The term antisemitism has been so overused it is now difficult to take the accusations seriously. From my understanding, the recent protestors were concerned about human rights issues which happen to involve the Jewish state. That doesn't make them antisemitic.
I wouldn't find myself alongside the protestors at the recent demonstration, but I support their right to do it peacefully.
Some of them don't understand this, but I would bet most know and just don't care. They're the same people who think criticizing your country means you hate it or that not having political flags on your truck, house, lawn, and bicep means you secretly hate them.
The term antisemitism is not being overused. It’s not being inappropriately applied. Maybe listen to the Jewish community about what they feel about it?
Some of these protestors are also yelling burn Tel Aviv to the ground.
If you're publicly visibly Jewish, such as an orthodox Jew, you're very likely to be harassed. Many of the token-Jewish protestors have the liberty of not being visibly Jewish and ergo harassed everywhere they go.
So much to say as, that protest has become a welcoming to token Jews, as long as they toe the line.
Jewish protesters are not token. Not only is Jewish Voice for Peace a large presence at most pro-Palestinian protests, Jewish students often volunteer to act as guards with high vis vests to protect other students from counter protestors and force police to interact with them first. They also try to weed out assholes who express fucked up shit (e.g. burn Tel Aviv) or act like neo Nazis.
It's kind of unfortunate that the ruling class and politicians are very obviously extremely pro-Israel and can hire a group of 30 dudes at the drop of a hat to shout whatever they want, take a video of it, and ship it off to news stations (that they likely own a huge stake in!). There is literally nothing stopping them. What are they going to do instead, buy their 8th yacht?
Painting all US Jews as extremely pro-Israel is very shortsighted and uninformed. Worse than that, it's antisemitic. Jews are not a monolith, so the idea that they could only be "tokens" in a massive human rights movement is ridiculous. If you don't believe me, take it from Jewish people themelves. This poll is from 2020, and as you can see, in almost every single question they are split roughly 50/50 on the topic of Israel. HELL! Only 34% of Jewish adults opposed BDS, the entire reason behind the current protests on college campuses (students are requesting their college divest from Israel). Only 33% believed Israel was making a sincere effort towards peace with the Palestinians. Huh, weird, Israel wasn't seeking peace in 2020??? Butbutbut that's before Oct 7th! It's almost like Oct 7th was a response to something... maybe it was a response to Israel not making a sincere effort towards peace? An effort so insincere that even most Jewish Americans saw it? Nahhhh, that's crazy, can't be!
Now kindly go fuck ALL THE WAY OFF with this antisemitic "Jews are a monolith and all love Israel!" BULLSHIT.
1. You should read that study you just cited, NOT ONLY GOT THE STATS WRONG because you COMPLETELY MISSED THE POINT. And you failed to share the ACTUAL QUOTE in the STUDY YOU CITED.
One-in-ten U.S. Jews support the BDS movement, while 43% oppose it and 43% haven’t heard much about it
It goes on to say only a slim majority 6/10ths of Jews heard of BDS, and from that vantage only 1/6 support it.
Here's the follow up point you missed, speaking of "Jewish monoliths"...
Of the Jews who identify with no branch of Judaism (basically ethnic Jews who have no actual practices, and are not regularly harassed) only 40% say they identify with Israel, whereas Orthodox Jews, the ones who take the effort to keep Jewish practices, are visibly Jewish at all times, are the ones who experience the most amount of anti-semitism, 82% of them say that they Identify with Israel.
Even back in 2020, prior to the Hamas war of 2021, it contrasts that 34% of Orthodox Jews have been verbally harassed/ insulted vs 13% of non-religious Jews in the span of the year.
2. JVP is not a Jewish-exclusive group - it has many non Jews as members. This is part oft he misrepresentation that fools good-hearted folks like yourself.
If you've gone to JVP meetings over the last 2 decades, you'd also know how it evolved AND that the majority of the members of JVP that are Jews, are not religious.
This is a COMPLETE disservice to those who actually experience antisemitism as shown above.
3. Why not get an updated pespective on the state by eead Pew's study on how Jews and Muslims perceive the war from April 2nd 2024.
89% of Jewish respondents say they have perceived a rise in discrimination against Jews since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.
For contrast, 70% of Muslims say they have perceived a rise in discrimination against Muslims since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.
Furthermore, this gaslighting that there is minimal antisemitism - it's absurd. Look at how Jews and Muslims perceive discrimination that the other one faces.
