Any discourse about the terror state of Israel is going to draw in strange characters, including express antisemites, and I’ve been noticing a sparse but present range of bigoted language and sentiment in response to Israel’s invasion of Gaza. I can’t tell if people are merely erroneously equating the state of Israel with Jews broadly (as Israel itself does), or this is a cynical hijacking of the anti-imperialist movement by right-wingers and other bad actors. Either way, it’s not too uncommon to hear people express inappropriate hatred of Jewish people in general when criticizing Israel specifically.
I want to be absolutely clear that I have not seen a single instance of such behavior on this site, but it does exist elsewhere, even if in small amounts. Obviously, the problem of imperialist genocide goes far beyond, and does not necessarily encompass, Jews or Judaism, and it’s clear that communists understand this far better than most.
With all that in mind, is there a way to educate these folks? When you see antisemitic remarks like I’ve described, what do you say?
Those who cannot differentiate correlation and causation, well you can’t really reason with them. They will simply list bad things that people who happen to be Jewish did, and use that as causus belli against Judaism itself. Obviously the logic doesn’t work this way; Judaism like all other non-cult religions teach you to be compassionate, be a good person, be nice to others, etc. There are obviously bad Jews who go against this, just as there are bad Muslims who don’t listen to Muhammad’s teachings to be nice to each other and start beheading all the non-believers. What Israel is doing right now has not much to do with religion or race, it is simply that those currently in power are bad people. Replace them with good people (Jewish or not) and the crisis is averted.
Antisemitism hurts all Jews, both good and bad. This is unacceptable, as it is indiscriminate (like Israel’s bombing of Palestine). If you have 5 bad guys and 1 good guy in a room, you don’t throw a grenade in; you storm in and make accurate shots even if it means more risk to you. It is much encouraged to be anti-badpeople, as all people belonging to that group is bad.
Just my views, I guess you’d agree with them, but I don’t know if someone dense would be able to buy it. Some people lack rational thought and that’s the way it is. If needed, use force to prevent them from doing something stupid (if they threaten you good Jewish neighbor, beat them up until they don’t!).
I generally agree, but I think classifying people as good or bad is only necessary when people are an immediate threat to you. A more nuanced approach is that the culture people grow up in can make people accept antisocial behaviors.