Is this anti-semitism?

maybe? i didn't see the end. the narrator said they went on to attack a military installation of some kind. hopefully there wasn't a school in the way!

xpost lol

dear israel: get a fucking grip on yourself

yeah saw the same clip, dead soldier ensues, doubtless used as justification for another day of slaughter to rival the images of dead and wounded Palestinian families that preceded it, doubtless to be used as justification for etc and just fuck it for a heartbreaking mess obv.

http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/israel-goes-alone-2

To some extent, such sentiments are a reflex action from a nation at war, albeit a limited war in which the vast majority of casualties are on the other side. But the criticisms of Obama also represent something deeper and more lasting: an increasingly assertive Israel that views itself as justified in its actions, besieged by international critics, and capable of following its own course without having to seek approval.

even chait is growing uncomfortable

Chait OTM. And the article he refers to, The Explosive, Inside Story of How John Kerry Built an Israel-Palestine Peace Plan—and Watched It Crumble is a great read, and I would recommend it to anyone who is somewhat interested in the conflict.

is this srsly the only thread we have about the current gaza insanity?

Rolling MENA 2014

ahhhhh thx

gross:
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/bondi-racist-bus-attack-jewish-schools-on-alert-after-eight-men-threaten-to-cut-schoolchildrens-throats/story-fni0cx4q-1227015860427?nk=bc39ea6bef378c090a66e7fe394370eb

Awesome. I've got nominally Jewish family in Australia. Let's see if this makes them and their little kids feel more or less Jewish.

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/aug/07/antisemitism-rise-europe-worst-since-nazis?CMP=twt_fd

hmm yes i think that is indeed anti-semitism

Just checking

Anti-Jewish hatred is rising – we must see it for what it is

http://gu.com/p/4vjcz

I don't know what Jacobin is worth but this article is otm, perhaps the best description of french anti-semitism I've read: The Anti-Zionism of Fools

I think it's fair to say that anti-Jewish feeling in the Muslim world has long (been in large part tied to zionism, but also that these things tend to take on a life of their own. That's why you get "hitler was right," "gas the jews" etc. in protests ostensibly "just" about Palestine. It's not a new thing at this point, it just tends to reach a frothy head when Israel gets violent. And a large part of the "new anti-semitism" in Europe is coming from Muslim immigrants.

Hurting, did you read what Van Horn Street posted? According to the article, in the French protests, it's highly questionable whether 'gas the jews' were shouted as later reported, and the clashes was to a large extent caused by a confrontation with JDF, an Jewish ultra-right wing organization which in the US is classified as terrorists, but in France is being protected by police.

There's been another round of articles in Denmark on anti-semitism in immigrant neighbourhoods this week. Radio journalists walked those streets wearing a yarmulk, and was shouted at and followed around. The media was in an uproar, an local politicians extraordinarily met to discuss the problem. Contrast this with news of muslim women being attacked for wearing scarfs, which mainly caused a shrug, plus indignated right-wing politicians writing that it's their own fault since they could just take off their scarf.

Like, anti-semitism in Europe is clearly a very real and rising problem. But compared to the institutionalized anti-muslim/anti-arab opresion, and compared to the quite frankly stunning amount of vile anti-immigrant sentiment that is allowed in public discourse, it's not that big of a problem. Which does not in itself take away from the problem with anti-semitism, that other groups are more opressed, but keep in mind that a lot of reports are coming from media biased against arabs and immigrants. And is 100% used by political actors to justify discrimination and racism.

I'm familiar with the story about the JDF provocation at one particular incident, but there were a number of incidents. BTW, an interesting point in re my above post -- the now semi-famous Belgian café sign said "No Zionists" in French but "No Jews" in Turkish. I don't really understand what "muslims experience even greater discrimination in Europe" has to do with anti-Semitism. I don't think anyone should get attacked for wearing a headscarf, but it's not Jews (at least not primarily afaik), a far smaller minority than muslims in Europe, attacking muslims for wearing headscarves.

The story about 'rising tide of anti-semitism' is overreported in Europe due to anti-arab discrimination, and is in turn used by political actors to justify further anti-arab discrimination. They are intrinsically linked. Just keep that in mind when discussing it.

Like, if I seem blasé about stories of specific anti-semitic behaviour in Europe, it's often because I've seen the exact same behaviour vented against muslims, only nobody cared.

sound

I don't want to minimize attacks on muslims in any way, let alone encourage them, but I can't really be "blase" about attacks on Jews by muslims in order to assuage my conscience. Jews may be an overrepresented minority, but they're a very small one compared to Muslims in nearly every european country. There have already been a number of murders of Jews by extremist muslims in Europe in the last few years.

