The BDS movement and the association of anti-Zionism and antisemitism

[Fragony]

How do you know all these things? Can you show me your data about people who dislike Israel and what else they get worked up over or are you just pulling these "facts" out of your body cavities?

Well the fact is simply that MSN and leftist self-congratulaters don't give a crap when it's not Israel. Absolute silence. When it's Israel though there isn't enough chocolate in the world to counter their hormonal spikes.

'Any states that are western or westernish are hold to a higher standard.'

That could at least be an explanation, but I am not buying it. Antisemitism is very much alive in Europe but it found a safer output to channel it.

[Husar]

Well the fact is simply that MSN and leftist self-congratulaters don't give a crap when it's not Israel. Absolute silence. When it's Israel though there isn't enough chocolate in the world to counter their hormonal spikes.

'Any states that are western or westernish are hold to a higher standard.'

That could at least be an explanation, but I am not buying it. Antisemitism is very much alive in Europe but it found a safer output to channel it.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

"2 x 3 equals 4
Widdewiddewitt*, add 3 and you get 9!
I'm making my world
Widdewidde just the way I like it .... "

Fits the attitude of the antagonists in these conflicts as well, everybody has an excuse not to give an inch and for some not giving an inch means taking inches every day. I've quite frankly stopped caring for the most part. I'm sure there are some reasonable people but as usual they get drowned out by the shouting of the unreasonables, whatever the ratio between the groups may be.

I'm not sure what boycotting universities is supposed to achieve but being opposed to Israel's politics is not necessarily anti-semitism either way.

[Fragony]

I'm not sure what boycotting universities is supposed to achieve but being opposed to Israel's politics is not necessarily anti-semitism either way.

But only caring about Israel makes it very likely.

My personal theory that I can't back up and you are allowed to mock me. I think that the real reason is that Israel has succes, it has universities that rank among the best in the world, innovative industry, compatitive economy. That's got to be a bit hard to explain when you are ideologically infused with the idea, or rather truth that all cultures are equal. The palestianes get more aid than any 'country' in the world and it's a mess. So, lefties simply can't get to terms with being wrong.

Fire away

[Pannonian]

I'm not sure what boycotting universities is supposed to achieve but being opposed to Israel's politics is not necessarily anti-semitism either way.

I'm as exasperated by British Islamists as I am puzzled by Israel's influence in the US. I guess this makes me an anti-semite on both sides of the Israel-Palestine divide.

[Husar]

But only caring about Israel makes it very likely.

My personal theory that I can't back up and you are allowed to mock me. I think that the real reason is that Israel has succes, it has universities that rank among the best in the world, innovative industry, compatitive economy. That's got to be a bit hard to explain when you are ideologically infused with the idea, or rather truth that all cultures are equal. The palestianes get more aid than any 'country' in the world and it's a mess. So, lefties simply can't get to terms with being wrong.

Fire away

There are people who are as unreasonable as you say but there is no reason to devote 90% of your posts to a tiny weirdo minority that has barely any impact and treat them as though they dictate all politics in the west. Doing that is unreasonable as well, it's like an unhealthy fixation.

I'm as exasperated by British Islamists as I am puzzled by Israel's influence in the US. I guess this makes me an anti-semite on both sides of the Israel-Palestine divide.

It's a fact that Israel keeps taking land that Palestinians occupy and I haven't seen any arguments as to why that would be okay to do. The only "counter argument" is usually a distraction like "but the Palestinians..." which always ends in that two wrongs do not make a right.

If Israel has the right to take land from its neighbors as long as it can by being militarily stronger, then what about Germany occupying some polish and dutch border towns to settle German people there? Would that be okay? The dutch don't even have tanks anymore to oppose us, that will be easy...

Taking that land is not a defense against rocket attacks and suicide bombers either so that's certainly not a justification, they may justify setting up checkpoints and other measures but not land grabs beyond the borders accepted by the UN.

[Pannonian]

It's a fact that Israel keeps taking land that Palestinians occupy and I haven't seen any arguments as to why that would be okay to do. The only "counter argument" is usually a distraction like "but the Palestinians..." which always ends in that two wrongs do not make a right.

If Israel has the right to take land from its neighbors as long as it can by being militarily stronger, then what about Germany occupying some polish and dutch border towns to settle German people there? Would that be okay? The dutch don't even have tanks anymore to oppose us, that will be easy...

