# Left wing antisemitism **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 15, 2011, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-wing-antisemitism/581985 "2011-05-15T14:03:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2011, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-wing-antisemitism/581985/81 "2011-05-16T01:34:30Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > The fallacy in this is that it’s not the same “everybody.” Most people who are critical of Israel were born decades after the holocaust, and their problems with Israel have zero - ZERO - to do with race. If you think anyone on the left is simply upset that the “Jews have their own state” then you live in a reality all your own. > > It was two leftist Presidents who stopped the Holocaust, by the way, and who gave Israel to the Jews (via the UN) in the first place. Actually if FDR, had lived it is believed Israel would never have become a state, even many of Truman’s advisers argued against it. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2011, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-wing-antisemitism/581985/82 "2011-05-16T01:52:43Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > The antipathy of the left towards Jews goes back a long way I agree - this is crap. The left as a bloc absolutely does not hate Jews, and one of the most common antisemitic tropes is that Jews are Communists or Communist sympathizers. About 78 percent of Jewish voters went for Obama in 2008, and in general Jews have been a reliably Democratic bloc for generations. ---
**Author:** ![Farmer\_Jane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Farmer\_Jane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farmer_Jane)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2011, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-wing-antisemitism/581985/83 "2011-05-16T01:57:36Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > How so? What other European countries practice racial disenfranchisement, racial ghettoization (of natural born residents, not immigrants) and ethnic cleansing? > > This is a phony objection based on a phony criterion. It’s actually laugably tautological. The fact that it denies citzenship based on race is IN ITSELF a form of apartheid, and so is doing stuff like herding them into ghettos behind barbed wire fences. > > I don’t want to hijack this thread into yet another Israeli-Palestinian debate, but it’s disngenuous to act like the apartheid analogy is confusing or unjustified. Can we have a cite that says Israel denies citizenship to israeli arabs? 😕😕 ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2011, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-wing-antisemitism/581985/84 "2011-05-16T02:03:14Z")
And when was “the left” ever a bloc, anyway, outside of **Sam** ’s endless, learning-less repetition in his ideologuist fantasy screeds here? :dubious: But it’s no crappier crap than this: > [@John Mace](#): > > They fought a war and lost. Sorry. So did the Jews in the same land, many times, but \*\*John \*\*apparently has no issue with them coming back and fighting for it again. That “logic” of his actually \*endorses \*the Palestinians’ efforts to regain that land by violence, although he doubtless hasn’t thought it through that far. The results of a war are never final, supercilious “Sorries” notwithstanding. But, short of completing genocide, being neighbors is. That relationship can be managed civilly and respectfully, or it can be managed in such a way as to guarantee more war. Placing tribalism above humanism, in the way \*\*John \*\*has demonstrated here, is one way to do that. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2011, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-wing-antisemitism/581985/85 "2011-05-16T02:11:20Z")
> [@CitizenPained](#): > > Can we have a cite that says Israel denies citizenship to israeli arabs? 😕😕 :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2011, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-wing-antisemitism/581985/86 "2011-05-16T02:15:11Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > Huh? > > That’s an extremely weird comment from an American. > > You realize that while that you’re talking about events that happened during an attempted extermination of the Jewish residents of Israel by Arab armies at a time when the allies said nothing as far larger numbers of ethnic Germans were ethnically cleansed from Poland, Czechoslovakia and larger numbers of Jews were being kicked out of various Arab countries in the Middle East. It’s happening now. > [@](#): > > I assume you despise Moroccans, Poles, Yemenis, Egyptians, Iraqis, and the Czechs for committing ethnic cleansing at the same time at a much greater rate. I don’t despise any ethnic group, including Jews, or even Israelis. Why do you equate criticism of a government with any kind pf feeling about the ethnicity of that government? Was anyone critical of South African apartheid anti-white. ASb=nti-semitism doesn’t exist on the lefty - at least not on the American left. Sorry, but there it is. Racism is purely a right wing thing. ---