And in spite of that, I usually hate articles that take a hysterical tone, claiming there's a "new naziism" on the rise, or that Jews are "no longer safe" in Europe. That seems almost certainly an exaggeration.

it's certainly true that many jews no longer feel safe in europe.
http://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/179423/hundreds-of-french-immigrants-arrive-in-israel

tabletmag trying to make me pass a captcha security check because they think i'm infected with malware or something.

this has to be because I clicked "no" on the last couple pop-ups that asked me if I was very interested in Jewish news.

Nothing to be blasé about with what happened in Toulouse 2 years ago. The idea here is to understand how rampant islamophobia is connected to anti-semitism, and not to compare the two phenomenon like Fred B did.

Speaking for the France specificity, if large numbers of the islamic youth would have better access to jobs, education and dignity they so very deserve, they wouldn't need to vent on a target made easy by dangerous figures like Soral and Dieudonné. One part of anti-semitism would be sufficiently marginalized and that part of anti-semitism, is the one that gathers media attention.

it's certainly true that many jews no longer feel safe in europe.

...and they view Israel as inherently safer? Either the rocket attacks into Israel are far less dangerous than they are portrayed in the US media, or these French emigrants are badly deluded.

lol what US media are you watching? the rocket attacks are portrayed in all the US media i watch as having inflicted very few injuries

you may have heard about this thing called the iron dome?

There was a 62 percent increase in French rates of immigration to Israel in 2013—3,289 French Jews made aliyah, up from 1,917 the year before—and according to the Jewish Agency for Israel, which organizes these mass aliyah trips, those numbers are liking to keep increasing. They’re expecting 5,000 olim, or Jewish immigrants to Israel, this year.

What exactly are they leaving behind? Well, during one week in June, a Jewish teenager wearing a yarmulke and tzitzit was attacked with an electric Taser by a group of teens; two similarly-attired teens were chased by a man with an ax; and another two teens were sprayed with tear gas.

In May, a Jewish woman with a baby was attacked at a Paris bus station by a man who shouted “Dirty Jewess” at her. In March, a Jewish teacher leaving a kosher restaurant in Paris had his nose broken and a swastika drawn on his chest; an Israeli man was attacked with a stun gun outside a Paris synagogue; and a Jewish man was beaten on the Paris metro to chants of “Jew, we are going to lay into you, you have no country.” In January, anti-government demonstrators shouted “Jew, France is Not Yours” as they marched through the streets of Paris

As I get older I feel like there are fewer and fewer things I like about France

I realize I'm not speaking from Europe here, but it seems to me like the classic unemployment/access/frustration argument misapprehends important parts of the dynamic here. The countries from which most muslims emigrate have enormously high levels of anti-Jewish attitudes, in fact, far worse than among muslim communities in europe -- those countries have virtually no Jews and their attitudes result from a combination of anti-Israel feeling, demagoguery, lack of exposure to actual Jews, and the persistence of anti-semitic propaganda like Protocols of the Elders of Zion. If anything, moving to europe where there are actual Jews and where education is different seems to moderate anti-Jewish feeling, although it remains somewhat high. I can also understand why a person who felt personally tied to Palestine could wind up feeling angry at Jews, especially when a lot of Jews do support Israel. But as I said, these things can take a life of their own. Yes, giving muslims greater access to mainstream society will help, no it's not the whole problem. No, I don't think we're anywhere close to another holocaust, yes, I would be afraid to send my daughter to the Jewish daycare center down the block if there had just been mobs marching through my neighborhood shouting "gas the Jews."

Morocco and Tunisia don't have enormously high levels of anti-Jewish attitudes, in the case of those two countries lots of french jews (dominantly sephardic) still have intense connections to Morocco and Tunisia, most of the time even bigger than Israel itself and they travel back and forth without fear. Obviously, it is a bit different in the case of Algeria. Also, immigrants from the same countries come to Quebec every day and we are a million miles away from hearing such chants in the streets.

And the situation in every european state is different. So no.

And I'm not trying to make some facile comparison. I'm trying to explain, that not a week goes by without something anti-muslim happening in Denmark, from muslim women being harrassed in the streets to politicians tweeting that muslims are like Hitler and should be stopped the same way, to insane legislation being proposed (just this week the biggest party announced that they will pull Denmark out of any international convention that would get in the way of dealing with immigrants. No protests on the other side. Also, conditions for asylum seekers, which is already pretty dreadful, should be worsened until we get significantly fewer asylum seekers). So to be told by Americans that our problem is in fact with anti-semitism is sorta frustrating. Because it's not. France is different, but Europe is more than France.

And I get why you guys - I'm guessing a lot of you are Jewish? - are focusing more on anti-semitism than anti-arabism, but if you were muslims living in Denmark, and read and wrote so much about the conditions of muslims in other parts of the world, politicians would lament that you were only interested in people of your own faith and that it pointed to bad integration. Because Denmark has a massive problem with discrimination of muslims.

