Your response is indicative of what I’m referring to. You are reducing the conflict to “Well Israel kills civilians!” which can justify anti-Israel and then antisemitic sentiment.
High levels of blood shed happens elsewhere such as in Sudan, Syria, Congo and even Russia-Ukraine.
I doubt you would say racism is okay against somebody from any of these countries.
It’s fine to be critical of any government but bigotry against individual citizens of a country should not happen.
Anyway I doubt I’ll change your mind on this, I don’t think anybody has ever successfully done that in a comment section.
I agree about not holding individuals responsible. Collective guilt is bullshit and collective punishment is evil. Unfortunately, it's these same principles that ground my opposition to antisemitism which compel me to oppose Israel.
You are free to oppose the government of any country (including your own) but if you label yourself against an entire nation regardless of government in power, it’s hard to not interpret that as being against the citizens of those country as well.
It reminds me of Western Europeans critical of the US, claiming it’s the military interventionism they don’t like but then proceed to rip on how awful American citizens are (completely unrelated to the military).
When it gets a new government and changes policy I'll reassess. But it is a democracy, and there is polling, so changes in policy look unpopular and unlikely.
One would hope, but history would indicate whether Netanyahu is in power or not and even if Israel isn’t actively involved in a conflict antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment doesn’t go away
Of course this crap won’t go away completely and they’ll always be these nasty people on the far-left and far-right but Israel can be certainly as popular in the US in 10 years as it was 10 years ago.
Really wished one of the statements they polled on was “anti-Zionism is not antisemitism” because that’s the most ubiquitous antisemitic trope I hear from these young retards.
Zionism is the idea that Palestinians were morally obliged to be happily transferred en masse to accommodate the mytho-historical aspirations of people not from there. And sorry, having 60% of your ancestors from a place 2000 years ago don't make you "from" there. The way you know who the hypocrites are is imagine the Palestinians were a remnant population of Jews (which, to be fair, they pretty much are) and the Zionists literally any other ethnic group but the rest of history unfolded the same. I'd be opposed to these non-Jewish Zionists but current Zionists would now be talking about settler colonialism and oppression. One can be situationally pro-Israel in 2025, but anti-Zionist as ideology that says Jews are entitled to Palestine and Palestinians are morally wrong if they didn't/don't just happily move. https://www.wetheblacksheep.com/p/you-cant-be-anti-identity-politics
The framing here misstates what Zionism is and was. Zionism is the Jewish movement for collective self-determination in the Jewish homeland, not a doctrine that Palestinians were morally obliged to leave or that anyone should be happily transferred. Early Zionists articulated several visions, including bi-nationalism, cultural autonomy, and shared sovereignty. None required mass expulsion as a principle.
Jewish peoplehood is not based on a genetic percentage threshold. It is based on a continuous historical, cultural, religious, and linguistic connection to the land. That connection does not override Palestinian attachment or rights, but Palestinian indigeneity does not negate Jewish indigeneity either.
It is also speculative to claim that Jews would hold opposite views if the roles were reversed. Political positions arise from real histories, traumas, and threats, not abstract thought experiments.
You can absolutely critique Israeli policies, support Palestinian rights, or even reject political Zionism as a preferred framework. But reducing Zionism to the idea that Jews feel entitled to Palestine and Palestinians should have moved misrepresents both its diversity and its history.
Palestine is no more the Jewish homeland in 1920 than Scotland is mine or India is the Roma's. And Zionism never wanted a homeland. It wanted an ethnostate and this was not possible without transfer which was always the plan. The Zionists with less exclusive visions were quickly pushed out of the movement. I also don't believe in an Arab homeland a German homeland or any other ethnic defined state. Im not anti-Israel insofar as you can have Israel without Zionism. The demands Zionists made if Palestinians were as wrong as the demands Hamas makes on Israeli Jews in 2025. Exact same category of wrong.
What you are describing is an ideological caricature, not the actual history of Zionism, the region, or Jewish peoplehood. Several points need correcting.
First, the analogy to Scotland or India fails. Jews are not a scattered population with a romantic folk myth about a territory. Jews maintained continuous presence, pilgrimage, ritual orientation, liturgy, language, law, and political memory tied to the Land of Israel for more than two millennia. Every prayer service, every holiday, every marriage ceremony, and every funeral contains explicit references to return. That is not comparable to a Scot saying he "comes from" medieval Pictland. It is closer to saying Tibetans have no homeland because they were displaced. The cultural record simply does not support your analogy.