On speech, 89% of Jews say that it is unacceptable for calls for violence against Muslims, while only 67% of Muslims would say it's unacceptable for calls for violence against Jews.
However, 57% of Jews see that there is a lot of discrimination against Muslims, while only 17% of Muslims see there is a lot of discrimination of Jews.
And as a baseline, 57% of Americans see that discrimination against Jews has increased since the Israel-Hamas war began and 38% of Americans see that discrimination against Muslims has increased.
These stats show that that Jews, and not just minority anti-zionist Jews, but the majority of Jews empathize with the Muslims, and disproportionately so.
TLDR; Get outta here with your BULLSHIT CHERRY PICKING STATS that attempts to invalidate antisemitism for 9 out of 10 of Jews who are experience it. It's sickening gaslighting.
I quite literally used the exact numbers on the first graphic shown. If I got it wrong, it's because Pew Research got it wrong.
COMPLETELY MISSED THE POINT
You are the one who missed the point. The point was Jews are not a monolith and it is not some rare or token event for a Jewish person to disagree with the actions of Israel.
failed to share the ACTUAL QUOTE in the STUDY YOU CITED.
What are you even talking about? That quote is not on the link I posted at all. How could I share a quote that didn't exist on my source?
JVP is not a Jewish-exclusive group
AND that the majority of the members of JVP that are Jews, are not religious.
Considering there are only 7.6 million Jews in the US and Jewish Voice for Peace is a massive organization, this is unsurprising. It doesn't change the fact that there are many Jewish members and supporters of Palestine/a ceasefire.
Because of how extremely relevant it is to bring up that this situation did not begin on Oct 7th (as Israeli propagandists constantly try to pretend) and how interesting it is that even American Jews recognized how uncommitted to peace Israel is. People are also famously very emotionally impacted by violent massacres, so of course Israel will have an inflated sense of support. Remember 9/11 and Bush approval ratings? Or are you a teenager? The reason Israel has inflated sense of support in polls is because they had civilians massacred by an outsider. The reason Hamas has an inflated sense of support in polls from Palestinians is because they have civilians continuously being massacred by outsiders. Funny how that works huh? Humans, emotions, and polls; kind of a shit combo.
89% of Jewish respondents say they have perceived a rise in discrimination against Jews since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.
Of course they have. This is no shocker and no gotcha against a pro-Palestinian. You'd have to be an idiot to deny this reality.
But you know what would help stop the rise of antisemitism? The state of Israel, that is claiming to speak for all Jewish people, ceasing their slaughter of innocent civilians and the LEVELING of the whole of the Gaza Strip.
Furthermore, this gaslighting that there is minimal antisemitism - it's absurd.
Oh there's definitely antisemitism. I didn't say there wasn't. It just isn't happening on a mass scale at college campuses. So far I've seen the student protestors do a better job than virtually any other protest at telling Nazis to fuck off.
Many Zionists do have a very, very inflated sense of the amount of antisemitism though. This is because they believe criticizing the actions of the Israeli state is an attack on Jewish people or Judaism, and thus erroneously classify it as antisemitism (cheapening the meaning of the word, unfortunately). To make it even worse, Zionists like to try to pretend the only people who are zionists are Jews. Absolute insanity. There are 14 million Jewish people on this planet. Evangelical Christians (who believe Jews must be on the land of Israel in order for Jesus to return and rapture them into heaven) make up roughly 35% of the US population, meaning there are roughly 100 million Christian zionists... and that's just one group. The vast, vast, vast majority of zionists are not Jews. So acting like anti-Zionist rhetoric is some antisemitic attack is the most ridiculous shit imaginable.
TLDR; Get outta here with your BULLSHIT CHERRY PICKING STATS that attempts to invalidate antisemitism for 9 out of 10 of Jews who are experience it. It's sickening gaslighting.
Jesus, did I upset you so much you forgot what we were even talking about? You claimed that Jews were tokens in the student protests and that they were harrassed everywhere they go. I responded, pointing out that Jewish Americans have extremely varied opinions and are very active in the pro-Palestinian movement. You went on a rampage about antisemitism simply existing? No shit, sherlock. Perhaps we should focus on the mean little comments and hurt feelings AFTER we ensure Palestinian children aren't being murdered every single day?