**Author:** ![Farmer\_Jane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Farmer\_Jane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farmer_Jane)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2011, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-wing-antisemitism/581985/87 "2011-05-16T02:15:13Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > This is a fatuous argument. Blacks in South Africa weren’t a race either, if you want to be technical abouty it. That doesn’t alter that fact that Palestinian Arabs (however you want to categorize them to make yourself feel better) are systematically ghettoized and disenfranchised in their ownn ancestral terrotory on the basis of nothing but genetic heritage in the interest of promoting the supremacy of an ill-defined (but mostly racially defined) class of a ruling elite. I don’t know what you are talking about. Ancestral territory? The state of Israel is ancestral territory? 😕 So how come there was no unified Palestinian movement before the balfour declaration? they were other Arabs descendants or farmers/investors/settlers from the area. Many were from Jordan. Why did they at one point want to be in Egyptian or Jordanian territory? I don’t understand your argument. The Balfour Declaration was drawn up around population areas. The Jews did not expel people from anywhere - it was war, and many left. As someone pointed out, 20 per cent of the population in Israel is Arab (and they are CITIZENS) and they sure as shit don’t want to hang out in the West Bank. 😉 > [@These are my own pants](#): > > And whilst we’re on the subject of racism what I hate most of all is that I can’t believe that anyone who sees Palestinians and Jewish Israelis as basically equals can agree with the situation in Israel and the OTs. Equals how? In their lives? No. Of course not. But we’re talking about Arabs in Israel…not Palestinians under Hamas or PLO. btw, about 90 per cent of all israelis receive some kind of social assistance. the country’s citizens struggle. all of them. > [@These are my own pants](#): > > Israel effectively rules the OTs and shows absolutely zero willingness to disenage (or alternatively offer full right sto those living there). West Bank and Gaza are not part of Israel. I mean, since when is it our job to make sure all Mexicans live in equality with Americans? > [@](#): > > In Israel the arabs could actually be quite a powerful group due to the voting system Israel uses, but whilst almost every segement of Jewish soceity has parties representing them, parties representing purely Arab issues are essentially banned as they are not ‘Zionist’. They are also subject to massive amounts of informal discrrimination. How are they banned? Sounds like some false information there. Let’s not do that. Doing that is exactly what I said about misappropriating facts and history. > [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > That’s disingenuous. “Israel” is land that they were bulldozed off of. I didn’t know Israel fought the war for independence with CATs. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2011, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-wing-antisemitism/581985/88 "2011-05-16T02:16:00Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > So did the Jews in the same land, many times, but \*\*John \*\*apparently has no issue with them coming back and fighting for it again. That “logic” of his actually \*endorses \*the Palestinians’ efforts to regain that land by violence, although he doubtless hasn’t thought it through that far. No, the logic doesn’t imply that at all. But let me ask you-- how many borders in the world were not determined, at some point, by war? How many times did people go to war, and then afterwards just say: Hey, this was just a game. We’ll go back to the pre-war situation and pretend nothing happened. > [@](#): > > The results of a war are never final, supercilious “Sorries” notwithstanding. But, short of completing genocide, being neighbors is. That relationship can be managed civilly and respectfully, or it can be managed in such a way as to guarantee more war. Placing tribalism above humanism, in the way \*\*John \*\*has demonstrated here, is one way to do that. Of course they’re never final. They can be reset by future wars. You might want borders to be set over a cup of tea with sandwiches, where everyone shakes hands afterwards, but that almost never happens. I can think of maybe once or twice things worked out that way, but usually it’s just war. ---
**Author:** ![Farmer\_Jane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Farmer\_Jane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farmer_Jane)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2011, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-wing-antisemitism/581985/89 "2011-05-16T02:16:27Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > :rolleyes: So stop…Seriously. Stop spreading that crap. If you can’t cite your extremely radical argument, then stuff it. oh and when I say cite, I don’t mean cite your own post. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2011, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-wing-antisemitism/581985/90 "2011-05-16T02:17:56Z")
> [@CitizenPained](#): > > I don’t know what you are talking about. Ancestral territory? The state of Israel is ancestral territory? No, the state of Israel was established on stolen Palestinian territory. ---
