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It's often the antisemites who make the charges of antisemitism [1]
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Date: 2025-03-23
Among the other depredations attributable to the Mad Kings, universities such as Columbia, and targeted law firms, are being asked to fight “antisemitism”. As a Jew, I know what that is, and I also know what it isn’t. Mad King Donald is notorious for projection, and when he makes accusations of antisemitism, it is clear who it is who actually hates us Jews.
This stems, of course, from October 7 and the reactions of the Israeli government against the people of Gaza. No, not against Hamas — first off, Hamas was in power in Gaza only because Netanyahu wanted them in charge, not the people of Gaza. He bragged about it. The war in Gaza is clearly an attempt to depopulate it entirely, to force out the Palestinian population, and the mass killings are a tool to get the Muslim world so upset with the dying that they’ll willingly take in the entire population. Of course that ain’t gonna happen. Since Egypt and Jordan don’t want two million refugees, the latest talk is about deporting them to Somalia or South Sudan, non-Arab countries that are essentially failed states with civil wars going on. It’s daft, but it shows what kind of ideas are percolating around Israel and its closest supporters. And they take Trump Gaza seriously, if not literally.
Given this behavior, many Jews, as well as virtually all Muslims, oppose the behavior of Israel, and have been willing to say so. This is not antisemitism — many Jews were in the demonstrations at Columbia and elsewhere. Zionism is not universal in the Jewish world, and revisionist Zionism, the fascist-associated river-to-the-sea kind associated with Netanyahu and his supporters, the kind that has been in power since the Millennials were kids, is not the (Labor) Zionism of the pre-1974 State of Israel. So opposing the revisionist regime is not antisemitism. Opposing the regime is not even opposing the existence of Israel as a state or the safety of its people. It is opposing the policies that dehumanize the Palestinian people and prevent Israel from coexisting peacefully with its neighbors.
The leading American supporters of the Israeli government are the fundamentalist christians, so-called Christian Zionists, who believe in a wacky 19th century notion that the “second coming” requires all the Jews to be gathered into the “biblical Land of Israel” where they can, uh, cease to exist before a dead guy returns after 2000+ years. Which is serious antisemitism! The West Bank settlement enterprise is supported by this. So the Israelis happily take the money from the loony even-jellicle antisemites while laughing at their dumbass misinterpretations of Revelations, a book actually written about the loosely-disguised Roman Empire. But those same even-jellicles are a major part of the current US regime’s base.
The US regime often uses a definition of antisemitism that the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) came up with over the past few decades.
Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities
As summarized by an excellent article in the Guardian, that definition did not mention Israel but is sometimes taken to:
While the core definition makes no explicit mention of Israel, the examples of purported antisemitism that IHRA provides tell a different story. Among the illustrative cases, it notes that antisemitism “might include the targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity”. Other examples include “claiming that the existence of a state of Israel is a racist endeavor”, and “[d]rawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis”.
But that was then, and Israel’s behavior has changed for the worse. The IHRA definition as applied, then, is no longer actually about antisemitism; it’s used a way to restrict speech, even and especially by Jews. That’s not what IHRA had in mind. From the Guardian again,
Even Kenneth Stern, who drafted the original working definition, argued in an opinion piece for the Guardian that the IHRA definition has been weaponized against legitimate political expression.
Bear in mind that Zionism is not a traditional part of Judaism; it was created by mainly-secular European Jews in the late 19th century in response to real antisemitism in Europe, with the goal of creating a refuge for Jews to escape it. Some Orthodox Jews believe that the State of Israel is not valid, because that requires a Moshiach, and there is no Moshiach. The most vociferous such group is Neturei Karta, which is associated with the extremist Satmar Hasidic tribe. There is quite a range, then, of diversity in Jewish thought about what Israel should be. That alone is not antisemitism.
We do recall that Musk’s grandfather was convicted of anti-Canadian activity when he supported Hitler when WW II broke out, and his fellow Mad King’s German heritage is no better in that regard. They do not actually oppose antisemitism. They oppose democracy and vocal Jews, most of whom oppose them, their policies, and Israel’s current policies.
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