Taking that land is not a defense against rocket attacks and suicide bombers either so that's certainly not a justification, they may justify setting up checkpoints and other measures but not land grabs beyond the borders accepted by the UN.

See the argument I summarised above, that IIRC I've seen Frag or someone trot out here as well. "Palestinians" don't exist. The land was split into various states, one of which was Jordan, and so-called "Palestinians" are really Jordanians who have no right to any disputed land because they belong to a foreign state and not a disputed state. And since they don't exist, they don't exist to dispute the land, and thus Israel is merely holding what is her territory by right and without dispute. That's what I mean by 1984 and Communism. Nazism would preach hatred against its enemy. 1984-style Communism refuses to recognise their existence.

[Husar]

See the argument I summarised above, that IIRC I've seen Frag or someone trot out here as well. "Palestinians" don't exist. The land was split into various states, one of which was Jordan, and so-called "Palestinians" are really Jordanians who have no right to any disputed land because they belong to a foreign state and not a disputed state. And since they don't exist, they don't exist to dispute the land, and thus Israel is merely holding what is her territory by right and without dispute. That's what I mean by 1984 and Communism. Nazism would preach hatred against its enemy. 1984-style Communism refuses to recognise their existence.

Ah yes, but this still doesn't explain how this is Israel's land when the UN decided it is not. The USA wouldn't just let Russia occupy all of Antarctica just because Jordan has not claimed any of it. You may be right in that is what people do but it still doesn't work out that you expel people from the land they've been living on possibly for centuries based on your personal recategorization of their nationality.

I want to see a proper argument and "they're Jordanians because I say so" is not a proper argument.

[Rhyfelwyr]

Since BDS says that it calls for a boycott of Israeli academic institutions that discriminate against Palestinians, rather than simply any academic of Israeli citizenship, I would agree that it is not anti-semitic, on those grounds at least.

See the argument I summarised above, that IIRC I've seen Frag or someone trot out here as well. "Palestinians" don't exist. The land was split into various states, one of which was Jordan, and so-called "Palestinians" are really Jordanians who have no right to any disputed land because they belong to a foreign state and not a disputed state. And since they don't exist, they don't exist to dispute the land, and thus Israel is merely holding what is her territory by right and without dispute. That's what I mean by 1984 and Communism. Nazism would preach hatred against its enemy. 1984-style Communism refuses to recognise their existence.

Well, as far as I understand it, Palestinian nationalism is a fairly modern creation, as are all the nationalisms based around Arab states carved out rather arbitrarily by the colonial powers less than a full century ago.* I think that in pointing this out, these "1984-style Communists" are trying to win the argument over historical legitimacy, rather than denying that a real Palestinian nationalism exists today (though some may do this, such thinking is not the natural conclusion of the 'historic legitimacy' argument more generally). I think a more interesting line of thought would be to look into the development of the modern, Zionist form of Israeli nationalism, and challenge just how solid its own historic foundations are.

*Surely both sides should show some nuance here, and recognize that while (Arab) Palestine cannot claim to be the continuation of some sort of long-term historic state/people, Palestinian nationalism does have some historic precendents in more general pan-Arabism. Certainly, it could be seen in the revolts against the Ottomans.

[Husar]

There's still the notion that people have to have a nationality or national identity to have the right to live somewhere. Nationality is a far newer concept than having a home. The sinti and roma and the kurds have similar problems, in fact the jews had it as well before they were gifted a strip of land and formed a nationality around it.

[Fragony]

See the argument I summarised above, that IIRC I've seen Frag or someone trot out here as well. "Palestinians" don't exist. The land was split into various states, one of which was Jordan, and so-called "Palestinians" are really Jordanians who have no right to any disputed land because they belong to a foreign state and not a disputed state. And since they don't exist, they don't exist to dispute the land, and thus Israel is merely holding what is her territory by right and without dispute. That's what I mean by 1984 and Communism. Nazism would preach hatred against its enemy. 1984-style Communism refuses to recognise their existence.

Is there anything historically wrong with that position? No they don't exist they were invented.

[Hooahguy]

That's what I mean by 1984 and Communism. Nazism would preach hatred against its enemy. 1984-style Communism refuses to recognise their existence.

