There were some good replies in there, but mostly I thought it was disappointing. I guess it’s probably fine to just tell someone to fuck off because it’s a community management issue, but I think it’s good to try to have some engagement with arguments to both understand your own positions and to be ready to refute things when it actually matters. I tried responding, but in the time it took me to write something, the thread was deleted.
You probably won’t find this compelling, but I think that it’s good in cases where someone seems sincere and shares several of our values that at least a little effort is made to re-educate them. It’s simply to our advantage for more people to agree with us. The OP was antisemitic, but it got worse in the comments, where they assigned collective guilt to Jews in general because there were a number of Jewish Nazi collaborators before the Nazis really started with the Holocaust. I think this is a stronger indication that the poster was unsalveagable as far as a forum is concerned, because I think they are just motivated by a seething resentment of Jews, but I’m curious how they would respond to the self-evident charge of them assigning collective guilt to an ethnicity, something that is really fucked.
Anyway, I don’t mean this as an indictment of people who aren’t the aforementioned antisemite, I just wanted to mention a thought I had and also make my comment from before:
useless comment
Why are you still centering the “uncomfortable” feelings of a group that overwhelmingly supports genocide?
This is a deranged argument that, on its own, merits your banning. The popularity of Zionism among Jews does not negate the question of ethnic discrimination, and the logic that you are using here could easily be pogromism. “Why aren’t we taking violent action against a group that overwhelmingly supports genocide? Never mind that the “group” being talked about isn’t a coherent political entity or even a coherent community, but an ethnic group!” Also, even if we counterfactually said that directing antisemitism against zios is okay (it is not!), there are still many Jews who closely identify with their Jewishness and are ardent anti-zionists!
Because you’re using an inversion of a common zionist argument, let me use the inversion of its counter: The vast majority of people who are uncomfortable with the burning of a Star of David are not Jewish, and I’m willing to bet that the majority aren’t Zionists either (or they at least oppose the genocide but may or may not understand that it’s the inevitable expression of what Israel is). A lot of people object to the inciting of ethnic hatred, and you yourself recognize that the Star of David is different in this respect from a cross, because you single out Jews as an ethnicity to tar and trample on, but when discussing the burning of St. George’s cross on the English flag, you relate us to the KKK because of their burning crosses in front of black churches (etc.). Those two things (England’s flag and KKK rituals) have nothing to do with each other and are just superficially connected by the floating signifier of the cross, with no specific connection to something like an ethnicity because it is being extended very cross-ethnically (pun not intended), and hypothetically also applies to Arab Christians, to LatAm Christians, and so on. Regardless, around the world in many different countries, many people object to inciting ethnic hatred and they also object to genocide, e.g. in China, so the idea that the objectors are all Jews is completely false.
Also obviously this shit gets used as a cover for antisemitism, like in your case as you reveal by assigning collective guilt to Jews because like 70% of them according to some polls support Israel, as though that means the other 30% are chaff! (Never mind the other problems with this logic)
Not having a true israel-cool emoji is basically conceding the point to Zionists that they and their flag is a proper representation of Judaism. I don’t get the hangup when we know the context of what we ourselves are doing.
Communication isn’t just about intention, it is also about reception, and the imagery of ritually burning a Star of David – regardless of the context – is a rhetorical hazard. Obviously if you’re blowing up a Merkava, no one is saying you’re doing a hate crime by incinerating a Star of David that the IDF painted on it, but if you’re dragging out ritual symbols to destroy as effigies, then including the Star is undesirable. That in no way concedes that Israel is a proper representation of Judaism. The symbol is appropriated, and like any appropriated symbol, the real concession is treating it merely as a symbol of the appropriator.
This is the most embarrassing lib-left tut-tutting I’ve ever received.
but if you’re dragging out ritual symbols to destroy as effigies, then including the Star is undesirable.
The flag itself has the symbol in it. I and others know the difference between just burning a Star of David and burning the Israeli flag. Thinking otherwise is reactionary, like believing you’ll make God angry by deposing Tsar Nicholas, that the Tsar truly represents The Lord’s command for him to rule over Russia. It’s just wacky.
So tell me, Will you be tut-tutting the Iranians next?
How about cancelling these Palestinians too? They included the symbol, tell 'em off! Fuck em! Someone from the ADL should tell Johnathan Greenblatt that it was this easy to bring the left in line all along, just show them what the real 3rd world practices.