Second, the claim that Zionism "never wanted a homeland" but only an ethnostate reverses the chronology. Early Zionists were preoccupied with refuge, sovereignty, and cultural renewal, not ethnic purity. Herzl himself endorsed a binational constitution modelled on Switzerland. Ahad Haam, Buber, and Magnes advocated binationalism and were not "pushed out"; they were influential voices representing real currents of Jewish political thought. Zionism was a diverse movement with socialists, cultural revivalists, liberals, and religious Jews. Your version imagines a monolith that never existed.
Third, the idea that "transfer was always the plan" conflates two very different things. It ignores that many of the most forceful advocates for a shared polity with Arabs were Zionists. It also ignores Arab rejectionism. From 1936 onward, the primary driver of conflict was that Arab leadership categorically rejected any Jewish political presence, not only a state but even minority autonomy. Half of the potential binational outcomes died because leaders like Haj Amin al Husseini would not accept Jews as equals, not because Zionists were purging moderates.
Fourth, if you oppose ethnic nation states, then consistency demands acknowledging that every existing nation state is the product of ethnic majorities drawing political boundaries. If you believe Israel should exist "without Zionism," you are avoiding the fact that the only basis for Jewish collective sovereignty is the political nationalism you say you reject. A non Zionist Israel is simply a Jewish state that pretends not to have a justification for its existence. That is not a coherent political theory.
Finally, equating Zionist political demands in the 1920s and 1930s with the demands Hamas makes in 2025 collapses an entire moral universe. One side sought self determination in its historic center and was willing to accept partition, minority rights, and bilingual governance. The other explicitly seeks elimination of Jews as a political community and often as individuals. You are flattening history and erasing distinctions between movements that accepted compromise and a movement that rejects the very idea of coexistence.
If your argument is that ethnonationalism is dangerous, then say that. But the specific historical claims you are making about Zionism, Jewish indigeneity, and political intentions are inaccurate. They substitute slogan for fact. They also erase the many Zionists, from labor Zionists to cultural autonomists, who imagined a shared life with Arabs long before partition.
You can critique Israel without rewriting Jewish history into a morality play with predetermined villains. The reality is more complex, and the record does not support the story you are telling.
Palestinian refugee camps arose from the 1948 Arab–Israeli war, a regional war launched after the UN voted to partition British Palestine into Jewish and Arab states. Violence did not begin with Zionism itself, which is a national liberation movement seeking Jewish self-determination.
The refugee crisis emerged during a war involving multiple armies, mass civilian flight, and the collapse of British rule. Displacement occurred in many directions. Jews were also expelled from Arab countries at the same time, yet only Palestinians were kept in permanent refugee status. Camps persisted not because Zionism required them, but because the conflict remained unresolved and host states largely refused permanent resettlement in order to preserve a political claim of return.
So, to cut through the verbiage, the British gave other people's homes away, there was a war the people there didn't start, and all the people who used to live in those places ended up in camps where they and their kids have been confined since.
Then arab countries expelled their Jewish populations in retaliation for the Jewish country expelling their arab population.
Britain did not “give away people’s homes.” Under the Mandate, most land acquired by Jews before 1948 was legally purchased, not seized. The UN then proposed two states; Jewish leaders accepted, Arab leaders rejected it and chose war.
The 1947–48 war was not accidental. It began when Arab militias attacked Jewish communities, followed by invasion from neighboring Arab states aimed at preventing any Jewish state from existing.
Not all Palestinians were expelled. Some fled fighting, some were expelled, and many left expecting to return after an Arab victory. Their long-term confinement in camps was not inevitable. Arab states largely refused to resettle them, unlike Israel, which absorbed Jewish refugees.
The expulsion of Jews from Arab countries was not mere “retaliation.” Antisemitic violence, confiscations, and expulsions began before and after 1948, displacing about 850,000 Jews, who were integrated rather than kept in camps.
In short: there were two refugee populations, a rejected partition, and a war of rejection. Palestinian suffering is real but portraying Zionism as uniquely violent by erasing these facts distorts history.
If that’s your definition of “Zionism” why did the “zionists” offer full statehood to the Palestinians in 1948??? This is what happens when you get all your IP takes from Twitter.
Did you ever look into how legal ownership of informal holdings was established? Buying someone's house from a third party doesn't make it yours, it makes you a sucker who got scammed. Until you enforce your purchase with violence.
