Many Jews throughout history thought the same thing, right up until the Gestapo or Inquisition or whomever else kicked down the front door and dragged them off.
I agree, sure. If Catholics get the next pogrom I am fucked. I am atheist, but in my home country we got circumcised shortly after birth, though aside from that there is not much difference between me and my Anglican brethren. This is apparently not very common in Catholicism but would make me a target
It is all so fucking pointless, looking for an enemy that doesnt really exist, and then using that fear to point to a possible group who could be the enemy if we squint a bit and wait for the right light.
There are a lot of dumb smart people out there it seems. For decades, FBI statistics have shown that the percentage of religious hate crimes against Jews is comparable to the number of racial hate crimes against blacks. Did everyone forget that millions of Jews were murdered in the Holocaust? This is not a group comparable to “MAGA supporters, or “trans-accountants who ride E-bikes.” There’s a reality people like to ignore, and that is that while Israel is a country inhabited by citizens of all races and of many religions (something that can’t be said of many Muslim countries), when people hear or think “Israel”, they think “Jewish”. So when one is criticizing Israel, they are starting off with the basis of: a country that undoubtedly is automatically associated with a genocided group of people surrounded by a huge group of people (Muslims) who hate the shit out of them and want them dead.
If you want to know if it’s something said about Israel is anti-Semitic, begin with these facts in mind, and ask yourself, “if I made this criticism of an African country or India or a Native American reservation, would it possibly be bigoted or racist?
If you want to know if it’s something said about Gaza is bigoted or racist, begin with these facts in mind, and ask yourself, “if I made this criticism of an African country or India or a Native American reservation, would it possibly be bigoted or racist?
Let’s not act like bigotry only intrudes one way in this matter. We have at least one board member who keeps shitting up threads on the Israel-Gaza war with grotesquely bigoted bullshit about Gazans.
I, seriously, find the hint of transphobia troubling
It’s not pointless. It’s done to terrify people into letting specific other people take power, or keep power once they’ve got it.
If the attention of most people can be kept on the enemy that doesn’t exist, they won’t see the enemy that does exist.
It’s not pointless - there are always people who profit from the hate and conflict and are happy to stoke it for their own profit.
Yes, quite a few people have forgotten that. Or never learned it. Or refuse to believe it. Or dismiss it as White people killing White people and therefore no concern of theirs.
One difference between myself and my friends of African descent is that in my particular case I can easily pass as a White Christian if I must. They can not hide the color of their skin.
But no one should have to hide who they are.
All I know is I’m over it. I’m tired of seeing the daily butchering of children. I don’t think of it as genocide, but I don’t think Bebe (have no idea how to spell his name) is too concerned as to whether or not he kills every man, woman, and child in Gaza including the 140 remaining hostages. He also, seems pretty unwilling to describe what Gaza will be after they level it. This guy and his advisors ro whatever they call them is evil. Israel ought to bounce his ass out of office, and try something/someone new.
This is where your lack of critical thinking skills and emotional malleability make you dangerous. And I really hate saying someone is dangerous for something they’ve said, or a way of thinking. But you don’t even consider any of the following facts that should at the very least temper your misplaced disgust and criticisms of Israel:
1.) Hamas started the war by indiscriminately attacking Israel, which was a more egregious version of their daily rocket attacks. Israel has an Iron Dome because of this outrageous fact.
2.) Hamas puts their attack stations INSIDE the hospitals and schools where the children and other innocents are located. This should be enough to understand where accountability rests.
3,) Israel WARNS the innocent civilians before they attack an area, giving enough time to evacuate. Don’t forget this is a war, and warning civilians during a war is obviously not typical or expected, and actually speaks to the compassion Israel has demonstrated.
4,) Israel is home to people of all faiths and ethnicities. You will NEVER find any significant Jewish populations in modern Muslim countries, and certainly not welcome to practice their religion, as Muslim’s are in Israel.
5.) Not too long ago, Jews were the target of genocide, and have a small population still. So to think that a decimated group of genocide victims would go pick a fight unwarrantedly, or worse commit genocide themselves, is just wholly irrational; it’s like blaming the victim, and that’s sick-minded.