Well, as more and more nationalistic Zionists move to Israel (especially from the US where worship of Israel is started from pre-school) the attitudes about Palestinians get even more violent. Just look at all the Price Tag attacks on Palestinian properties. Everything from burning olive groves to tagging buildings with things like "death to Arabs."

Just look at this conversation a (sane) friend of mine had with a radical new immigrant during Pillar of Defense:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

And that was just a small portion of that conversation.

[Ironside]

Well the fact is simply that MSN and leftist self-congratulaters don't give a crap when it's not Israel. Absolute silence. When it's Israel though there isn't enough chocolate in the world to counter their hormonal spikes.

'Any states that are western or westernish are hold to a higher standard.'

That could at least be an explanation, but I am not buying it. Antisemitism is very much alive in Europe but it found a safer output to channel it.

Here's a few questions for you.

Does Israel act as it intends to to assimilate parts of the West Bank?
Did Israel commit small scale ethnic cleansing (mostly in the form of forced relocation) in the parts of the occupied territories that seems to be intended for assimilation? Or to rephrase it, does it live any Palestinians in the Jewish settlements?
Are the Palestinians living under occupied conditions?
Are the Palestinians the underdogs in the conflict?
Can you name an identical situation? Tibet is close, but that's forced cultural assimilation and creating a divisive society by importing Han Chinese in the upper echelons. It's also communistic China doing it and starting it during the cold war. So it's a dictorship and it started in a time it was hard to get traction.

Are the US held to a different standard than China?
Are the US getting more flak than China?
In a conflict that forces alliances, would Europe ally with the US or China?
Why did the left stop liking the US?
Why did the left stop being ok with Israel? (Hint. It started to rapidly decline in 1967).

And I'm trying to figure out how exactly the Left should've picked it up according to you.
By liking the muslims and absorbing jewish hate from there? The multicultural blinders is younger than that. Those blinders also fits "always support the underdogs" and "all cultures are equal and should all be cheerished" much better.
Hidden neo-nazis? They're good at hiding, since extreme left vs extreme right is the most common political violence. They hate eachother.
Ideological reasons? No. There's plenty of leftie ideological reasons to dislike the Israeli policy towards the Palestinians though.
Started with it? No, otherwise the left would've never liked Israel in any form.
Has there been occations and persons that gone far enough to be antisemitic rather than opposing Israeli treatment of the Palestinians? Sure, but it's not antisemitism that was the driving force.

[Fragony]

That's a barrage of questions. Got one back, who is surrounded by genocidal maniacs who have sworn to destroy their state and get shot at at daily bases.

Gonna cherrypick this one out though,

'Can you name an identical situation'

Absolutily, the western sahara of Marocco, supposedly the most modern state in Northern Africa. Also the Kurds come to mind.

I can answer all questions I think, but keep it to a smaller dosis for me please.

Edit, taking this on as well.

'And I'm trying to figure out how exactly the Left should've picked it up according to you.'

Simply because Israel proves that leftist 'intellectuals' are wrong. The society they think they can build is an illusion and the succes Israel has is a slap in the face bringing that home. Leftist intellectuals are used to never have been argued against, so it's simply resentment against the fact that is being completily wrong about some things.

[Ironside]

That's a barrage of questions. Got one back, who is surrounded by genocidal maniacs who have sworn to destroy their state and get shot at at daily bases.

The Palestinians? Or was it a multiple answer question?

They are shot at more than the Israeli, but the surronding genocidal maniacs got less political power.

Anyway, that goes into justification. And I'm saying that a large chunk of the left aren't buying that justification.

Can you name an identical situation'

Absolutily, the western sahara of Marocco, supposedly the most modern state in Northern Africa. Also the Kurds come to mind.

Both are dealing with suppression of a possible new state, rather than annexation (I remembered the right word now). It's less obvious.

I can answer all questions I think, but keep it to a smaller dosis for me please.

Most are Yes or No questions. It's more to provide a context. The two last ones are more complex, but a major part of the answer is that both nations started to look bullyish and imperialistic due to how they acting in war.

Simply because Israel proves that leftist 'intellectuals' are wrong. The society they think they can build is an illusion and the succes Israel has is a slap in the face bringing that home. Leftist intellectuals are used to never have been argued against, so it's simply resentment against the fact that is being completily wrong about some things.