They had already been transferring out Palestinians for 27 years by that point. They kick Palestinians out of enough territory to have a contiguous majority Jewish area where there was none then "offer" a state on the areas they removed them to and transferring more people out of their homes and into that area is part of the plan. And of course Ben Gurion in private letters told hardliners against even that it would be temporary and they would take the rest later. Again, imagine Palestinians were a remnant Jewish population and the Zionists literally any other group and the 1920-1948 events otherwise the same you'd have the same opinion? Seriously doubt it. So what makes it different? Jews have rights over the actual people in Palestine nobody else would because 2000 years ago they had some ancestors there? So did the Palestinians. Its the hardcore Zionists that don't know much about history. Just myside bias for their own sacred group victimhood demands on third parties. I don't believe in a Palestinian state either and I'm not pro-Palestinian. I think individuals, not groups, have rights. I believe in a state of its citizens. My view is the consistent one. Transferring populations to create an ethno religious state is bad whoever is doing it. I don't believe in a Palestinian state because for example Samaritans live in the West Bank and they have every right to their rights and property as individuals in a territory. I am against Zionism for the same reason I am against Islamism, "Pan-Arabism", critical race theory, Christian Dominionism, and any other religious/ethnic "group" thinking that imagines groups, rather than individuals in groups, are units of suffering and rights.
I don't think it's hard to untangle at all. I have many many ancestors killed in the Shoah and the Russian pogroms. My grandparents would be crushingly ashamed of and disappointed in the fascist, apartheid state Israel has become. And just two generations after being on the other end of the worst use of state oppression for an ethnic minority of all time.
Anyone who's paying attention at all should be anti Israel at this point. Totally unsurprising that's bleeding into antisemitism, especially among the young. Israel is bringing this resurgent hatred on the rest of us.
I think we cannot blame Israel's actions for resurgent antisemitism. Antisemitism and hatred is always the fault of the antisemite/racist/xenophobe. As with any form of bigotry or hatred, you can't blame the victim as it there is no justification. You wouldn't justify anti-Black racism by saying "well some Black people are violent, and their violence is making people anti-Black." That would be a horrible and incorrect thing to say. So ask yourself why you feel comfortable saying that about jews?
You can't make the comparison you're making. Israel is a country with an elected government carrying out mass murder and crushing apartheid. The point I'm making could also be made about the Taliban. Their hateful ideology and harboring of international terrorists did a lot to fuel anti-islamic bigotry in the US.
It seems unsurprising and not really arguable that explicitly ethno-religious states that carry out mass killings and other atrocities make for bad press and increased ill will towards the ethno-religious group they claim to represent. I feel especially comfortable talking about this as it relates to Israel and Jews because I'm Jewish. But that shouldn't be necessary to talk about this honestly.
I agree there’s no doubt that Muslims have been subjected to terrible islamophobia because of the Taliban. I just don’t hear people say “I’m against the Taliban because they are causing Islamophobia” or “the Taliban should not exist/be disempowered because they are causing islamophobia.” I totally agree Israel’s (very bad) actions are causing antisemitism, but I don’t think that’s a valid reason to be against the actions/existence of Israel. Antisemites are responsible for their hatred, Israel is not. Just as Islamophobes are responsible for their hatred of Muslims, and the Taliban is not. Part of not being prejudiced is allowing minority groups to “mess up” and not have it be an indictment of the entire group. The reason to dislike the Israeli government is because of their war crimes, but it’s not their fault people have used that as a pretense for hatred of Jews—that can never be their fault less we start blaming people for their own oppression.
I don't know what point you're making. In the article they wrote that it's hard to untangle the steep rise in evilness of Israel with the rise in anti-semitism. I was pointing out that these aren't hard to disentangle at all. When two generations have only ever known the country that calls itself *the* Jewish state as incredibly evil, and a deeply depressing percentage of American Jews forget all their murdered ancestors and call anyone who opposes Israeli evil an antisemite, it's incredibly unsurprising that anti-Israel sentiment and antisemitism shift at least somewhat together.
Obviously it's ridiculous to say that the reason to oppose the Taliban or Israel is to fight islamophobia or antisemitism. That's not at all what I said. I'm not sure why you're trying to mansplain prejudice to me.
Sorry I didn’t mean to come across as harsh that’s my bad. When I read “Israel is bringing this resurgent hatred on to the rest of us” it felt to me like placing the blame for antisemitism on Israel instead of on people who hate jews. I know the bad press that Israel has gotten is largely deserved and has driven up antisemitic attitudes. I just want to make sure to place the blame for antisemitic attitudes on the people who hold them, not on the things they use to “justify” their hatred or prejudice. It’s not hard to disentangle that bad press for Israel=bad looks for Jews, but it inexcusable that hatred for Jews has gone up in light of Israel’s actions. It would be fine for disapproval of Israel’s policy to increase (as it has), but not for hatred of Jews to increase.
Young people are functionally illiterate and consume piles upon piles of quatari [et al] anti-Israel propaganda on tiktok. Similar story with older leftists who consume NPR and BBC, which are basically just stenographers for Hamas. The left is marinating in this stupidity for years now.
You gorge on Hamas propaganda because you enjoy the dopamine hit and the rage makes you feel morally righteous even though you don't actually know anything about politics or war.