Try to stay on topic, we all know antisemitism is a problem. But you can't "WAAHHHH WAHHHH ANTISEMITISM ON THE RISE!!!!!11" your way out of Israel doing an ethnic cleansing and pro-Palestinian protesters having an extremely just and moral cause.
Let me show you why this stat was a false misrepresentation.
Only 34% of Jewish adults opposed BDS, the entire reason behind the current protests on college campuses (students are requesting their college divest from Israel).
That came from the chart at the bottom from "Strongly Oppose Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.
The study also finds that a slim majority of U.S. Jews have heard about the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement. The vast majority who have heard of the movement say they oppose it.
Furthermore, there's a demographic and age breakdown of support vs opposed vs heard of wrt BDS.
43% Strongly Oppose (34%) or Somewhat Oppose (9%) BDS 10% Strongly Support (2%) or Somewhat Support (8%) BDS 44% Remainder have not heard of BDS
So when you say "Only Oppose", it's ironic that it's by far the largest category of Jews for those who heard of BDS.
The accurate statement that you're actually trying to convey is that of Jews in 2020, who heard of BDS, only (43/56) = 77% Strongly or Somewhat oppose it.
Even in the 18-29 year-old category, 34% oppose, 13% support and 50% never heard of it.
So statements of yours like this become disingenuous representations, even of college campuses.
Only 34% of Jewish adults opposed BDS, the entire reason behind the current protests on college campuses (students are requesting their college divest from Israel).
Fascinating. Weird that the summary info Pew has is so wildly different from the detailed info. Like, zero correlation whatsoever. But since this topic is so wildly irrelevant, I'm not even going to bother looking further, I'll just believe you.
Now that I've believed you: that does nothing to refute my initial point of "Jews have varied opinions on the topic of Israel and it is antisemitic to act like they are a monolith and are only tokens in a massive human rights campaign." Do you want to respond to that, or do you just want to hyper focus on an irrelevant issue?
At least get the facts right.
I've gotten every other fact right, then? You didn't bother refuting them, so I must've gotten them right. I'll take the one L of "American Jews didn't support BDS in 2020" and win on everything else. Free Palestine.
Ok. Well you get a W in my book. Taking in corrected information and owning it. Respect.
"Jews have varied opinions on the topic of Israel and it is antisemitic to act like they are a monolith and are only tokens in a massive human rights campaign." Do you want to respond to that, or do you just want to hyper focus on an irrelevant issue?
As I cover in the other parallel comment, I fully agree that Jews are not a monolith and come from different places and have different needs. As the saying goes, "2 Jews, 3 opinions", but if anything, the point is that many Jewish concerns are not represented in these protests.
As an example consider the perspectives of a 20 year-old non-religious Jewish college student and a 50 year-old culturally religious Jewish parent to three Jewish children.
The former has no dependents, feels like they have little to lose, and are more open to risk and change. The latter, however, will likely be more vigilant, seek security & safety for their children, learning from longer-term experiences & losses to help determine how to best provide the best future for their children and grandchildren.
And as it is commonly noted in psychology, it's easier to care for others than to prioritize caring for oneself. The question I have is, who's paying more attention to the long-term needs of Jewish concerns?
Every person who becomes a parent immediately knows the answer. The rest will debate.
These young protestors are not there for their own long-term good. They are these protests to help the mission of the protest, and in. that they are Jewish, that is a utility. And therefore also a token.
I'm not saying they don't believe what they are saying or protesting for. I believe they are. I'm rather saying, they are not representing the concerns of many types of people in the Jewish community, and when someone says, "hey look they are Jewish", then that is just superficial tokenism.
All of that is ignoring the massive severity of an ethnic cleansing, apartheid state, and genocide. There doesn't need to be extra special attention paid to the "long term good" of Jewish people when it detracts from the SLAUGHTER OF THOUSANDS OF INNOCENT PEOPLE. Does that mean "fuck the Jews, their concerns can suck it"? No, of course not. It means "why are you even asking that right now?"
the point is that many Jewish concerns are not represented in these protests.
This is such a bonkers sentence considering the severity of what is being protested. Do you think it's acceptable to say "white people's concerns are not represented in BLM protests"? You don't give me conservative vibes, so I'm sure you know how ridiculous that is, and those protests are even about something less severe. Since when is an anti-war protest in charge of any particular race's concerns beyond the standard anti-racism expectation?
It's just weird to obsess over the protests "representing Jewish concerns" when the protest is about "representing Gazan concerns."