I understand this and you are otm. I am just saying that in France, islamophobia and anti-semitism are two sides of the same coin, that it's one big problem.

Also I'd like to say that all the jews I know in France feel very safe, way safer than most arabs.

Am I right, though, that a large contingent of immigrant groups in Europe are also Muslim? It seems like the anti-Muslim sentiment stems at least in part from strong strains of anti-immigrant sentiment. The anti-semitism, on the other hand, obviously preceded Israel and focused on an indigenous (albeit still "other") group; one of the main reasons Israel exists is that there was no other country for the Jews to "go back" to. (Interestingly, Denmark specifically had one of the best relationships with its (admitedelly small) Jewish population c. WWII.)

The anti-Muslim sentiment may also stem in part from the (relative) proliferation of Islamic extremism throughout Europe, too, if not extremists in deed then certainly extreme in viewpoint and political disposition. (Denmark obviously had that whole cartoonist incident). I think a lot of Western European countries are a bit torn when it comes to their Muslim populations, who indeed are often ghetto-ized, sometimes by choice but sometimes by default, with no effort at integration (again, sometimes by choice, sometimes not).

Judaism, as a culture and as a religion, can I think be pretty subtle to outsiders, My sister, who is nominally Jewish but not religious, lives in England, and says, purely anecdotally, that a lot of people she encounters can't process how somehow can be both Jewish and not religious. Then again, she also tells me about Jewish friends who have Christmas trees, because it's so totally secular that everyone has Christmas trees, to which I cry BS. There are clearly social pressures at work to default Christian, no matter how many people claim to be secular. I've seen the same thing with family in Australia. Religion plays such a small public role there, and yet, every kid is expected to dress in red and green and participate in the annual school Christmas show. Because, you know, doesn't mean anything, secular, etc.

"It seems like the anti-Muslim sentiment stems at least in part from strong strains of anti-immigrant sentiment. The anti-semitism, on the other hand, obviously preceded Israel and focused on an indigenous (albeit still "other") group"

in an old piece reposted recently Badiou addresses this:

http://www.versobooks.com/blogs/1676-anti-semitism-real-and-imagined-by-alain-badiou-and-eric-hazan

Before the War, the majority of Jews were foreigners who had arrived from Poland, Lithuania or Romania, who spoke Yiddish and belonged to the poorest section of the working class: they were the Arabs and Africans of their day. Nowadays, Jews are pretty well 'integrated', and this kind of anti-Semitism and racism finds other targets.

This anti-Semitism of the 1930s was, in fact, a component of the same anti-popular sentiment that still stigmatizes the most recent arrivals in France. In the nineteenth century, it was the Auvergnats, Bretons, Italians and Savoyards; after the 1914–18 War, the Poles, the Jews from the east, the Spanish; after the Second World War, the Portuguese and, with a strong additional racist component which was exacerbated by the colonial wars, the Algerians and Moroccans – today the Malians and Congolese. Without grasping this continuity it is impossible to understand either pre-WWII anti-Semitism or the present situation. This is an element which is still able to resurge, even at the state level, with a view to stoking up resentment against a poor section of the population: a very classic manoeuvre of anti-popular division, which struck a large section of Jews before the Second World War and is practised today against those people called 'immigrants'

"The anti-Muslim sentiment may also stem in part from the (relative) proliferation of Islamic extremism throughout Europe, too, if not extremists in deed then certainly extreme in viewpoint and political disposition."

Or...it could do with racism or xenophobia?!

"I think a lot of Western European countries are a bit torn when it comes to their Muslim populations, who indeed are often ghetto-ized, sometimes by choice but sometimes by default, with no effort at integration (again, sometimes by choice, sometimes not)."

Interesting that you place "choice" first while the influence of state policy (or "default" as you call it) is secondary, almost an afterthought. I think you have that relationship backwards, and the effect is that it seems like you think Islamophobia is at least ~partly~ justified - after all, so many of them hold Islamists views and didn't make an effort to integrate into European liberal democracy!

Like Christmas has anything to do with Christianity... maybe in America it still does.(xp)

"The anti-Muslim sentiment may also stem in part from the (relative) proliferation of Islamic extremism throughout Europe, too, if not extremists in deed then certainly extreme in viewpoint and political disposition.

This reads like Geert Wilders tbh. Proliferation?

Like Christmas has anything to do with Christianity... maybe in America it still does.

Yeah, in America it still does. Who gets inflamed when somebody writes a "Happy Holidays" card in order to be inclusive of Jews? Not protectors of America's secular civic culture, I can tell you that.