Do you deny that over 50K civilians in Gaza have been murdered by Israel since Oct 7th. Do you think it is all fake? I do understand politics and war and there is no good solution. However just calling other views stupidity from propaganda is lazy and false.
"Murdered" - what an interesting choice of words. Have you ever thought to yourself, "Gosh, I wonder why I never even think about Sudan and hardly ever spare a thought for the 150k people actually murdered there in the past year?" You ignore actual genocides and spend all day every day gobbling up qatari propaganda about Israel.
The thing about useful idiots is that they never realize that they are useful idiots.
I wholeheartedly reject your use of the term "murder" as propagandistic nonsense from a useful idiot. I know you don't care about Sudan; I checked your feed.
Frankly ridiculous piece at the end, when there is pretty clear evidence anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism do go hand in hand. I can't help but feel the writers were scared of their own peers and that was throat-clearing.
Defining anti-semitism to include thinking Jews have too much power is debatable. In many prestigious sectors of society they have hugely disproportionate representation. This is an indisputable fact that goes unmentioned in these conversations, which can cause people to discount those ringing the alarm.
Compare with DEI, a key foundation of which was that white people were over represented in prestigious schools and professions. Elite public opinion at the time did not brand this as anti-white.
Yeah, maybe not define antisemitism in such a typically right wing way and be able to account for people who aren't antisemitic but are still critical of Jews. The latter one isn't especially prominent, but it does add a lot of dimension. I highly doubt the shake-up in the Labour party in the uk would've tested as antisemitic.
A bit further, I think defining people by what they're against opens up almosf everything and trying to gather a specific way of almost everything into one thing is a bit humanly-impossible. Besides that, it flattens everything down no matter what it gets.
On the subject-matter itself, I don't think that needs to really account for people as they are because there's not really a reason to humanize it so much, but my main point is you should use language which left wing people would agree with because they've been a bit more prominently "anti-semitic".
Nobody is entitled to an opinion about me. Nobody has earned it. I'm the only one who has done well and I'm not your parent. I'm too exhausted for this. Get a better journalism theory and editorial standards. I got christianity today cleaned out. I'm not saying anything, but you've got a lot to climb before you can be a nitwit with me. You haven't earned being angry or upset with me.
I don't think there needs to be room for them, but I meant non pathological.
For the left wing bit, I think you have to ask if jewish people are white people and then ask. It's a different way. It could lead into colonization. The generalization all comes into a place for the ever expanding adjectives like cis hetero etc. They think about it differently, but it certainly exists in a great amount.
Like ethnically conscious? It's not important. My main point is left wing antisemites use different language entirely, but are still turbo antisemitic. The antisemites don't meet at the middle.
I think there's more to be explored, but if "x must die" was just speech about a cultural x then it does, and has, obviously crossed over into the physical. There's no reason to run defense for that af some point.
This poll is generally ok- but I take MASSIVE issue with the political spectrum aspects of it.
Defining the left pole of your political spectrum as people who self-identify as "extremely liberal" is incorrect. People on the far left of the American political spectrum somewhat infamously use the word "liberal" as an insult. So defining the left pole as any variation of "liberal" most likely cuts off a massive segment of the American Far-Left.
This means that you cannot, in good faith, say that antisemitism in the American youth is a mostly right-wing phenomenon, because you didn't poll anyone who self-identifies a "leftist"- only liberals.
Endless TikTok brain rot and generations of tenured professors critical of Israel will do that
Plus a few tens of thousands of dead kids.
Hi Glau.
Your response is indicative of what I’m referring to. You are reducing the conflict to “Well Israel kills civilians!” which can justify anti-Israel and then antisemitic sentiment.
High levels of blood shed happens elsewhere such as in Sudan, Syria, Congo and even Russia-Ukraine.
I doubt you would say racism is okay against somebody from any of these countries.
It’s fine to be critical of any government but bigotry against individual citizens of a country should not happen.
Anyway I doubt I’ll change your mind on this, I don’t think anybody has ever successfully done that in a comment section.
I agree about not holding individuals responsible. Collective guilt is bullshit and collective punishment is evil. Unfortunately, it's these same principles that ground my opposition to antisemitism which compel me to oppose Israel.
You are free to oppose the government of any country (including your own) but if you label yourself against an entire nation regardless of government in power, it’s hard to not interpret that as being against the citizens of those country as well.
It reminds me of Western Europeans critical of the US, claiming it’s the military interventionism they don’t like but then proceed to rip on how awful American citizens are (completely unrelated to the military).
When it gets a new government and changes policy I'll reassess. But it is a democracy, and there is polling, so changes in policy look unpopular and unlikely.
Well as long as you have an open mind, that’s all anyone can hope for.
Nice exchanging with you.