**Author:** ![Farmer\_Jane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Farmer\_Jane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farmer_Jane)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2011, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-wing-antisemitism/581985/91 "2011-05-16T02:18:04Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Racism is purely a right wing thing. wtf. Socialists weren’t racists? Communists weren’t racists? i just roflcoptered ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2011, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-wing-antisemitism/581985/92 "2011-05-16T02:19:14Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > No, the state of Israel was established on stolen Palestinian territory. No, it wasn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2011, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-wing-antisemitism/581985/93 "2011-05-16T02:19:31Z")
> [@CitizenPained](#): > > So stop…Seriously. Stop spreading that crap. > > If you can’t cite your extremely radical argument, then stuff it. > oh and when I say cite, I don’t mean cite your own post. You have an increasingly nasty and unsporting habit of making up things I didn’t say and then demanding a cite for them. I’m sick of it. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2011, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-wing-antisemitism/581985/94 "2011-05-16T02:19:36Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > This is a fatuous argument. Blacks in South Africa weren’t a race either, if you want to be technical abouty it. That doesn’t alter that fact that Palestinian Arabs (however you want to categorize them to make yourself feel better) are systematically ghettoized and disenfranchised in their ownn ancestral terrotory on the basis of nothing but genetic heritage in the interest of promoting the supremacy of an ill-defined (but mostly racially defined) class of a ruling elite. Nothing but their genetic heritage - and a propensity for killing Jews, that is. The Palestinian people are victims - but Israel isn’t their oppressor. Their oppressors are corrupt leaders like Arafat who made billions by skimming off international aid, while helping to foster conditions that would keep the aid coming. They’re victims because they are used as pawns by Arab and Iranian dictators to deflect attention away from their own despotism and re-focus it on Israel. They’re victims of pan-Arabian dreams gone wrong - told to flee Israel so the Arabs could come in and wipe out the Jews, then left in no-man’s land when the Arab assaults failed. Israel is in the position of not being able to offer the right of return, knowing full well that that would mean the end of the Jewish state and a return to the oppression they’ve suffered through their history. But the Palestinians will accept nothing less, and the last time Israel attempted to come to an agreement for their homeland they launched the second Intifada and started killing Israelis in large number. Now it’s impossible for them to be assimilated into Israel, and no other country will take them. The situation will be resolved when the Middle East itself changes and accepts Israel as a full partner and neighbor. When Israel is surrounded by democracies instead of tyrants, perhaps it can let its guard down a bit and take more risks with the Palestinians. When Hezbollah is gone from Lebanon and modernity arrives in Syria and Egypt and Libya, then maybe conditions will change to the point where the Palestinian problem can truly be solved. Until then, Israel has few options. ---
**Author:** ![Farmer\_Jane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Farmer\_Jane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farmer_Jane)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2011, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-wing-antisemitism/581985/95 "2011-05-16T02:19:52Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > No, the state of Israel was established on stolen Palestinian territory. Who stole it? Who did it belong to? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2011, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-wing-antisemitism/581985/96 "2011-05-16T02:20:50Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Nothing but their genetic heritage - and a propensity for killing Jews, that is. This is a racist statement. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2011, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-wing-antisemitism/581985/97 "2011-05-16T02:21:53Z")
> [@CitizenPained](#): > > Who stole it? Who did it belong to? 😕 It belonged to Palestinian Arabs. It was stolen by the UN. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2011, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-wing-antisemitism/581985/98 "2011-05-16T02:29:00Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > This is a racist statement. Really? How? Do you dispute that Palestinians have used the bombing and murdering of Israelis as a regular tactic? ---