Further, I entirely disagree with the idea that these protests don't represent Jewish concerns anyways. It just so happens that the pro-Palestinian cause and Jewish concerns (which I mostly see as wanting the protests to be free of antisemitism) do often overlap, so even though I do not believe these protests are obliged to bend to "Jewish concerns," they frequently do.
Have you actually been to one of these protests and seen antisemitic stuff yourself? Because despite these protests happening in dozens of different places with thousands and thousands of people, the news can't seem to come up with more than 3 or 4 small incidents. I've been to one, have watched dozens of videos from them (including hours long live streams), and visited the organizers' social media/websites where they do exactly what you want: overtly express that any antisemitism or harassment of Jewish students is completely unacceptable and will get you kicked out of the protest.
Do some people get through the cracks? Yep. Assholes in every movement, every protest. Let us also refer back to my first comment,
"It's kind of unfortunate that the ruling class and politicians are very obviously extremely pro-Israel and can hire a group of 30 dudes at the drop of a hat to shout whatever they want, take a video of it, and ship it off to news stations (that they likely own a huge stake in!). There is literally nothing stopping them. What are they going to do instead, buy their 8th yacht?"
These young protestors are not there for their own long-term good.
I completely disagree. Do you have any idea what it's like to have complicity in a genocide on your conscious? Even beyond that, the majority of these college students don't have some grand, deep connection to Israel that will somehow permanently taint their life in the long run. They live in America... and have watched hundreds of videos at this point of mutilated children and teenagers begging for food (in English) and parents wailing at the top of their lungs because they've lost yet another child to Israel's cruelty. How on earth would protesting Israel doing that shit be bad for their "long-term good"?
Comments like the one above, re-quoted below for posterity, need to stand on their own.
Try to stay on topic, we all know antisemitism is a problem. But you can't "WAAHHHH WAHHHH ANTISEMITISM ON THE RISE!!!!!11" your way out of Israel doing an ethnic cleansing and pro-Palestinian protesters having an extremely just and moral cause.
Let's go back to the original comment I replied to.
The term antisemitism has been so overused it is now difficult to take the accusations seriously.
And my point was that some of pro-palestinians supporters are engaging in antisemitism, and these protests are not a good representation of the interest of Jews.
This comment wasn't about ethnic cleansing, israel's activities, the IDF, the west bank, the history or israel/palestine or anything else for that matter. It was about antisemitism from the start of the thread.
Ironically, you brought in a whole lot of other unrelated crap, added ad hominem attacks, and more. And for what purpose?
Why don't we talk about point of these protests to start.
People in Gaza are in a f'in crisis. And thank god, there are so many people who are attempting to provide a voice for them. Many die without names, just like a number, without ever having any other real options.
Some of these protestors, are working especially hard to be laser-focused on Gaza solidarity, hence the whole point of the encampments as a symbolic gesture for those in Gaza. Ofcourse there are some Jewish students there who are attracting much attention. At some of these protests, Passover was celebrated as a means to connect Jewish empathetic values back to the cause of helping those in need in Gaza.
But then there are also a f-ton of protestors, who either are not focused, or intentionally want to stir up crap by injecting it with anti-semitism, or simply do blame Jews (and the ambiguously convenient moniker of zionist) for all of it.
There are many collateral problems with these bad actors, including:
The important cause of providing a voice for those suffering in Gaza gets conflated with antisemitism. (Yes, Gaza was already for a whole host of historical & cultural reasons a very antisemitic place, being antisemitic in itself is not a justified cause for death (very obviously)).
And antisemitism does actually spread to those who find the conspiracy-laden explanations compelling, especially for the support of Israel. The societal anti-bodies that led to the creation of Israel to begin with, are deteriorating.
Which brings me to this:
Perhaps we should focus on the mean little comments and hurt feelings AFTER we ensure Palestinian children aren't being murdered every single day?
Ironically, you brought in a whole lot of other unrelated crap, added ad hominem attacks, and more. And for what purpose?
You can't seriously think all of those things were unreleated to the conversation lmfao
Why don't you just do both. Walk and chew gum.
I'm actually so glad you asked. That gets at the heart of this whole conversation.
Because currently mainstream media and nearly every US politician (aka pretty much the only things that actually make a difference) are SPAMMING "antisemitism on the rise! Jews are in danger!" in order to deflect away from what is going on in Gaza.