Netanyahu’s been elected five times, so walking that back is going to take decades. Collective guilt doesn’t exist but collective responsibility does.
Once Netanyahu is out of power and the war is five or ten years in the rearview mirror, Israel will be viewed more positively.
One would hope, but history would indicate whether Netanyahu is in power or not and even if Israel isn’t actively involved in a conflict antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment doesn’t go away
Of course this crap won’t go away completely and they’ll always be these nasty people on the far-left and far-right but Israel can be certainly as popular in the US in 10 years as it was 10 years ago.
It’s definitely possibly but I have doubts that Gen Z will moderate their views on Israel.
For that generation there might not be coming back from that.
You are quite the traffic cop, aren’t you?
I live in a cul de sac where there isn’t much traffic so I had to take my trade online
Eitan Hersch, a pro-Israel Tufts professor, found the same thing despite expecting something else. https://www.eitanhersh.com/uploads/7/9/7/5/7975685/hersh_royden_antisemitism_040921.pdf
Right, the three question battery is drawn from Hersh's work.
Really wished one of the statements they polled on was “anti-Zionism is not antisemitism” because that’s the most ubiquitous antisemitic trope I hear from these young retards.
Zionism is the idea that Palestinians were morally obliged to be happily transferred en masse to accommodate the mytho-historical aspirations of people not from there. And sorry, having 60% of your ancestors from a place 2000 years ago don't make you "from" there. The way you know who the hypocrites are is imagine the Palestinians were a remnant population of Jews (which, to be fair, they pretty much are) and the Zionists literally any other ethnic group but the rest of history unfolded the same. I'd be opposed to these non-Jewish Zionists but current Zionists would now be talking about settler colonialism and oppression. One can be situationally pro-Israel in 2025, but anti-Zionist as ideology that says Jews are entitled to Palestine and Palestinians are morally wrong if they didn't/don't just happily move. https://www.wetheblacksheep.com/p/you-cant-be-anti-identity-politics
The framing here misstates what Zionism is and was. Zionism is the Jewish movement for collective self-determination in the Jewish homeland, not a doctrine that Palestinians were morally obliged to leave or that anyone should be happily transferred. Early Zionists articulated several visions, including bi-nationalism, cultural autonomy, and shared sovereignty. None required mass expulsion as a principle.
Jewish peoplehood is not based on a genetic percentage threshold. It is based on a continuous historical, cultural, religious, and linguistic connection to the land. That connection does not override Palestinian attachment or rights, but Palestinian indigeneity does not negate Jewish indigeneity either.
It is also speculative to claim that Jews would hold opposite views if the roles were reversed. Political positions arise from real histories, traumas, and threats, not abstract thought experiments.
You can absolutely critique Israeli policies, support Palestinian rights, or even reject political Zionism as a preferred framework. But reducing Zionism to the idea that Jews feel entitled to Palestine and Palestinians should have moved misrepresents both its diversity and its history.
Palestine is no more the Jewish homeland in 1920 than Scotland is mine or India is the Roma's. And Zionism never wanted a homeland. It wanted an ethnostate and this was not possible without transfer which was always the plan. The Zionists with less exclusive visions were quickly pushed out of the movement. I also don't believe in an Arab homeland a German homeland or any other ethnic defined state. Im not anti-Israel insofar as you can have Israel without Zionism. The demands Zionists made if Palestinians were as wrong as the demands Hamas makes on Israeli Jews in 2025. Exact same category of wrong.
What you are describing is an ideological caricature, not the actual history of Zionism, the region, or Jewish peoplehood. Several points need correcting.
First, the analogy to Scotland or India fails. Jews are not a scattered population with a romantic folk myth about a territory. Jews maintained continuous presence, pilgrimage, ritual orientation, liturgy, language, law, and political memory tied to the Land of Israel for more than two millennia. Every prayer service, every holiday, every marriage ceremony, and every funeral contains explicit references to return. That is not comparable to a Scot saying he "comes from" medieval Pictland. It is closer to saying Tibetans have no homeland because they were displaced. The cultural record simply does not support your analogy.
Second, the claim that Zionism "never wanted a homeland" but only an ethnostate reverses the chronology. Early Zionists were preoccupied with refuge, sovereignty, and cultural renewal, not ethnic purity. Herzl himself endorsed a binational constitution modelled on Switzerland. Ahad Haam, Buber, and Magnes advocated binationalism and were not "pushed out"; they were influential voices representing real currents of Jewish political thought. Zionism was a diverse movement with socialists, cultural revivalists, liberals, and religious Jews. Your version imagines a monolith that never existed.
