# At what point does debate around Israel become antisemitism? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 16, 2026, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-does-debate-around-israel-become-antisemitism/1033102 "2026-09-16T05:56:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 12
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2026, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-does-debate-around-israel-become-antisemitism/1033102/224 "2026-09-18T15:17:36Z")
Why do you think I usually avoid these threads? I have plenty of criticism against the Israeli government, but I still know what side I’m on, and I’m not going to give the river-to-the-sea motherfuckers a goddamn inch. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2026, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-does-debate-around-israel-become-antisemitism/1033102/225 "2026-09-18T15:31:08Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > Why do you think I usually avoid these threads? I have plenty of criticism against the Israeli government, but I still know what side I’m on, and I’m not going to give the river-to-the-sea motherfuckers a goddamn inch Very well said (although I obviously lack your good sense to avoid these threads 🤦‍♂️) ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2026, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-does-debate-around-israel-become-antisemitism/1033102/226 "2026-09-18T16:09:27Z")
I think the OP has pretty well learned that he’s found a distinction without a _practically useful_ difference. Even if one person could neatly draw the line, nobody else would agree w where they drew it. So the line would not serve as a useful demarcation. ---
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2026, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-does-debate-around-israel-become-antisemitism/1033102/227 "2026-09-18T16:27:38Z")
There are many layers to the “colonialism” onion. Obviously, colonialism, racism and ethnic cleansing are always wrong, but the solution is rejecting racism and accepting pluralism, not taking revenge on the descendants on the colonialists and sustaining the spiral of hatred. As an American, I don’t have any problem saying that much of my country’s history is completely fucked up. Nor do I feel it is at all hypocritical for me to tell people in the 21st century not to behave the way my ancestors did in the 18th century. Zionism, classically, was absolutely a settler colonialist ideology. The Zionists were white European intellectuals of the nineteenth century, so it would have been surprising if they _weren’t_ all about racism and colonialism. They were a bunch of white people proposing to travel to a distant land and take it over, without regard for the rights of the people who were already there. However, the vast majority of Israeli Jews are descended from people who arrived in Israel as refugees from anti-Semitic violence. The moral calculus would be very different if these people had left comfortable lives in safe liberal democracies to move to Palestine because they were inflamed with Zionist ideology. Also, of course, unlike most “colonialists”, most Israelis don’t even have the option of returning to the places they came from. OTOH, Israel’s current actions in the West Bank are indeed just textbook colonialism. So is Israel colonialist? Well, sort of, but also sort of not. I am adding this to the list of words I don’t choose to use to describe Israel, but which don’t make me assume a person using them is necessarily anti-Semitic. ---
**Author:** ![FlikTheBlue](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fliktheblue/32/10972_2.png) [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2026, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-does-debate-around-israel-become-antisemitism/1033102/228 "2026-09-18T16:29:22Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > > [@Babale](#): > > > > You cannot deny Jewish indigenousness without anti-semitism. Whether it is done because of ignorance or outright hatred of Jews is pretty much irrelevant. > > Yes, thats true. Also arab muslims are also colonizers who colonized the area and erased existing religions and languages (which ties into the double standard thing. Arab muslim colonization is fine, but western or Jewish colonization is unacceptable). > > However there is some merit to the fact that after the ottoman empire lost in WW1, that the UK took over the land of the levant and divided it. So the line between anti-semitism and anti-colonialism/imperialism can become blurred. But then you have the fact that many people who are anti-colonialist or anti-imperialist are only opposed to these things when the west does them. When anyone non-western does them, the same people don’t care. So its complex identifying people’s motivations. There’s more than one episode to consider. It’s possible to say that what happened in 1948 was legitimate, but what’s going on today in the West Bank is not. One doesn’t have to conflate the two, and in fact I think doing so only serves to confuse the matter. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2026, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-does-debate-around-israel-become-antisemitism/1033102/229 "2026-09-18T16:30:53Z")
> [@FlikTheBlue](#): > > It’s possible to say that what happened in 1948 was legitimate, but what’s going on today in the West Bank is not. Again, you can say “this or that action is illegitimate” or whatever other negative term you want to use, but you _cannot_ say “the whole idea is illegitimate” without being anti-Semitic. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2026, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-does-debate-around-israel-become-antisemitism/1033102/230 "2026-09-18T16:46:43Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > I think the OP has pretty well learned that he’s found a distinction without a _practically useful_ difference. > > Even if one person could neatly draw the line, nobody else would agree w where they drew it. So the line would not serve as a useful demarcation. Getting this in before we get shut down again, likely for the last time … disagree. The very fact it is not clear is why the discussion … if only we could have it … is useful. Appreciation of the confusion in word meanings and intent. Maybe with that knowledge allow a little space for meanings other what is heard. And sensitivity to how things are heard even if not meant. And recognizing that some who sound to _you_ as innocently advocating are in fact clearly using that for positions born of prejudices. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2026, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-does-debate-around-israel-become-antisemitism/1033102/231 "2026-09-18T16:52:51Z")
