In an op-ed for France’s Le Monde, Oscar-winning director Michel Hazanavicius expresses fear over the dramatic change in the way the world perceives Jewish people, as if being Jewish had become something really murky, vaguely suspect, possibly detestable.’
The famed director also questions, as others have, why Israelis and Jewish people are automatically associated with the actions of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “Why, when we put Netanyahu on trial, do I too often hear the trial of Israel, or even the trial of the Jews, instead of simply putting the extreme right on trial,” Hazanavicius asks.
a) this happens with literally every country on earth. Even your farthest left Americans still get associated with the far right nutjobs, by virtue of both being American and the human mind inherently being biased towards categorization / chunking.
b) because many of the actions that make people angry are being carried out by the IDF, and all Israelis have to serve in the IDF, making every Israeli seem complicit.
c) because Israel is not just a state filled with citizens. It is explicitly the state of the Jewish people, to the point of being an apartheid state that treats non-Jewish citizens worse, so it’s actions end up associated not just with Israelis but with Jewish people on the whole.
d) because Israelis have repeatedly elected Netanyahu to power for several decades. Regardless of him not winning a majority of the popular vote, having one guy as your country’s leader for that long (especially through repeated elections as opposed to a dictatorship), will automatically associate his actions with those of the citizens in the eyes of the rest of the world.
e) because large influential parts of the Jewish diaspora (especially in the United States), have been extremely and militantly supportive of Israel no matter what it does. Just look at the ADL and AIPAC that think that the act of comparing the actions of the Israeli government to the acts of the Nazi government to be inherently anti-Semitic. They’re quite frankly nationalist nut jobs who are trying to censor any criticism of Israel, and in the process they’ve made it look like there is actually a worldwide Jewish conspiracy.
“Why couldn’t a Jewish asshole just be an asshole? Why does every Jew who says or does something stupid have to take all his people with him? Why do I feel like, for a while now, Jews are the coolest enemies to hate? Much cooler than the Russians or the Chinese, for example.”
Maybe when Israel stops killing and abusing civilians on the scale of the Russians or Chinese, again, explicitly in the name of the Jewish people, the villainous characterizations would stop.
- Make a country associated explicitly and exclusively with a religion
- have that country commit atrocities
- watch there be an increase in deserved hate towards that country and undeserved hate towards the people of the religion it’s associated with
I don’t understand why people find the above process confusing. Do you really not understand how the average person works and thinks? Have you really not seen this same pattern play out repeatedly?
This comment has been reported and mentioned a few times. As best as I can tell, the reporter wants to remind people that it can be dangerous to associate individuals with the decisions of their government. As a comparison - should all Americans be considered to be white nationalists while Trump was in power? Reality is often much more complicated. I would remind people on this instance that we should not victim blame, and that there are going to be people who are not in alignment with the structures of power that exist. I don’t know how government works in Israel, but in the US our leaders often are not elected in line with what the populace thinks (when they do decide to vote), but heavily manipulated via Gerrymandering and voter disenfranchisement.
With all that being said, I think it’s valid to have a strong criticism of a government committing genocide. I think it’s also valid to criticize people who align with a government that commits genocide if they are not actively criticizing their own government over said genocide. I think it’s important to voice our disgust with hate and hate based violence and to be strongly critical of individuals who don’t share these values.
That’s wild that people would report a dispassionate explanation of the factors that led to the currently increased levels of antisemitism, written in response to an article asking how we got to currently increased levels of antisemitism.
My great grandparents fled Poland while it was Germany because they were Jewish. You don’t have to hate Jewish people to see how many dumb and misguided people in the world there are, and how many of them will invariably link the actions of an explicitly Jewish state with the Jewish people.
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to the point of being an apartheid state that treats non-Jewish citizens worse
Maybe in practice, but certainly not in law.
The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs states that “Arab Israelis are citizens of Israel with equal rights” and states that “The only legal distinction between Arab and Jewish citizens is not one of rights, but rather of civic duty. Since Israel’s establishment, Arab citizens have been exempted from compulsory service in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).”
This kind of article is really senseless, you are completely right. There is nothing mysterious, nothing at all to think or talk about except that Israel is committing genocide. That’s it
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I have nothing angaint anyone, or any group, just because of their religion, ancestry, government, etc.
However, when things like this pop up, it becomes increasing difficult to separate what the gov does and the citizens that support it. Especially with numbers like these:
The poll indicates that an overwhelming majority of Israelis (69%) believe it was correct to carry out the recent assassinations in Beirut and Tehran
The Maariv poll also reveals that most Israelis (57%) fear the disintegration of the social fabric in Israel following the arrest of reserve soldiers at the Sde Teiman base and, conversely, the break-ins to IDF bases by right-wing activists and Knesset members. ( the soldiers that raped/tortured all those people)
The point this guy is trying to make is that people are conflating Israel, Judaism, and Zionism in ways that don’t always make sense
Like, the polls you’re quoting are sentiments of Israelis, so this guy (and the vast majority of Jewish people in the world) are not included in those polls.
Even within Israel, that’s, what, 3-4 million people that disagree with that sentiment? And Israelis are only ~73% Jewish anyway?
On top of that, tons of zionists arent even Jewish, they are even likely to be antisemitic tbh.
So… what you said sounds a lot like “I don’t have anything against one particular group, but the sentiment of the citizens of this one country makes me second guess the perspective of a person in a totally different country just because they share one dimension of identity”… In essence, it sounds a lot like prejudice
(free palestine, in case that isn’t obvious)
I mentioned specifically citizens of Israel.
I specifically stated it becomes hard to separate the citizens that support it.
I did not say I have any opinion on the people. (Same way I do not hate Russian people.)
But, let’s say I was a Jew in Germany in 1944… Would I be prejudice for believing the Nazis and millions of citizens wanted me dead?
It’s not prejudice, it’s reality, within the state.
But, yes, free Palestine. Free Ukraine. Free Tibet, Taiwan. Free Myanmar. Free etc.
You posted the numbers. It’s not 1% or something small that people might argue is trivial. One trap of political reporting is that people conflate a country name with it’s military or its current leadership or its people. That inevitably leads to extrapolation and unwarranted conclusions.
Of course this is not unique to Israel. It happens all the time. And it’s not OK, but many people are lazy and others are manipulative, so the best we can do is be aware of the tendency to equivocate.
@downpunxx In his defense, the issue is not with Judaism but with the current government of Israel. There are plenty of people jumping at the chance of muddying the waters and conjoin both groups as inseparable.
Chief among them, the Israeli government.
The leading party (Likud) and it’s ultra-orthodox partners (e.g. UTJ) regularly make overtures about non-Orthodox, non-Israeli Jews not being “real” Jews.
Paywalled, pointless.