Third, the idea that "transfer was always the plan" conflates two very different things. It ignores that many of the most forceful advocates for a shared polity with Arabs were Zionists. It also ignores Arab rejectionism. From 1936 onward, the primary driver of conflict was that Arab leadership categorically rejected any Jewish political presence, not only a state but even minority autonomy. Half of the potential binational outcomes died because leaders like Haj Amin al Husseini would not accept Jews as equals, not because Zionists were purging moderates.
Fourth, if you oppose ethnic nation states, then consistency demands acknowledging that every existing nation state is the product of ethnic majorities drawing political boundaries. If you believe Israel should exist "without Zionism," you are avoiding the fact that the only basis for Jewish collective sovereignty is the political nationalism you say you reject. A non Zionist Israel is simply a Jewish state that pretends not to have a justification for its existence. That is not a coherent political theory.
Finally, equating Zionist political demands in the 1920s and 1930s with the demands Hamas makes in 2025 collapses an entire moral universe. One side sought self determination in its historic center and was willing to accept partition, minority rights, and bilingual governance. The other explicitly seeks elimination of Jews as a political community and often as individuals. You are flattening history and erasing distinctions between movements that accepted compromise and a movement that rejects the very idea of coexistence.
If your argument is that ethnonationalism is dangerous, then say that. But the specific historical claims you are making about Zionism, Jewish indigeneity, and political intentions are inaccurate. They substitute slogan for fact. They also erase the many Zionists, from labor Zionists to cultural autonomists, who imagined a shared life with Arabs long before partition.
You can critique Israel without rewriting Jewish history into a morality play with predetermined villains. The reality is more complex, and the record does not support the story you are telling.
It misrepresents the diversity, but it is spot on as far as the history. The refugee camps didn't arise spontaneously.
Palestinian refugee camps arose from the 1948 Arab–Israeli war, a regional war launched after the UN voted to partition British Palestine into Jewish and Arab states. Violence did not begin with Zionism itself, which is a national liberation movement seeking Jewish self-determination.
The refugee crisis emerged during a war involving multiple armies, mass civilian flight, and the collapse of British rule. Displacement occurred in many directions. Jews were also expelled from Arab countries at the same time, yet only Palestinians were kept in permanent refugee status. Camps persisted not because Zionism required them, but because the conflict remained unresolved and host states largely refused permanent resettlement in order to preserve a political claim of return.
So, to cut through the verbiage, the British gave other people's homes away, there was a war the people there didn't start, and all the people who used to live in those places ended up in camps where they and their kids have been confined since.
Then arab countries expelled their Jewish populations in retaliation for the Jewish country expelling their arab population.
Bad things compounding.
This framing rests on several false premises.
Britain did not “give away people’s homes.” Under the Mandate, most land acquired by Jews before 1948 was legally purchased, not seized. The UN then proposed two states; Jewish leaders accepted, Arab leaders rejected it and chose war.
The 1947–48 war was not accidental. It began when Arab militias attacked Jewish communities, followed by invasion from neighboring Arab states aimed at preventing any Jewish state from existing.
Not all Palestinians were expelled. Some fled fighting, some were expelled, and many left expecting to return after an Arab victory. Their long-term confinement in camps was not inevitable. Arab states largely refused to resettle them, unlike Israel, which absorbed Jewish refugees.
The expulsion of Jews from Arab countries was not mere “retaliation.” Antisemitic violence, confiscations, and expulsions began before and after 1948, displacing about 850,000 Jews, who were integrated rather than kept in camps.
In short: there were two refugee populations, a rejected partition, and a war of rejection. Palestinian suffering is real but portraying Zionism as uniquely violent by erasing these facts distorts history.
If that’s your definition of “Zionism” why did the “zionists” offer full statehood to the Palestinians in 1948??? This is what happens when you get all your IP takes from Twitter.
1. “Transferring out” is a curious way to phrase “purchasing large tracts of land from Arab land owners”. Not even Palestinians deny this.
2. Nothing you said is responsive to my question. Thank you for continuing to demonstrate the ahistorical, left-wing,IP brain rot.
Did you ever look into how legal ownership of informal holdings was established? Buying someone's house from a third party doesn't make it yours, it makes you a sucker who got scammed. Until you enforce your purchase with violence.