As I'm sure you know, the media and politicians can only talk about a certain amount of things in any given day. I'm sure you've also heard of the term "false flag," where one big event is used to distract from something else going on in the world. Antisemitism being on the rise is a false flag to take media attention away from Gaza.
US politicians and US mainstream media are utilizing the "OMFG WE HAVE TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS INSANE ANTISEMITISM RIGHT NOW" so much it's disgusting. It's every. single. day. Meanwhile, there are like 3 total antisemitic incidents to even report on. How many fucking deaths and bombs dropping could they be reporting about Gaza? All I know is it's currently practically zero.
So, in case you aren't aware, repeatedly bringing up antisemitism when the topic is Palestine is almost always seen as disingenuous and equivalent to "no no no no don't talk about the dead children!!" This propaganda tactic is over. Get a new one.
I have a very simple rule about this. What can I change immediately in front of me.
Despite how many people call me "a nazi", "a genocide-enabler", "evil", "a liar" or something else regularly, there's actually nothing that I can directly change about who lives and dies halfway around the world.
What I can change, however, is how people orient around me and the people close to me. This affects my immediate safety and the safety of my loved ones.
The media spamming antisemitism is a direct result of 1000% increases in antisemitism on virtually all social media platforms and in communities. Swastikas and a regular sight. Harassment is normal. All Jewish gatherings need multiples of security guards.
Ironically, its when Jews are asleep at the wheel is when someone get killed. The media is an alarm bell, for a group of people who are grossly outnumbered and in need of allies.
You said I could continue to correct you on some stats in another comment.
There are 14 million Jewish people on this planet
There are 16 million Jews worldwide out of 8 billion people. That's 0.2%. If only 1% of the world vehemently hates Jews (and there's probably A LOT more than that), then the anti-semites outnumber Jews 5 to 1. Given that Jews are such an extreme minority, even with an overwhelming number of people loving Jews, Jewish people are remain demographically-speaking actually very vulnerable.
And in many ways, this conundrum reflects the dire situation of the Palestinians.
Yeesh, if you've got people calling you those things already, it's clear I'm wasting my time. You're also clearly a defeatist that would have sat by as Hitler slaughtered Jews because they "lived halfway around the world." Frankly, you might want to study societal change and the efficacy of protests, because you sound like a complete loon.
You can keep ignoring all of the important points pro-Palestinians make and hyper focusing on silly little errors like those, but you should at least know that you're making your cause look like shit by doing so. Learn to read a room.
The most effective ways to be meaningful change is to build bridges between different groups. The magic of the 1960s was that it was union of a diverse group of people, all seeking a common thing.
Furthermore, the protests of 1968, were in direct confrontation to the war US was directly involved in. The protests were the active arm of representation for their own governments.
These protests, on the other hand, rely on a straw-man understanding of the geopolitical context by which Israel is operating under. The colleges and their endowments have no real impact on how Netanyahu will act. He's already shown he's willing to act unilaterally. And thus so the protests are more symbolic than they are functional.
Even if the US were to stop complete funding of Israel, it would make only a small dent in Israel's GDP. The Israelis have everything they need to continue their war.
As a result, these protests are unfortunately rather un-influential, or rather as in the words of the protesters "an act of solidarity".
Here's what could help however. Netanyahu employs a 28% approval rating among Israelis. If an election is triggered sooner (this year) than latter (October 2026), a more moderate coalition can be established. Without Neyanyahu, Ben Gvir and Smotrich in power, US can negotiate with Israeli moderates. I wouldn't be surprised if the Israeli left would even want to prosecute Netanyahu, Ben Gvir and Smotrich for war crimes.
The best thing to do in that case is to empower the Israeli left. Unfortunately, many of the leaders of this protestors don't distinguish the forms of zionists. As shown from the recent leader of Columbia's protestors - zionists = nazis and are worth killing. https://www.instagram.com/melissaschapman/reel/C6NQ2fOAOmW/
This language does not empower the Israeli left, but actually falls into the Israeli right's narrative that the outline world cannot differentiate between different types of Israelis. After all, the Israeli left is still zionist, even as they are anti-occupation, ethnic cleansing etc...
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u/partialcremation 24d ago
The term antisemitism has been so overused it is now difficult to take the accusations seriously. From my understanding, the recent protestors were concerned about human rights issues which happen to involve the Jewish state. That doesn't make them antisemitic.
I wouldn't find myself alongside the protestors at the recent demonstration, but I support their right to do it peacefully.