Great point. I agree completely. I’d thought about continuing on to discuss intent versus terminology, but you said it better than I would have. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2026, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-does-debate-around-israel-become-antisemitism/1033102/232 "2026-09-18T17:01:57Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > Again, you can say “this or that action is illegitimate” or whatever other negative term you want to use, but you _cannot_ say “the whole idea is illegitimate” without being anti-Semitic. I disagree. I think that you can say that the whole idea of creating an ethnostate of Jews in the middle east was a bad idea without being antisemitic. And i think the Orthodox Jews who thought it was wrong for Jews to return to the land of Israel before the coming of the Messiah are a good example of one perspective that is both anti-zionist and not antisemitic, even pro-Jewish. I’m not wild about other ethnostates, like Turkey, either. The Turks drove out the natives of Anatolia in recorded history, too. (And drove the Greeks out of much of Cyprus after the creation of Israel.) I personally think that whatever the sins of the past, there are a bunch of people living in that nation who were born there and who have as much of a right to stay as anyone has to stay anywhere. (That doesn’t mean they have a right to terrorize their neighbors and steal land in the West Bank, but there’s a lot of Israel that is clearly “Israel” at this time.) Sadly, there are often competing valid claims to the same land. But i would draw the line between antisemitism and anti-zionism pretty far from where Babale would, i think. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2026, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-does-debate-around-israel-become-antisemitism/1033102/233 "2026-09-18T17:08:28Z")
The idea that Ashkenazi Jews are foreign white Europeans with no connection to the land who just showed up out of nowhere is indeed an anti-semitic one. It is a repackaged version of the Khazar Conspiracy. It is also a projection of American attitudes onto Old World societies. People in Europe don’t talk about “White People”; they talk about French and German and Italian and Spanish people, and often they get even more granular - Catalan, Sicilian, etc etc. Jews in Europe did not view themselves as “white” people who were part of a “white” society. They viewed themselves as Jews, and whether they wanted to or not, they were always placed at least partially outside of Russian or German or French (etc etc) society. ---
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2026, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-does-debate-around-israel-become-antisemitism/1033102/234 "2026-09-18T17:13:11Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > Jews in Europe did not view themselves as “white” people who were part of a “white” society. They viewed themselves as Jews, and whether they wanted to or not, they were always placed at least partially outside of Russian or German or French (etc etc) society. Yes, this is certainly true, and why it doesn’t make sense to say that Israel is colonialist **in the same sense** that Britain or France were. Still, from the point of view of anyone _else_ on the planet, there was little obvious distinction to be made between Ashkenazi Jews and other white Europeans. ---
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2026, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-does-debate-around-israel-become-antisemitism/1033102/235 "2026-09-18T17:16:21Z")
I think the first principle all people of good will should be able to agree on WRT Israel/Palestine is that racism and ethnic cleansing are bad. I can work with anyone who agrees that everyone in the region should have the right to continue living approximately where they are living now, in peace and security. I think it’s too soon to have super strong opinions about whether the final endpoint is going to be two states, or one state, or Swiss-style confederation or whatever. Let’s just stop killing people and go from there. ---
**Author:** ![ParallelLines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/parallellines/32/3575_2.png) [@ParallelLines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParallelLines)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2026, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-does-debate-around-israel-become-antisemitism/1033102/236 "2026-09-18T17:16:55Z")
Closed on September 18, 2026, 5:16pm UTC ---
**Author:** ![ParallelLines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/parallellines/32/3575_2.png) [@ParallelLines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParallelLines)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2026, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-does-debate-around-israel-become-antisemitism/1033102/237 "2026-09-18T17:25:08Z")
**Moderating:** I’m giving the thread one final timeout. A few recent examples of refighting the conflict _since the last mod note to stop it only 5 hours ago_: > [@FlikTheBlue](#): > > It’s possible to say that what happened in 1948 was legitimate, but what’s going on today in the West Bank is not. One doesn’t have to conflate the two, and in fact I think doing so only serves to confuse the matter. > [@Thing.Fish](#): > > OTOH, Israel’s current actions in the West Bank are indeed just textbook colonialism. > [@Thing.Fish](#): > > > [@Babale](#): > > > > Jews in Europe did not view themselves as “white” people who were part of a “white” society. They viewed themselves as Jews, and whether they wanted to or not, they were always placed at least partially outside of Russian or German or French (etc etc) society. > > Yes, this is certainly true, and why it doesn’t make sense to say that Israel is colonialist **in the same sense** that Britain or France were. Still, from the point of view of anyone _else_ on the planet, there was little obvious distinction to be made between Ashkenazi Jews and other white Europeans. > [@Thing.Fish](#): > > I think the first principle all people of good will should be able to agree on WRT Israel/Palestine is that racism and ethnic cleansing are bad. I can work with anyone who agrees that everyone in the region should have the right to continue living approximately where they are living now, in peace and security. I think it’s too soon to have super strong opinions about whether the final endpoint is going to be two states, or one state, or Swiss-style confederation or whatever. Let’s just stop killing people and go from there. I’m therefore closing the thread for two hours to give my fellow Mods a chance to review. We’ve invested a serious amount of time and effort in notes and time but the message doesn’t get through. If we do reopen, we will need to issue warnings and threadbans I suspect. ---
**Author:** ![ParallelLines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/parallellines/32/3575_2.png) [@ParallelLines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParallelLines)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2026, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-does-debate-around-israel-become-antisemitism/1033102/239 "2026-09-18T19:33:37Z")
**Moderating:** After a review by all available #Great Debates mods, we have decided the thread will remain closed. It has been drawn off-topic nearly non-stop, and an early lack of flags prevented any moderation that might have stopped that. As such, rather than issue thread bans and Warnings, we’re going to just leave it closed, as people will continue to discuss other issues rather than the OP’s question. A suggestion if anyone wants to open a similar thread in the future, is to keep the discussion to a specific incident or individual, which may enable a tighter focus. This thread will remain closed. ---
**Author:** ![ParallelLines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/parallellines/32/3575_2.png) [@ParallelLines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParallelLines)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2026, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-does-debate-around-israel-become-antisemitism/1033102/240 "2026-09-18T19:33:59Z")
Closed on September 18, 2026, 7:33pm UTC [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-does-debate-around-israel-become-antisemitism/1033102.md?page=11)