They had already been transferring out Palestinians for 27 years by that point. They kick Palestinians out of enough territory to have a contiguous majority Jewish area where there was none then "offer" a state on the areas they removed them to and transferring more people out of their homes and into that area is part of the plan. And of course Ben Gurion in private letters told hardliners against even that it would be temporary and they would take the rest later. Again, imagine Palestinians were a remnant Jewish population and the Zionists literally any other group and the 1920-1948 events otherwise the same you'd have the same opinion? Seriously doubt it. So what makes it different? Jews have rights over the actual people in Palestine nobody else would because 2000 years ago they had some ancestors there? So did the Palestinians. Its the hardcore Zionists that don't know much about history. Just myside bias for their own sacred group victimhood demands on third parties. I don't believe in a Palestinian state either and I'm not pro-Palestinian. I think individuals, not groups, have rights. I believe in a state of its citizens. My view is the consistent one. Transferring populations to create an ethno religious state is bad whoever is doing it. I don't believe in a Palestinian state because for example Samaritans live in the West Bank and they have every right to their rights and property as individuals in a territory. I am against Zionism for the same reason I am against Islamism, "Pan-Arabism", critical race theory, Christian Dominionism, and any other religious/ethnic "group" thinking that imagines groups, rather than individuals in groups, are units of suffering and rights.
Do you believe that being against the actions of Israel is anti-semitic?
I don't think it's hard to untangle at all. I have many many ancestors killed in the Shoah and the Russian pogroms. My grandparents would be crushingly ashamed of and disappointed in the fascist, apartheid state Israel has become. And just two generations after being on the other end of the worst use of state oppression for an ethnic minority of all time.
Anyone who's paying attention at all should be anti Israel at this point. Totally unsurprising that's bleeding into antisemitism, especially among the young. Israel is bringing this resurgent hatred on the rest of us.
I think we cannot blame Israel's actions for resurgent antisemitism. Antisemitism and hatred is always the fault of the antisemite/racist/xenophobe. As with any form of bigotry or hatred, you can't blame the victim as it there is no justification. You wouldn't justify anti-Black racism by saying "well some Black people are violent, and their violence is making people anti-Black." That would be a horrible and incorrect thing to say. So ask yourself why you feel comfortable saying that about jews?
You can't make the comparison you're making. Israel is a country with an elected government carrying out mass murder and crushing apartheid. The point I'm making could also be made about the Taliban. Their hateful ideology and harboring of international terrorists did a lot to fuel anti-islamic bigotry in the US.
It seems unsurprising and not really arguable that explicitly ethno-religious states that carry out mass killings and other atrocities make for bad press and increased ill will towards the ethno-religious group they claim to represent. I feel especially comfortable talking about this as it relates to Israel and Jews because I'm Jewish. But that shouldn't be necessary to talk about this honestly.
I agree there’s no doubt that Muslims have been subjected to terrible islamophobia because of the Taliban. I just don’t hear people say “I’m against the Taliban because they are causing Islamophobia” or “the Taliban should not exist/be disempowered because they are causing islamophobia.” I totally agree Israel’s (very bad) actions are causing antisemitism, but I don’t think that’s a valid reason to be against the actions/existence of Israel. Antisemites are responsible for their hatred, Israel is not. Just as Islamophobes are responsible for their hatred of Muslims, and the Taliban is not. Part of not being prejudiced is allowing minority groups to “mess up” and not have it be an indictment of the entire group. The reason to dislike the Israeli government is because of their war crimes, but it’s not their fault people have used that as a pretense for hatred of Jews—that can never be their fault less we start blaming people for their own oppression.
I don't know what point you're making. In the article they wrote that it's hard to untangle the steep rise in evilness of Israel with the rise in anti-semitism. I was pointing out that these aren't hard to disentangle at all. When two generations have only ever known the country that calls itself *the* Jewish state as incredibly evil, and a deeply depressing percentage of American Jews forget all their murdered ancestors and call anyone who opposes Israeli evil an antisemite, it's incredibly unsurprising that anti-Israel sentiment and antisemitism shift at least somewhat together.
Obviously it's ridiculous to say that the reason to oppose the Taliban or Israel is to fight islamophobia or antisemitism. That's not at all what I said. I'm not sure why you're trying to mansplain prejudice to me.
Sorry I didn’t mean to come across as harsh that’s my bad. When I read “Israel is bringing this resurgent hatred on to the rest of us” it felt to me like placing the blame for antisemitism on Israel instead of on people who hate jews. I know the bad press that Israel has gotten is largely deserved and has driven up antisemitic attitudes. I just want to make sure to place the blame for antisemitic attitudes on the people who hold them, not on the things they use to “justify” their hatred or prejudice. It’s not hard to disentangle that bad press for Israel=bad looks for Jews, but it inexcusable that hatred for Jews has gone up in light of Israel’s actions. It would be fine for disapproval of Israel’s policy to increase (as it has), but not for hatred of Jews to increase.
Seems mass murder triggered you, so let's ignore Gaza. What would you call the situation in the west bank?
This… is where it started in the U.S. Please read.
https://substack.com/@wastedink/p-48505969
Just wondering..have you ever lived in israel? Or are you getting all your “info” from newsreports and a collection of antisemites?
What secret truth do I not have access to?
Ever been to Nazi Germany or the antebellum South?
