Thanks, Pat! I have just given up on a conversation with another person on substack about how to move toward peaceful coexistence of Israelis and Palestinians because of the other person's unacknowledged antisemitism. I tried to explain why I think the demonstrations in the West in which pro-Palestinians continue to scream for the eradication of Israel and its replacement with a new country to be called Palestine will never help end the conflict. His response was to congratulate himself on his dedication to peace and fairness because of his refusal to endorse violence on either side, and then to repeat the most outrageous claims against Israel and say that until Israel allowed all self-identified Palestinians to "return" to Israel. and stopped Israel "apartheid," etc. there could be no peace. My questions about what would happen to Jews (and women, Druze and Yazidi, and LGBT people in a Muslim majority country (renamed Palestine) went unanswered, again and again. Three days after the 10/7 war crimes, people told me that they were not antisemitic but that this was a great blow against colonialism, and also said that Israel was committing genocide by retaliating. No one who doesn't hate Jews could believe this crap.
I am so grateful for your posts which help me deal with all the craziness. I had to block two more people, one a former friend who, like me, engaged in activism for LGBT people and for Native Americans. She has somehow come to the conclusions that no Jews are indigenous to Israel and that our (imaginary) empire colonized Arabs and also that the people of Gaza would welcome her and other Jewish lesbian feminists like her if only they could be freed from domination by Israel. Jews like her boggle my mind so badly I wonder if it will ever unboggle.
The people who buy into this nonsense - especially far too many Jews I know - are living in a fantasy land of believing that all people all over the world want the same things.
No, in fact, they don’t. They are not all going to come around and sing kumbaya together with us if only Israel would ease up on the self-defense and all of us in the Diaspora would be like the “good Jews” they know who are happy to throw half the Jews on the planet right under the bus.
Two thousand years of history has something to tell us.
I am a Jew, but I have devoted my whole life from adolescence on to fighting for LGBT rights and women's rights generally, among other instances of social justice I support. My energy in my career and in my personal life have gone into this. And so the appalling record of Gaza in denying LGBT rights and women's reproductive rights, which was well documented by Human Rights Watch as well as many feminist and LGBT advocacy groups has rendered me pretty much indifferent to the complaints of the people of Gaza. If they showed any inclination to stop the rapes, sexual torture, and slaughter of the people I care most about, maybe I could care about them, but no sign of that. They just don't want the same things we do, as you say.
"As long as we insist “anti-Zionism is not antisemitism” or otherwise refuse to do the work, to engage in the introspection necessary to identify the biases we carry about Jews, we are not the people we say we are."
You have articulated one of those unfortunate truths about Western civilization, the tendency of peoples to define themselves by what they are not (Jewish) rather than by a vision of what they are. The disputations of the Church Fathers lobbed the charge of Judaizing and being secretly Jewish to undermine Christianity (which hadn’t yet settled on its dogma) against their Christian opponents - reminiscent of the current practice of Israel Judaizing Jerusalem, for instance.
As you noted, this oppositional stance became internalized over time in predominantly Christian societies.
There’s another “Christian” opposition to Israel that merits discussion and it is not at all dissimilar to the Islam’s theological rejection of Israel. In Christianity, the Jews’ rejection of Christ caused them to be punished, their Temple destroyed and the people exiled from their homeland. This led to the “Wandering Jew” trope who was living testimony to the truth of the Christian faith and stood as a warning to those who would deny that faith.
The fact that Jews reestablished their independence in Israel was seen as risking contradicting this triumphalist vision just as it does Islam’s (where Jews are the primary enemy who are to be destroyed in the End Times). That was one of the reasons the Vatican rejected Herzl’s vision and refused its assistance and why diplomatic relations were not established for decades after Israel’s independence.
If Jews thrive and succeed as a collective, then what does that say about Christianity and Islam’s replacement theology (the latter’s also applying to Christianity of course)?
While many in the West might consider themselves post-religious, nevertheless the deep anxiety over a deeply (and perhaps unconsciously) held identity surely colors the view of Israel. And that color tends to be dark.
In trying to retrieve an article I’d read on Bonhoeffer and the Jews, I found this one which seems more on point for my comment.
I think it's very straightforward. If you are anti-Zionist iteans that you don't think Isreal has the right to exist; if you don't think Isreal has the right to exist you want it destroyed. Given that you want the homeland of the Jews destroyed, I would say that there's no question that you're anti-Semitic.