6.) That said, Jews have nevertheless been successful in many areas of society, culture, government and business. Meanwhile, it’s not nearly as common to find a Muslim who’s assimilated to western culture and civilization. In fact, there exists “no-go zones”, in many countries, like France for instance, where police do not dare enter; these areas are populated by Muslims and are run under the thumb of Sharia Law. As Sharia Law underlies their entire religion, it is essentially impossible for a practicing Muslim to truly assimilate to any western society, as the laws are so different than those of Sharia. So then, who do you think would be more likely to actually espouse and maintain the values of western and modern civilized societies: Jews, who assimilate and share those values? Or Muslims, who isolate and actively fight against those values and the legal systems rooted in them?
So, if you consider these facts (and there are more), then it should hopefully be at least somewhat clear that Jews are not the bad guy the media portrays them as, they’re not committing genocide, they’re responding to an existential threat to their existence, same as you would no doubt hope our country would do if a group was sending rockets into your backyard.
It’s not necessary to be able to identify an individual or a group in order to persecute them. Imagine if our government made it illegal to post on The Straight Dope, and the media ridiculed people who went on here, and your neighbors would be willing to turn you in if they knew about you having an account on here…well, I bet your life would be spent in misery, constantly watching your every step, word and gesture as to not be found out. This alone is a frightful notion, one that Jews have already been through, and doubtful would now, after just a few generations, be willing and eager to do the same to others. It’s a disturbed idea and just plain DUMB. But I digress . Point is, for bigotry to be destructive, it needn’t be practiced with the knowledge of an intended target. .
Most of these points are true, but history, and even the present day, is littered with examples of people who rightfully claim that they should not be oppressed, but when given power, they do not extend this decency to others.
In fact, were history smaller, and not already full of examples of the worst atrocities, then the Holocaust would be evidence that everyone is more capable of atrocities than we had previously thought.
All of which does not change the fact that Israel did not start this war and does not have genocide as a goal, unlike the Gaza leadership, but Jews previously being the victims of it doesn’t change anything one way or another.
This is contested. The evidence published about al shifra hospital, for instance, was underwhelming as a reason to totally destroy a major hospital.
This is bullshit. I have visited my local mosque which is full of Americans who worship there every Friday, and then go about as assimilated doctors, lawyers, etc. the rest of the week. There is a synagogue across the street and the two groups do a lot of joint charity work and stuff, because their members are very similar in most ways.
(And fwiw, Jewish law is also pretty different from “Western” law, which tends to be based on Christian norms.)
Yes, the average resident of Kiryas Joel (or Monsey, or Borough Park) would probably be rather taken aback if you called them “assimilated.”
I dispute most of your “facts”, which, by the end, just devolve into an anti-Muslim rant, the likes of which we’ve all seen before. A lot of Muslims are Semites, speaking of anti-Semitism… In any case, “the media” does not generally portray Jews or Judaism as “bad”—we are not quite back to Naziism yet. Though, sure, some evil religious fundamentalists, criminals, terrorists may incidentally be or claim to be Jews; so what? It’s the same for Muslims.
I’m sorry, but I live within less than an hour’s drive of the largest Muslim-populated city in the US, and this is laughably untrue.
That’s true in the same way as Elon Musk is an “African-American”. Its meaning is divorced from its etymology.
Anyone who thinks that the barbarism displayed by religious fanatics is limited to fanatics of specific religions hasn’t been paying attention.
The Crusaders raped and pillaged a path of destruction across Europe while nominally making their way to Jerusalem. On their way they massacred the Jewish communities of Europe, destroyed the Byzantine empire, and otherwise wasted thousands of lives.
There were periods of greater and lesser persecution on both sides, but on the whole, being a Jew or a Christian in Muslim Iberia was better than being a Jew or a Muslim in Christian Iberia.
The fact that there are more radical or fundamentalist muslims in positions of power today than radical or fundamentalist Christians is a product of historical happenstance, not some inherent property of Islam or Christianity.
Before the Italian revolution, the Pope treated the Jews of the Papal States as his personal property. Had Nationalist Italians (some of them Jewish) not forced the issue, I highly doubt he would have suddenly started treating us better because of how enlightened Christianity is compared to Islam.
What utter bullshit. Repeating Fox News lies isn’t going to convince anyone, you Islamophobic fuckhead…
I don’t suppose you have been in France. That is a complete invention.
Some of the rest of this post is dubious, but this part is pure bigoted bullshit.
And, to amplify: it’s the exact same kind of bigoted bullshit as was used by some to claim that my Jewish grandparents couldn’t assimilate. There is always somebody who bigots claim can’t become good citizens of “western society”; they just change the names from time to time.