Young people are functionally illiterate and consume piles upon piles of quatari [et al] anti-Israel propaganda on tiktok. Similar story with older leftists who consume NPR and BBC, which are basically just stenographers for Hamas. The left is marinating in this stupidity for years now.
We see the mass murder of civilians and are disgusted.
You gorge on Hamas propaganda because you enjoy the dopamine hit and the rage makes you feel morally righteous even though you don't actually know anything about politics or war.
Do you deny that over 50K civilians in Gaza have been murdered by Israel since Oct 7th. Do you think it is all fake? I do understand politics and war and there is no good solution. However just calling other views stupidity from propaganda is lazy and false.
"Murdered" - what an interesting choice of words. Have you ever thought to yourself, "Gosh, I wonder why I never even think about Sudan and hardly ever spare a thought for the 150k people actually murdered there in the past year?" You ignore actual genocides and spend all day every day gobbling up qatari propaganda about Israel.
The thing about useful idiots is that they never realize that they are useful idiots.
Why do you assume I don't care about Sudan? Do you have any idea what I care about, No you don't. I am fully aware of the horrors in Sudan.
I notice you did not try to say Israel is not murdering people you just tried to change the subject.
Please respond I love taking self-righteous morons apart piece by peace and it is your turn in the barrel.
I wholeheartedly reject your use of the term "murder" as propagandistic nonsense from a useful idiot. I know you don't care about Sudan; I checked your feed.
It's remarkable how people as stupid as you genuinely think you're capable of a cogent argument, let alone "taking [me] apart piece by peace [sic]"
Frankly ridiculous piece at the end, when there is pretty clear evidence anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism do go hand in hand. I can't help but feel the writers were scared of their own peers and that was throat-clearing.
Defining anti-semitism to include thinking Jews have too much power is debatable. In many prestigious sectors of society they have hugely disproportionate representation. This is an indisputable fact that goes unmentioned in these conversations, which can cause people to discount those ringing the alarm.
Compare with DEI, a key foundation of which was that white people were over represented in prestigious schools and professions. Elite public opinion at the time did not brand this as anti-white.
That is bad methodology.
Any specific things you think we could've done better?
Yeah, maybe not define antisemitism in such a typically right wing way and be able to account for people who aren't antisemitic but are still critical of Jews. The latter one isn't especially prominent, but it does add a lot of dimension. I highly doubt the shake-up in the Labour party in the uk would've tested as antisemitic.
I am not sure that "not antisemitic but still critical of Jews [as a group]" is a thing
A bit further, I think defining people by what they're against opens up almosf everything and trying to gather a specific way of almost everything into one thing is a bit humanly-impossible. Besides that, it flattens everything down no matter what it gets.
On the subject-matter itself, I don't think that needs to really account for people as they are because there's not really a reason to humanize it so much, but my main point is you should use language which left wing people would agree with because they've been a bit more prominently "anti-semitic".
https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/erasing-israel-the-quiet-rewrite-that-reshaped-christianity/
I'm too exhausted. Be the adult in the room for once.
Nobody is entitled to an opinion about me. Nobody has earned it. I'm the only one who has done well and I'm not your parent. I'm too exhausted for this. Get a better journalism theory and editorial standards. I got christianity today cleaned out. I'm not saying anything, but you've got a lot to climb before you can be a nitwit with me. You haven't earned being angry or upset with me.
I don't think there needs to be room for them, but I meant non pathological.
For the left wing bit, I think you have to ask if jewish people are white people and then ask. It's a different way. It could lead into colonization. The generalization all comes into a place for the ever expanding adjectives like cis hetero etc. They think about it differently, but it certainly exists in a great amount.
Like ethnically conscious? It's not important. My main point is left wing antisemites use different language entirely, but are still turbo antisemitic. The antisemites don't meet at the middle.
What language do they use?
https://open.substack.com/pub/yalepolling/p/we-polled-young-americans-on-antisemitism?utm_campaign=comment-list-share-cta&utm_medium=web&comments=true&commentId=186151316
I think there's more to be explored, but if "x must die" was just speech about a cultural x then it does, and has, obviously crossed over into the physical. There's no reason to run defense for that af some point.
This poll is generally ok- but I take MASSIVE issue with the political spectrum aspects of it.
Defining the left pole of your political spectrum as people who self-identify as "extremely liberal" is incorrect. People on the far left of the American political spectrum somewhat infamously use the word "liberal" as an insult. So defining the left pole as any variation of "liberal" most likely cuts off a massive segment of the American Far-Left.
This means that you cannot, in good faith, say that antisemitism in the American youth is a mostly right-wing phenomenon, because you didn't poll anyone who self-identifies a "leftist"- only liberals.
I imagine the respondents wouldn’t have thought that deeply about it