> if you think it's okay to be rude to a Jewish person at a bar because of literally anything to do with Israel
Look I don't have full context here, but more generally there's recently been a lot of conflating Judaism with "support of Israel". If a person is at a bar and you know they support Israel and you're "rude to them" (a subjective statement which can include telling them to re-calibrate their moral compass), then many people, myself included, think that's perfectly OK, regardless of whether that person is Jewish or not. To suggest it's somehow suddenly not OK if that person happens to be Jewish (but presumably it's fine if they're not Jewish?) is kind of ridiculous.
I say this as a Jewish person with family in Israel also, who is completely over people (many in my family included) reducing criticism of Israel or intense disapproval of Israel to "antisemitism"
You're talking about a political conversation in which people are discussing ideas. I'm talking about experiencing a situation in which people I've never even met are actively rude to me because someone told them I "support Israel". I'm perfectly willing to have a conversation about its faults and mistakes. That's not what's going on here.
One can be Jewish and not support Israel. One can condemn Israeli policies without being an antisemite. But the reason you're seeing a lot of conflation is that a lot of Jews were murdered, tortured, raped and kidnapped from their homes on 10/7, and the world took that as an opportunity to blame Israel and to discuss whether these Jews should really have a country at all. The singling out of Israel as an illegitimate state, out of all countries in the world, is antisemitic. Taking issue with its policies is one thing; taking issue with its right to exist is quite another. If only because the inescapable reality is this: The destruction of Israel would involve the deaths of millions of Jews who don't have any other country to go to. The world may not care, and you may not care, but they care, so they're not going to lay down and die.
To be clear, I was responding to the insinuation that being rude to someone at a bar due to "literally anything to do with Israel" is antisemitic if they're Jewish. Of course being specifically rude to Jewish people due to their support of Israel is antisemitic, but being rude to people who support Israel is not (we can debate whether it's productive or deserved separately).
But since you've gone out of your way to make your position here clearer, I'll offer my response:
> But the reason you're seeing a lot of conflation is that a lot of Jews were murdered, tortured, raped and kidnapped from their homes on 10/7
A lot of people, Jews and non-Jews were killed on 10/7 (perhaps you're unaware that the majority of casualties that day were not of Jews).
> and the world took that as an opportunity to blame Israel and to discuss whether these Jews should really have a country at all
"the world" really didn't jump to blaming Israel quite so unanimously on 10/7, though I'm sure those who were already fighting for Palestinian liberation, or who had a deeper awareness of the history surrounding the ongoing occupation, or who were already of the opinion that Palestinians were undergoing a genocide (prior to 10/7) likely thought it important to use the opportunity to raise awareness of the injustices Palestinians had faced since long before October 7.
My own opinion at the time was largely "I don't know too much about the history besides what I learned in my Zionist school and from clearly Zionist friends/family, but as someone who appreciated the separation of church and state in the U.S. and Canada growing up, I disagree with religious statehood and ethno-nationalism... but perhaps a lot of the criticism of Israel is driven by antisemitism also and Zionists seem very convinced that it's justified and necessary in this one specific instance because of antisemitism."
Since then, having spent much more time reading various narratives, I've come to entirely disagree with that. While yes, there is antisemitism, including among those who criticize Israel, it doesn't seem to me that it's any more common among anti-Zionists than it is among Zionists (believe it or not, many anti-semites support Israel).
Furthermore, Westerners "singling out" Israel is much more evidently explained by the Western financial and military support of Israel (in addition to tampering in other middle-eastern affairs) which has enabled a litany of horrifying atrocities inflicted upon Palestinians to continue unchecked.
> The destruction of Israel would involve the deaths of millions of Jews who don't have any other country to go to
The end of Zionism does not mean the deaths of millions of Jews, any more than the end of Nazi Germany meant the deaths of millions of Germans (incidentally, it did because so many chose to lay down their lives in its defense, or in some cases were compelled to). Beyond the casualties in the war (which if we're being honest was more about stopping Germany's expansion than about liberating people from concentration camps and death camps), only a few high-ranking Nazi officials were put to death after the fall of the third reich; beyond the executions of those convicted of war crimes, Germany was indeed able to continue existing as a state which didn't brutally oppress marginalized groups; there weren't widespread executions of ethnic Germans as some may have feared, merely an end to the unjust system of supremacy.
And this is exactly what so many who "single out" Israel are calling for; not "another genocide of Jews" as you're claiming, but a free Palestine for all.
This is the second time in this thread you've made an unfounded assumption that I must have acted a certain way or said certain things to deserve being treated badly.