**Author:** ![Farmer\_Jane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Farmer\_Jane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farmer_Jane)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2011, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-wing-antisemitism/581985/99 "2011-05-16T02:38:26Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Might makes right? If Hitler had succeeded, that would have made Hitler right? > > If the Palestinians ever hypothetically succeed in overthrowing the Israeli state through military means, you will say that the Palestinians are right? First - the Jews in the territory were the victims of attempted continued genocide. They refused the U.S.'s request to ‘delay’ their statement of independence after the balfour declaration. the u.s. didn’t want a war in the middle east or any kind of potential expansion of soviet power. when israel did declare independence, how many countries do you think declared war? really? how many? and what was their reasoning? > [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > You’re talking about immigrants. In Israel, the Israelis are the immigrants disenfranchising the indegenous people. > > This is disingenuous. > > Thy don’t recognize the legitimacy of Israeli authority, but if the institutional racism was removed from the government and mission of the state, then things would be different. > > American Indians didn’t want to be American citizens either, but that doesn’t mean it was therefore legitmate to occupy their land and herd them onto reservations. actually, american indians fought for citizenship at one point (and won) but that’s not really my contention here. hey, a one-state policy is basically eliminating the jewish people in israel. you cool with that? > [@These are my own pants](#): > > When i see removing settlements rather than expanding them I might think you’d have a point. last time they did that, they were lambasted! and did the Palestinians leave infrastructure intact or anything productive? hmmm? sorry, my fingers are taped on my left hand, so i’m having a hard time typing. 😛 [http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/18/nyregion/18donate.html](http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/18/nyregion/18donate.html) > **[Palestinian militants ransack former Gush Katif greenhouses](https://www.haaretz.com/2006-02-10/ty-article/palestinian-militants-ransack-former-gush-katif-greenhouses/0000017f-e9b7-dc91-a17f-fdbf2a500000)** > > Damage Is Irreparable; International Donors Had Purchased the Greenhouses From Evacuated Settlers for Benefit of the Palestinians. > **[Palestinians Loot, Burn, Destroy in Gaza](https://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/17483_Palestinians_Loot_Burn_Destroy_in_Gaza)** > > Anyone surprised by this animalistic behavior has not been paying attention:... christ, israel gets all this grief for bulldozers and terrorist and arms root-outs and then what happens when they peacefully turn over infrastructure?! > [@](#): > > There are strong restrictions on Arab parties in Israel, they are often banned. All the Arab parties were banned from the Knesset in 2009 (a decision later overturned by the israeli supreme court). Any party that does not agree with israels staus as a “Jewish state” is illegal. To be absolutely fair a part of the problem is the refusal of many Arabs to participate in Israeli elections, but there’s a long history of blocking these parties from gaining any influence. there could be an anti-israel or one state solution jewish party and they’d suffer the same treatment by the elections committee (that’s the committee…not the labor party…). the united states has also effectively strong-armed many minority parties during wartime. every country has a history of this. the better ones change their ways. but the fact that the israeli supreme court overturned the ban says something about the state and its democratic functions. 😉 no one is saying that the government has never made mistakes. but to say, ‘israel bans arab parties’ is WRONG. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2011, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-wing-antisemitism/581985/100 "2011-05-16T02:45:04Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Really? How? Do you dispute that Palestinians have used the bombing and murdering of Israelis as a regular tactic? I think it was when you referred to “Nothing but their genetic heritage - And a propensity of killing Jews” it does imply a genetic reason for their violence. On the other hand, I can say that \*\*Diogenes \*\*is saying something ridiculous when he says that “Racism is purely a right wing thing.” I don’t think that can be said with 100% certainty. Having said that, I have seen plenty of examples around the world to show that while there are examples of antisemitism from the left, I can see more antisemitism coming from right wing governments. Just check the experiences the Jews had in Argentina during the days of the right wing military dictatorship’s “dirty wars” over there. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-wing-antisemitism/581985.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-wing-antisemitism/581985.md?page=6)