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PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   26788 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 22, 2024

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Yes, the idea that the left-wing anti-Israel protests in the US are essentially motivated by antisemitism seems silly to me given that I feel like I actually have a decent amount of experience with the kind of people who go to these protests. Granted, I am removed from my experiences with these kinds of people by quite a few years at this point, but I doubt that college-aged left-wing protesters are very different nowadays from what they were like the last time I was commonly encountering them.

I say "in the US" because it might be different in Europe, I can't speak to that. Europe has a very different history with antisemitism than the US does.

I have no doubt that a decent fraction of the actual Arabs and Muslims who go to these protests in the US are anti-semitic, but I also think that that only a tiny fraction of the rest of the protesters are.

To me it seems that the typical naive young college student SJW leftist not only has not a single bone of anti-Jew sentiment in his or her body, they probably don't even think much about Jews as an ethnic group to begin with. This is true of most Americans. The majority of American gentiles barely even realize that, for example, white people with curly hair or names that end in -berg or -stein are likely to be Jewish. They just think of Jews as a flavor of white people, and they rarely think about them as an ethnic group to begin with. They know that the Holocaust targeted Jews, of course, but they rarely think about the Holocaust, or about any other historical event for that matter. In the US, discussing Jews as an ethnic group is something that is mainly done by three groups: Jews themselves, highly pro-Israel Christians, and highly online alt-rightists. Maybe also to some extent by black people, but I am not familiar enough with black attitudes towards Jews to weigh in on that.

The average young college protester freely mingles with Jewish people in personal life and enjoys Jewish artists without having the slightest bit of prejudice towards them. In many cases, the protester does not even realize that his/her friend, or that musician he/she listens to, is Jewish to begin with. In other cases he/she does realize it, but does not care about it any more than he/she would care about a friend having red hair, for example.

It is of course possible that my experience with college-aged protesters is simply out of date and I am stuck in the past. I wouldn't advise anyone to make decisions that could affect life or limb based on my recollections. But to me, the idea that college leftists have actually become antisemitic seems absurd. There would have been no precedent for it 10 or 20 years ago, even though college leftists hated Israel back then too.

I have no doubt that a decent fraction of the actual Arabs and Muslims who go to these protests in the US are anti-semitic, but I also think that that only a tiny fraction of the rest of the protesters are.

The problem for Jews is that, under the progressive framework, they have absolutely no cause to criticize someone beneath them on the oppression hierarchy, so those Muslims may be a minority, but they cannot be questioned.

I think it actually could become a problem in that the far left and far right are in pretty strong agreement on the accusations against the Jews, that they’re manipulating narratives to their own benefit, and that they only care about themselves. The left has absolutely blamed all Jews for the actions of Israel, and they don’t seem to care what Hamas and other Palestinians have done or want to do. There’s barely even a whisper of blame on Hamas for launching the attacks or holding hostages or the crimes committed during the attack. And when you couple that with full support of the intifada, chanting of the slogans that deny Israel’s right to exist,

Personally, I think most of the Gaza situation is on Lakud which isn’t all Israelis and has little to do with Jews who don’t support Lakud or Natanyahu.

The left has absolutely blamed all Jews for the actions of Israel, and they don’t seem to care what Hamas and other Palestinians have done or want to do.

I agree about the "they don’t seem to care what Hamas and other Palestinians have done or want to do" part, but not about the "The left has absolutely blamed all Jews for the actions of Israel" part. Where are you seeing this?

To me, it seems obvious that the anti-Israel left is sweeping Hamas' atrocities under the rug. However, I haven't seen any reason to think that the anti-Israel left, in general, is blaming all Jews for Israel's actions.

The problem for the antisemitic far right is that their allegation is that the entire ideology upon which the leftists base their support for Palestine (and BLM, and affirmative action, and DEI, and taking in refugees and so on) was invented and bestowed upon them by Jews. This creates an internal contradiction [edit: for any leftists they might ally with] that is very difficult to bridge. In addition, the white nationalist far right has no message for brown or black leftists (including Muslims) beyond “leave”, which again would make a coalition difficult.

The far left has successfully forgotten that their entire moral framework was created by Christianity. They have successfully forgotten that their entire intellectual framework was created by enlightenment era European men from colonialist countries. They have successfully forgotten that their constitutional republic was created by white male slaveowners. They hate all those demographics now without any cognitive dissonance or ambiguity. I don’t think they will have any problems scrubbing away the memory that a lot of the luminaries of the modern civil rights and feminist movements were Jewish.

You can oppose stuff—even hate it—without forgetting anything.

There's a difference between ignoring the historical roots of your current ideology, on the one hand, and allying with people you currently consider to be despicable evil Nazis, on the other.

They haven't forgotten any of those things,otherwise they wouldn't want problematic statues torn down would they? Because they would have forgotten those people were slave owners. They know who did what, they just think the bad things they did outweigh the good.

It’s the same logic extended one more step. Recognizing that Israel isn’t living up to those ideals or even pretending to puts Jews on the negative of DEI.

This creates an internal contradiction for them

For the far right?

They don’t think so. In fact they’ve been anticipating this situation for years, see the parable of the golem.

No, for the far left (who do not, for obvious reasons, see their ideology and worldview as Jewish trickery)! I understand that was unclear, and edited my answer.

Europe has a very different history with antisemitism than the US does.

No, it really doesn't. Before and during WW2, antisemitism was common across the present 'western world'.

In a 1938 poll, approximately 60 percent of the respondents held a low opinion of Jews, labeling them "greedy," "dishonest," and "pushy."[42] 41 percent of respondents agreed that Jews had "too much power in the United States," and this figure rose to 58 percent by 1945.[43] Several surveys taken from 1940 to 1946 found that Jews were seen as a greater threat to the welfare of the United States than any other national, religious, or racial group.[44]

Government attitudes to Jews in Europe also varied wildly, even among German allies. Finland told Germans to pound sand. Italy refused to hand over their Jews -that 30% of Italian Jews were members of the Fascist party had something to do with it & transports started only after the German occupation.

There is a big difference between prejudice and actual discrimination. Until 1932 many Jews felt Anglos (including Americans) were more antisemitic than Germans, but of course it was Germany that produced the Nazis. After 9/11 polling would have showed Americans as broadly very hostile to Muslims and Arabs in particular (see the ubiquity of early 2000s bro humor about them), but Islamic immigration increased over the period and there were no attempts to even somewhat institutionally discriminate against them and most Americans were relatively tolerant of individual Muslims. The English elite had widespread sympathies to nordicist racialist theories of men like Madison Grant in the late 19th and early 20th century but again were relatively fine with tolerating various groups of foreigners (including Eastern European Jews) moving to London.

The English speaking countries are more individualist and tolerant of difference even where they are equally prejudiced compared to other European-majority lands.

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