As I said above, the only other Jewish person I know in the area is an absolute pacifist and he also started being treated badly by the same people, immediately following 10/7.
So gee whiz, maybe they don't like the cut of our gib for some reason other than our personal politics. This would occur to you if I told you we were the only two black people in the neighborhood right after George Floyd was murdered. I think you have a blind spot to the fact that the war has been an excuse for people to go after Jews, just like 9/11 was an excuse for America to go after Muslims, just like MS-13 is an excuse to violently deport immigrants.
The abuse started immediately after 10/7, before there was any military response from Israel, in fact while they were still trying to find missing and dead people at the music festival. The very first thing I heard from most of the antifa people was some variation of "They had it coming."
I'm not a complete pacifist like my friend. But I'm consistent in my beliefs, and I would say the same things in an Arab-owned place as I would in an all-white antifa place. The reason I say it's ironic that I'm accepted at a Lebanese place is that the owner and son have much closer personal experience with Israel and the history of the Levant, being literally from right next door and having at one point actively supported a certain jihadist organization. And with them, I can have a real conversation about the facts without any hatred or heated tempers. The irony is not that they're Arabs, it's that the overeducated yet completely ignorant white Americans down the street, who have never been to the region or had any connection to it, and who claim to be full of love and acceptance, should be the ones to turn their backs on me.
Love and acceptance, apparently, do not equate to basic tolerance. Or they don't extend to Jews.
And to clarify for you: Israel's intrinsically Jewish like Greece is Greek, or Japan is Japanese. It's indigenous homeland of the Jewish people. It's actually just less of an ethnostate in that regard, because "Jewish" is broader than a single ethnicity. I don't need to sit here and explain to you what Jewish is or who's a Jew, you can look it up. The fact that you have a problem with one particular ethno/religious state out of all the states in the Middle East and the world says plenty about your personal biases.
>I think you have a blind spot to the fact that the war has been an excuse for people to go after Jews
I don't think antisemites have ever needed excuses to justify their conduct to themselves or others. And I have yet to see any outcomes for Jews in the US or UK that even approach the consequences that Arabs and those who have vocally opposed Israel's actions have faced.
>The very first thing I heard from most of the antifa people was some variation of "They had it coming."
Imagine asking some Jewish friends in 1944 in Poland what they thought about the victims of the Home Army during the Warsaw Uprising. You have to put yourself in other peoples' shoes if you want to understand their perspective.
>And with them, I can have a real conversation about the facts without any hatred or heated tempers.
You actually can't. Arabs know very well that they are being racially scrutinized when it comes to their views about this conflict, and they all know that the best course of action is to be as loudly and visibly Not Mean To Jewish Or Israeli People. It's not a real conversation because the power balance is way off; you have the state apparatus behind you (assuming US or UK) as well as a wide range of doxxing and terrorizing organizations like Betar. There is no free speech when it comes to opinions on Israel in either country I mentioned.
>It's indigenous homeland of the Jewish people.
I'm well aware of the Blut und Boden narrative about it, and settler colonialism has made fantastic use of it many times in the past (Liberia for example). It is absolutely an ethnostate however, per its own government's legislation (the 2018 Nation-State Bill). An ethnostate can include preferential treatment to a variety of types of Jews (though not all, as many African ones are excluded or subjected to scrutiny not faced by European ones).
>The fact that you have a problem with one particular ethno/religious state out of all the states in the Middle East and the world says plenty about your personal biases.
I don't, and hell it ain't even just the Middle East. Ask me what I think about the Azeris...
>Firstly, this thread is exactly about how I've felt racially scrutinized and suspect
I'm actually not talking about thoughts and feelings at all. I'm talking about domestic murders, deportations, and similar violence both from the state and from vigilantes.
>any pro-Israel opinion which is verboten in my neighborhood
This, and the massive shift against Israel among every demographic, is a result of a well publicized series of atrocities, a series that dwarfs the 725 civilians killed during the Gazan military's Operation Al-Aqsa Flood operation in both scope and cruelty.
>Extra points for simultaneously taking away the agency of all Arabs everywhere.
It's not a matter of agency, it's a matter of power. They still have agency, and the power structure I am talking about isn't contingent; it's categorical given its racialized nature.
>You seem to understand them so well.
I do, yes.
>Tell us what they all think.
None of my categorical statements have concerned the subjectivity of Arabs, only the objective contingencies with which they are presented. Plenty of them have chosen not to hide their opinions, and they are currently being tracked and rounded up in the US as a consequence.