Eh, the society the left wants to build is supposed to be more equal somehow. That's as far as they agree.

And I'm not sure what you mean by the success by Israel. Being successful, while brutal towards your neightbours aren't exactly uncommon in history.

Leftist intellectuals are quite used being argued against. What you might be able to argue is that they're unused to not be on the side of "the good guys", but it's not uncommon that they ignore the bad sides on the part they're cheering on. Or accept it as a part of the struggle. It's a gray vs gray conflict in any way.

Anyway, how it this supposed to make them anti-semitic instead of anti-Israel?

[Fragony]

Leftist intellectuals are quite used being argued against. What you might be able to argue is that they're unused to not be on the side of "the good guys", but it's not uncommon that they ignore the bad sides on the part they're cheering on. Or accept it as a part of the struggle. It's a gray vs gray conflict in any way.

Anyway, how it this supposed to make them anti-semitic instead of anti-Israel?

Because they only care about Israel. In other parts of the world violence and cruelty is taken for granted, uch much worse cruelty and violence I might add. It's no excuse that Israel is held at a higher standard, it's an inconsistancy in the school of thought of equality. Call it a gray area if you want, it won't get you any drinks in the leftist stratosphere and you probably know that if you ever been to a meeting of furious lefties, you won't convince me that a side has already been picked if you not aren't to come with anything better than this. The left is still deeply antisematic, not because of screaming sieg heil like in the old days, but by totally ignoring everything they don't fancy all that much. In short, the left is creepy and dangerous, what they see in others they don't recognise when looking into a mirror.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Because they only care about Israel. In other parts of the world violence and cruelty is taken for granted, uch much worse cruelty and violence I might add. It's no excuse that Israel is held at a higher standard, it's an inconsistancy in the school of thought of equality. Call it a gray area if you want, it won't get you any drinks in the leftist stratosphere and you probably know that if you ever been to a meeting of furious lefties, you won't convince me that a side has already been picked if you not aren't to come with anything better than this. The left is still deeply antisematic, not because of screaming sieg heil like in the old days, but by totally ignoring everything they don't fancy all that much. In short, the left is creepy and dangerous, what they see in others they don't recognise when looking into a mirror.

I think you're half right - Israel is singled out due to hypocrisy - but not because they're Jewish.

The fact is - the Left can cope with African Despots slaughtering people, but it can't cope with what is apparently a "Western Democracy" doing the same. So Israel falls foul of the same exceptionalism as South Africa before it.

Underlying that is probably the realisation that if Israelis can pump sewage into the Palestinian water supply - then, then Americans could do that to Canadians, or at least Mexicans.

It makes it much harder to look back at the "Colonial era" as the Bad Old Days when we didn't "know better". The Israelis definitely know better, but they do it anyway. The logical extension being that the Victorians probably knew better too...

[Tellos Athenaios]

I think you're half right - Israel is singled out due to hypocrisy - but not because they're Jewish.

The fact is - the Left can cope with African Despots slaughtering people, but it can't cope with what is apparently a "Western Democracy" doing the same. So Israel falls foul of the same exceptionalism as South Africa before it.

Underlying that is probably the realisation that if Israelis can pump sewage into the Palestinian water supply - then, then Americans could do that to Canadians, or at least Mexicans.

Or: that you don't want your allies to be pulling that kind of stunt 'just cause. Which is the problem with Israel, the incredible 'just cause attitude towards pretty much everyone else. That kinda moves them from a likeable ally with an unfortunate tendency to elect deliberate idiots trying to pass off their ignorance as a virtue into straight up immoral and oddly reminiscent of certain past regimes.

[Fragony]

I think you're half right - Israel is singled out due to hypocrisy - but not because they're Jewish.

The left sympathises with people who hate Israel because they are jewish. What was the first thing that was done when Israel moved out of Gaza? The synagogues were burned down. Israel's enemies are openly antisemit and aren't very secretive about what they have in mind, and leftist cheer-monkeys wear their symbols. Wearing an arafat-shawl is no different than wearing a swastika, it stands for the same thing. The left not deeply antisemit, I don't think so.

If you question Israel's behaviour (shooting back) 'The villainy you teach me I will execute, and I shall go hard, but I will better the instruction'

I am sure that quote is on a wall somewhere.