Thread by @DmitryOpines

1/ Some thoughts on anti-semitism and Israel/Palestine from this secular (((Jew))).

This is not a field I have any expertise in beyond my own reflections and experiences. It's not my lane, but it is one I often get sideswiped into.

This promises to go well for me.

2/ Let me begin with a disclaimer.

Whatever one thinks of the driving factors, politics, motivations, morality or inevitabilities behind Israeli government policy, it's hard to deny some of the consequences (whether you believe them deliberate or not) have been awful.

3/ I don't think many Jews in the West would take great issue with that disclaimer. Even if one believes every action taken by successive Israeli governments was fully justified or the least-worst option, the reality of daily life in Gaza and the West Bank is clearly an affront.

4/ Most Jews in the West can understand why those passionate about human rights and justice take issue with Israeli government policy.

That many Jews find themselves defending Israel also makes them natural loci for criticism. We are accidental avatars of Israel abroad.

5/ This is normal. My American friends are sick to death of defending Trump and before him drone wars, the war on drugs, CIA interference, the Iraq war etc.

What feels different to me about Jews and Israel is the way such criticism is often phrased and positioned.

6/ "Do you support Israel?" feels substantively different to, "Do you support killer drones?"

Americans being grilled on the war on drugs rarely get asked, "Do you support the US?" Nor was opposition to the UK's presence in Iraq phrased as "I support Iraq."

7/ Yet for Jews, it can often feel like Israel's unique genesis and position has combined with a preference for shorthand among its critics to merge policy options and statehood, robbing us of the ability to take the nuanced stance open to other diasporas.

8/ Most Jews aren't experts on the Israeli/Palestinian situation. Their views amount to wanting their friends and family in Israel to be safe and prosperous, perhaps for the Jews to have a homeland, and for the whole situation to resolve itself to the satisfaction of all sides.

9/ When a question about a Jew's position on Israeli government policy is phrased as a binary support/opposition for "Israel," a Jew is placed in a position markedly different from a UK citizen being asked about the Iraq war.

It's isolating and difficult.

10/ This does not render critique of Israel anti-semitic and cries of 'anti-semitism' have been misused to silence criticism in the past.

Yet if we seem unduly sensitive, please understand anti-semitism historically rarely began as the absolutist genetic hatred of Nazi theology.

11/ Historically, attacks on Jews have come wrapped in cloaks of more specific grievance:

"Jews refuse to assimilate. They are greedy moneylenders. They take the University spots. They look down on us. They own all the media. They refuse to convert to our religion."

12/ The legitimacy of the grievances vary, but near universally they take the sins (real or imagined) of a small group of Jews and, deliberately or through linguistic laziness, use them to create a permission structure for attacking Jews collectively.

13/ This is why, as Jews living surrounded by gentiles, we get very nervous when people start running ads about shadowy financiers featuring three Jewish investors.

It's why we get scared as hell when someone suggests a Jew's political views are funded by "Israeli money."

14/ It's not because we think whoever made the ad or the suggestion genuinely believes we are Tiefling demon spawn or Mosad infiltrators.

We know they don't. We know they likely have Jewish friends and would be appalled at the suggestion of prejudice or anti-semitism.

15/ But we've also seen what can flow from leaving such insinuations unchallenged or allowing narratives and collective grievance to rot the roots we have put down in our communities.

If we seem paranoid or prone to overreaction, it's because people keep killing us.

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