This post would show that any Christian who hates anyone would not be a true follower of Jesus, if the following things were said of Jesus as the NT suggests:
Love your enemies. return evil with good. How can you claim to love the God you don’t see if you don’t love the neighbor who you do see? Blessed are the peace makers, let he who is with out sin cast the first stone, etc.Hating anyone in that context suggests they are not living as a Christian should. If one trusts in their God then why not let God handle things?
What I think many Americans (and perhaps Israelis) fail to understand is that much of the criticism of Israel in Europe comes from a liberal perspective. It’s not anti-semetic. Indeed, many critics of Israel would be mortified at any accusation of prejudice.
It’s perfectly possible to be critical of Israel with being an anti-semite. If you don’t believe that, I’m afraid I feel slightly sorry for you.
I came across a similar thing recently on the Foreign Policy website. It was in an article by an American academic which bemoaned the supposed left-leaning stance of popular travel guides, and in particular their supposed apologism towards brutal regimes.
The factual errors of the article aside, it seemed that the writer was incapable of understanding a liberal European/Australasian politicial worldview, quite possibly because such a perspective doesn’t exist is the US. He seemed almost incredibly blinkered. Please note: I don’t care that he disagreed with it – he couldn’t *understand *it.
Lyotard had a rather pretentious notion of an injustice which he labelled a “differend”. From the Wikipedia page:
“A case of differend between two parties takes place when the regulation of the conflict that opposes them is done in the idiom of one of the parties while the wrong suffered by the other is not signified in that idiom”.
Each party cannot recognise the other. Except, in both cases above, the Americans cannot recognise the Europeans, and the Europeans recognise all too well where the Americans are coming from.
Now liberal perspectives don’t even exist in America? And the proof is that someone criticized a travel guide for its softness on nasty regimes? With some postmodernist Wiki link thrown in as an appetizer?
This is vague enough to have some truth within it.
In reality, anyone who has studied the issue is well aware of the various factions, liberal and conservative, who oppose or support Israel’s actions. There are strong supporters and strong opponents of Israeli policies across the entire political spectrum and claiming that most critics are anything, in particular, fails on the lack of precision in failing to identify just whom one is discussing.
This thread, however, is discussing hatred toward the Jewish people and it would be silly to deny that much of the criticism directed toward Israel is motivated by anti-semitism.
As to whether any given person would be mortified to be accused of prejudice, that would be their problem if, indeed, they base their criticism on anything other than their understanding of the facts. There is plenty of room to disagree whether Israeli policies are wise or prudent or even just. However, when one sees a person remark that “the Jews” want one thing or are going to do some other thing, then it is pretty clear that there is an underlying prejudice, regardless what other arguments they present.
Nobody on this thread has suggested that all criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic. I’ve certainly criticized Israel quite a bit yet I don’t think anyone on this thread has accused me of anti-Semitism.
What we’ve been talking about are attitudes towards Jews not Israelis. Claiming that British Jews are more loyal to Israel than the UK(which 45% of all British adults appear to believe) is not critism of Israel but is questioning the loyalty of the Jews of the UK.
Similarly claiming Jews have “too much power in the business world” has nothing to do with Israel.
It depends upon what you mean by “much”. I would say less than 7.5% of the non muslim criticism of Israel is motivated by anti-semitism, at least per a fair definition of the word anti-semitism.
Of course neither is it a negligible quanitity.
P.S. Regarding Malthus’ idea of anti-semites secretly envying Jews - I can’t imagine that being true for one minute. But I can totally understand why anyone would envy Israel. Israel imo is probably the best country in the world in terms of how it looks after its citizens. It doesn’t take shit and there’s somethign very admirable there. I don’t see why being an anti-semite would stop someone from recognising that.
Here’s the classic test, and I don’t claim it as my own invention by any means: Is the criticism equal towards all countries which exhibit the same behavior, or is it directed especially against Israel, which, though relatively powerful, is still very small?
Who knows? Most anti-semites cannot even figure out, themselves, whether they hate Jews or Judaism.
Dumb hate is dumb hate and most haters grasp at all sorts of straws to rationalize it.
What is important to to you to make clear? And why?
I’d be curious where you chose that percentage and would also be curious as to how anyone was able to distinguish (in aggregate) the difference between principled opposition to Israeli policies and knee-jerk anti-semitism.
I can have a discussion with an individual and form an opinion, based on a broad spectrum of his or her comments, what his or her most likely motivation might be. Polling large numbers of people who are quite likely to shade their responses specifically to avoid earning the label anti-semite seems to be rather dubious when looking for that answer.
Well, to be fair, failing that test would disclose anti-Israeli prejudice. It would not make the leap to proving that the cause of anti-Israeli prejudice was anti-Semitism.
There may be lots of reasons for anti-Israeli prejudice that have nothing to do with hatred of Jews.
Well, they also make you cut your penis. Thats kind of a showstopper for some people.
But its not like they won’t let you go to temple to watch your Jewish friend get married, etc. Just to throw in my anecdote, I know more than a few converted jews (mostly for marriage reasons) and it didn’t seem really burdensome.
Wait, so this is like how people hate fraternities because they can’t get in?
Simply for the record, I think that much of the criticism of Israel is caused by either anti-Semitism and/or anti-Israel bigotry and/or the fact that most people are credophile morons who’re wilfully ignorant and it’s a cause celebre. It’s often difficult to tell the difference without additional data.
Simply for the record, I am pretty sure that most posters on these threads know what you think on the topic, so let’s stay on the topic of this thread without getting sidelined with your thoughts on separate, if related, topics.
~shrugs~
I was responding to you. I still maintain that you’re overreaching when you claim that much of the criticism of Israel is due to anti-Semitism, but I suppose I’ll just deny your claim and won’t argue any further.
I actually think it’s probably about 50% of the criticism of Israel being from anti-Semites. The frustrating thing is that Israel and their staunch defenders use this fact to paint any criticism of Israel as anti-semitic. I don’t want to get into my criticisms of Israel since it’s not the basis of the topic. I think the domestic and foreign policy moves of Israel are extreme and don’t help non-Israeli Jews but I actually don’t think it increases antisemitism much in the rest of the world except by not being a positive as they could be. If Israel were a good actor in the world I think it would help Jews substantially in other parts of the world, but part of that would be being less theocratic which would diminish the perception of the country representing extra-national Jews.
In any case I still think that socially and economically Jews tend to be one of the more clannish and nepotistic of demographics and that their success does engender jealousy in a number of forms.
I’ve heard this meme repeated endlessly without any substantiation.
Who are the people who have actually claimed that all critics of Israel are anti-Semites.
I’ve criticized Israel plenty of times yet I don’t recall anyone of on this thread accusing me of being one.
Name names.
I ask because Alan Dershowitz has promised rewards to anyone who can provide proof of a prominent Jewish supporter of Israel claiming all criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic and I’ve got bills to pay.
Hell, I’ll settle for even some prominent Gentiles making such a stupid statement.
“Clannish”.
That’s right up there with “blacks got great natural rhythm” or “blacks love fried chicken.”
