates a superficial (and imo self-serving) account of why things are the way they are. Again, to me that doesn't necessarily indicate antisemitism but when you reduce a complex relationship to bribery and "ZOG" is a major antisemitic concept, you're gonna get blowback and even if that wasn't your intent it'll be deserved.

It's the fucking evangelicals that kiss up to Israel the most, lest anyone wonder how such a tiny minority can supposedly be so influential.

Omar ... I assume she is so used to spending time in certain circles where anti-Israel hyperbole plays well that she is still getting used to moderating her voice. Not to be moderate, necessarily, but as someone who no longer needs a megaphone and an angry placard to be heard. She's in Congress, she no longer has to live life in all-caps.

Some Evangelicals support Israel for eschatological reasons and others because they take literally Genesis 12:3 and similar verses. But even putting Evangelicals aside there is a long history of philosemitism in American culture and politics that goes back to George Washington (and even the Puritans who literally conceived of themselves in letters and diaries as similar to the Exodus Jews entering the Promised Land). Despite that US politics weren't always pro Israel and there was a period of time following 1948 when the US did not support Israel much at all (but countries like Germany, France and Russia did at various times). During the Cold War the US developed the alliance with Israel primarily to deter USSR participation in the Middle East as a counterweight. Even still the relationship isn't always smooth and if you look at the more modern "no daylight" positioning that really only showed up with GWB and Obama. Even Republican Presidents like Reagan and Bush Sr. were more critical and allowed many more UN resolutions to pass against Israel than Obama, etc. There's no question to me that 9/11 and the War against Terror played a big role in eliminating prior differences.

The theory of the case that Israel bribes the US to support it and without US support Israel could not oppress the Palestinians -- this is simplistic and wrong on multiple levels. Even if the US drew back its support Israel is a regional power that ranks near the top of multiple ratings for military, quality of life, technological development, etc. It's not a weak country being propped up by a superpower and it's hard to see how the Palestinians would win maximalist demands if only the US wasn't backing Israel. First of all it ignores that the US *often* criticizes Israel behavior in the territories and against Palestinians. Could the US force reconciliations by withholding support? Maybe (sometimes it has worked in the past and sometimes it has not). Or maybe the US would lose its ability to influence Israeli behavior entirely if it cut Israel loose. There's an assumption that Israel is enabled by US support but I could very easily imagine a more rogue Israel nation that doesn't have US support but has deepened its relationships with Russia, China, India, Africa, Saudi Arabia, etc, and acts much more viciously. It seems to me that by geopolitical standards Israel has been fairly restrained in dealing with the Palestinians, compare them to Assad in Syria or the Chinese concentration camps or many other regional actors who have to deal with separatist movements. This is all a little OT sorry.

this might sound aggro, and really it is not intended this way, but, what is the upshot of this observation, in your mind?:

It seems to me that by geopolitical standards Israel has been fairly restrained in dealing with the Palestinians, compare them to Assad in Syria or the Chinese concentration camps or many other regional actors who have to deal with separatist movements.

there's a framing issue here, too.
"separatist movements" might not be the best way to describe the political activity of people in a territory that even the elected gov't of israel acknowledges as not part of their own country. (even though there are often people in gov't who wish it were.) in other words, what do palestinians in the west bank or gaza wish to "separate" from?

i mean, for whatever it's worth, the Uyghurs live in a part of the world recognized by nearly all governments as part of the PRC. to say the least, the same is not true of the west bank/israel. so even if we were to decide israel behaves "better" than some of the worst geopolitical actors (to which in most contexts i'd say, so what?), the legal and practical framework is different.

My intended upshot was that the US is often viewed by critics of Israel as enabling Israel's behavior but it's worth thinking about the ways that it has restrained that behavior as well. Your point is taken that they're not a traditional separatist group (I used it as shorthand but that was sloppy) but they have been involved in a violent struggle for national rights with Israel for many years. At the very least they want to separate from Israeli military control.

Yeah, I'm not sure I see your point as relevant to mine here? Like if I were making a legal case for Israel to mistreat Palestinians based on their territorial status you'd be right but I'm just pointing out that when dealing with a military conflict plenty of nations unrestrained by a major superpower (or with a different power patron) often act far worse than Israel which suggests that the US may be a modulating influence.

i called him and asked if he had any jews in his office. the communications director declined to comment.

o_O

can't imagine why

oh, lol. it probably helps to know that i'm one of his rare jewish constituents and identified myself as such at the beginning of the convo.

like a lot of GOP politicians, when my representative attacks anti-semitism or cheers on israel, he's not really trying to appeal to people like me, but rather to evangelicals for whom a certain variety of "support for israel" is a key component of their political worldview.

that said, when i've called before to criticize his invocation of "soros" as a bogeyman, noting that it's anti-Semitic, my rep's spokespeople have tried to reassure me that he isn't anti-Semitic by referring to his "unwavering support" for israel. it's their only go-to.

ugh I hate the fact that I really do have a problem with omar's tweet (and am happy to see her statement, which indicates to me that she gets what people bristled at) and yet to talk about it in public fuels a bad-faith campaign against her by people who are only too happy to complain about the baleful influence of monied jews (sometimes referred to as "the media" or "the banks" or "globalists" or "george soros" rather than "AIPAC")