Thanks, Pat! I have just given up on a conversation with another person on substack about how to move toward peaceful coexistence of Israelis and Palestinians because of the other person's unacknowledged antisemitism. I tried to explain why I think the demonstrations in the West in which pro-Palestinians continue to scream for the eradication of Israel and its replacement with a new country to be called Palestine will never help end the conflict. His response was to congratulate himself on his dedication to peace and fairness because of his refusal to endorse violence on either side, and then to repeat the most outrageous claims against Israel and say that until Israel allowed all self-identified Palestinians to "return" to Israel. and stopped Israel "apartheid," etc. there could be no peace. My questions about what would happen to Jews (and women, Druze and Yazidi, and LGBT people in a Muslim majority country (renamed Palestine) went unanswered, again and again. Three days after the 10/7 war crimes, people told me that they were not antisemitic but that this was a great blow against colonialism, and also said that Israel was committing genocide by retaliating. No one who doesn't hate Jews could believe this crap.
Oh, Carol, what a world. It is impossible to fathom the depths of mental gymnastics required to come to the positions these people do.
I am so grateful for your posts which help me deal with all the craziness. I had to block two more people, one a former friend who, like me, engaged in activism for LGBT people and for Native Americans. She has somehow come to the conclusions that no Jews are indigenous to Israel and that our (imaginary) empire colonized Arabs and also that the people of Gaza would welcome her and other Jewish lesbian feminists like her if only they could be freed from domination by Israel. Jews like her boggle my mind so badly I wonder if it will ever unboggle.
Well put, Carol. We should all pray for the Great Unboggling, also known as the Apocalypse.
The people who buy into this nonsense - especially far too many Jews I know - are living in a fantasy land of believing that all people all over the world want the same things.
No, in fact, they don’t. They are not all going to come around and sing kumbaya together with us if only Israel would ease up on the self-defense and all of us in the Diaspora would be like the “good Jews” they know who are happy to throw half the Jews on the planet right under the bus.
Two thousand years of history has something to tell us.
I am a Jew, but I have devoted my whole life from adolescence on to fighting for LGBT rights and women's rights generally, among other instances of social justice I support. My energy in my career and in my personal life have gone into this. And so the appalling record of Gaza in denying LGBT rights and women's reproductive rights, which was well documented by Human Rights Watch as well as many feminist and LGBT advocacy groups has rendered me pretty much indifferent to the complaints of the people of Gaza. If they showed any inclination to stop the rapes, sexual torture, and slaughter of the people I care most about, maybe I could care about them, but no sign of that. They just don't want the same things we do, as you say.
"As long as we insist “anti-Zionism is not antisemitism” or otherwise refuse to do the work, to engage in the introspection necessary to identify the biases we carry about Jews, we are not the people we say we are."
Bullseye. Pat, you're a hero.
I’ve got one talent.
Well it’s a super power and the world needs it!
I’m not anti-Zionist. I’m enthusiastically Zionist. If I could afford a billboard I’d put it up there.
My late parents always used to say that Israel was the Jew among nations. I don't think that even they anticipated how true that would be.
Regrettably so. Wise parents.
Once again, thanks Pat.
You have articulated one of those unfortunate truths about Western civilization, the tendency of peoples to define themselves by what they are not (Jewish) rather than by a vision of what they are. The disputations of the Church Fathers lobbed the charge of Judaizing and being secretly Jewish to undermine Christianity (which hadn’t yet settled on its dogma) against their Christian opponents - reminiscent of the current practice of Israel Judaizing Jerusalem, for instance.
As you noted, this oppositional stance became internalized over time in predominantly Christian societies.
There’s another “Christian” opposition to Israel that merits discussion and it is not at all dissimilar to the Islam’s theological rejection of Israel. In Christianity, the Jews’ rejection of Christ caused them to be punished, their Temple destroyed and the people exiled from their homeland. This led to the “Wandering Jew” trope who was living testimony to the truth of the Christian faith and stood as a warning to those who would deny that faith.
The fact that Jews reestablished their independence in Israel was seen as risking contradicting this triumphalist vision just as it does Islam’s (where Jews are the primary enemy who are to be destroyed in the End Times). That was one of the reasons the Vatican rejected Herzl’s vision and refused its assistance and why diplomatic relations were not established for decades after Israel’s independence.
If Jews thrive and succeed as a collective, then what does that say about Christianity and Islam’s replacement theology (the latter’s also applying to Christianity of course)?
While many in the West might consider themselves post-religious, nevertheless the deep anxiety over a deeply (and perhaps unconsciously) held identity surely colors the view of Israel. And that color tends to be dark.
In trying to retrieve an article I’d read on Bonhoeffer and the Jews, I found this one which seems more on point for my comment.
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/13/1/59
I think it's very straightforward. If you are anti-Zionist iteans that you don't think Isreal has the right to exist; if you don't think Isreal has the right to exist you want it destroyed. Given that you want the homeland of the Jews destroyed, I would say that there's no question that you're anti-Semitic.
I made some of these same points in my comic about what Zionism is to me. https://drucomics.substack.com/p/in-every-generation