The thing about immigrants vs muslims is pretty interesting. The whole reason the right wants to withdraw Denmark from the international conventions is because those conventions will only allow Denmark to make laws hurting immigrants as a whole, while they want to specify that muslims should be treated worse than other. Like, there is a law limiting marriages to foreigners, and everyone knows people who has had to move to Sweden as a result (my friend married a Russian, and my cousin with dual Danish-Japanese citizenship couldn't get her family to the country, for instance) The law was controversial as a result, so now the right just wants to limit the ability to marry a muslim. There's a constant effort to make Denmark more attractive to the high-earning, western immigrant, so the question is always how to do this while still being tough on muslims.

And it's a bit misleading to call Jews 'indigenous' to Denmark. They were obviously immigrants as well (as was pretty much everyone, I'm descended from German immigrants as well) and their integration really began in 1814, where they were acknowledged as being fully Danish citizens by the king, on the condition that they stopped wearing Jewish clothing, speaking yiddish, etc. Which really is early, Norway forbid Jewish immigration at around the same time, so...

Denmark definitely has a problem with islamism, kids fighting in Syria, foiled terrorist attacks, etc, but while most islamophobes would justify their racism that way, it shouldn't be taken at face value. Again, it's why it annoys me that all this talk about anti-semitic muslims is accepted at face value by foreigners: It's part of a story about 'extremist muslims' which is used to justify racist discrimination. When you get down to it, most of the non-danish behaviour that muslims do is stuff like not eating pork (which isn't a problem when Jews do the same), being anti-gay (which isn't a problem when christians think the same) etc.

Like, there is a law limiting marriages to foreigners, and everyone knows people who has had to move to Sweden as a result (my friend married a Russian, and my cousin with dual Danish-Japanese citizenship couldn't get her family to the country, for instance)

whoa, did not know this.

also did not know that

It's not an outright ban (once your older than 24), but it can be tough to live up to the rules.

there's a growing strand of thought on the left here in france that france should turn its attention more to the maghreb and west africa, and less to the_west, since linguistically the french have an edge in africa that other european nations don't have. this would concomitantly involve stronger attempts at integrating french people of ancestry from those places into french civil life. I've been ~thinking about that~ while watching the gaza protests in the last month (saw a little one here in marseille, & heard one a bigger one from a distance across the jardin de luxembourg in paris). thinking : how would this turn, if successful (obv lol @ that, it's the left in france), affect anti-semitism here? I've been walking with a friend in a luxe quarter in paris, on the rue de seine, with an orthodox american friend who was dressed like it; and he got verbally abused by a guy on the street; at least in paris, anti-semitism is an overt thing. (dunno about marseille yet, though we live close enough to the center that I'll find out soon enough I'm sure.)

I think France especially has a mistrust of anyone who holds themselves out as anything other than 100% secular and culturally French, hence there also being the headscarf ban. A family member who lived there for a while said that even as a purely secular Jew she had arguments with educated people about why she maintained any Jewish identity at all, something that Americans just don't seem to do, if only out of our weird aversion to discussing religion or politics publicly. So there's that *and* there's anti-Jewish sentiment in the muslim community. Being a minority group never ceases to be problematic, even when prosperity brings periods of safety, and the liberal philosophical position against "all" discrimination never seems to prevent people from considering some forms of discrimination as more worthy than others. It seems like Frederik's point is that right now Europe is still treating anti-Semitism as more worthy than anti-Islamism, which is probably true. euler is pointing out that a country can pretty easily flip the two if it becomes politically expedient.

xpost I in no way intended to justify islamophobia, just saying that I see where it sometimes comes from. That is, xenophobia (which I've always thought of as interchangeable with anti-immigrant). And part of my observation was based in misconceptions I have from an American vantage. That is, I was thinking of "Europe" as a whole, and didn't really consider (though I suppose should have) movement from Germany or Poland to Denmark, or Denmark to Sweden, as immigration, writ large. I admit I never thought of movement within Europe as "immigration," in the more dramatic, say, Africa to Europe, or Mexico to America sense, though of course it is.

Anti-semitism, though, frequently comes from, imo, a deeper place, whether explicitly couched in ancient church doctrine (Jews killed Jesus), or the spread of propaganda (Protocols, etc.). Many, too many, people just don't like Muslims, or blame some Muslims for what other Muslims do elsewhere, or aren't comfortable around Muslims. But Jew hatred seems different to me, going beyond prejudice. Dunno.

xposting I don't know who Geert Wilders is, but I assume he's bad and he was invoked as a criticism. To clarify again, I mean proliferation in the sense that I read stories of so-called "radical mosques," or "radical Imams" coming out of England, France, Denmark, wherever. It's once again my ignorant American location working against me. "Radical" mosques would not even stand a chance in a country as Islamophobic as ours. "Moderate" mosques have a hard enough time. So when I read about the former's existence at all throughout Europe, yeah, the word proliferation came to mind. Just that they're there at all, and relatively new, though of course not in high numbers. So my mistake.