apparently the u.s. congress is once again considering a bill to classify criticism of israel as antisemitism. this is, of course, more ridiculous even than ever before. whether it's sebastian gorka or steve bannon, antisemites are israel's best friends nowadays.
you simply can't get a lot of Jews to give the sort of unwavering loyalty that israel's far-right government demands. that's not in our character. when the rabbi reads from the torah everyone stands around and corrects him. authoritarianism is not in our genes. only evangelicals and nazis are willing to give the sort of support netanyahu craves.
of course it is possible to get a large number of Jews to go along with netanyahu's nonsense, because a lot of them do so in israel. but it requires the sort of brainwashing that can only be administered by mandatory military service. american Jews, thankfully, are not subjected to such affronts to our dignity and soul. that's why support for israel generally comes from extreme fundamentalists and opportunistic fascists who see Jews as the ideal buffer between white europeans and Muslims.
in other words, people who think Jews are going to be judged and condemned to the lake of fire soon after getting the promised land back, and people who think Jews should fuck off to our own country and not pollute the aryan race. so antisemites, in traditional terms.
@kittybecca And amongst Christian fundamentalists who want all the prerequisites for Armageddon as set forth in the Book of Revelation to take place.
little known fact. that's been true since day one.
https://archive.org/details/AlbertEinsteinLetterToTheNewYorkTimes.December41948
if the term semitic is used to describe all semites, and not just jews, then suddenly they wouldn't be able to speak at all, because arabs are also semitic people.
@thunder the relation of the word "antisemitism" to Jews is based in 19th-century politics and discredited racial theories. it was coined by german antisemites, not by Jews, as a sophisticated way of saying they supported the advancement of the aryan race against semitic intruders, instead of just saying "we hate Jews."
arguments about who the word antisemitism applies to ignore this history, seeking to derail discussions with an ahistoric analysis of the word.
@thunder semitic people don't really exist at all. semitic languages exist, but the false belief that a language community is attached to any specific lineage or even specific culture is bad science.
@thunder such bad science was also the root of the idea behind the aryan race, as at the time, aryan was the common word used for Indo-European.
it's fair to say israel enjoys far more support among antisemites than it does among american Jews.