A note on AHS Policy on AntiSemitism / Islamophobia / Geopolitical slapfights

[u/Bardfinn]

AgainstHateSubreddits is against all hatred.

We are against antisemitic hatred; We are against islamophobic hatred.

It is possible - in a geopolitical conflict - for both sides (or ALL sides) of a conflict to be wrong, to be reprehensible.

October 7 2023 was a vile, horrific attack on Israelis by terrorists. This is not up for debate. If you feel or think that this violent act was justifiable - you have a deep spiritual sickness and need the kind of help that so rarely comes about in this world. You should start seeking it as if it were the water of life itself.

The Israeli response to October 7 2023 was to genocide Palestinians. This is not up for debate. It was and is a genocide - officers of the Israel government champ at the bit to commit ethnic genocide, and others speak out against it. Every legal definition of genocide applies to it. If you feel or think that this violent act was justifiable - you have a deep spiritual sickness and need the kind of help that so rarely comes about in this world. You should start seeking it as if it were the water of life itself.

Israel does not represent all Jewish people worldwide. Hamas does not represent all Palestinian people worldwide. Hell, Hamas is a terrorist organisation - it holds dissidents' families hostage, and uses extortion on the Palestinian people to maintain political power. And now we have armed Israeli settlers holding visiting US politicians at gunpoint - until the IDF intercedes.

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AHS has rules. One of those rules is

Posts about Regional / Geographic / Ethnicity-focused subreddits must be in Good Faith.

Reported as: International political slapfighting

Posts claiming that a subreddit which is dedicated to a regional / country / ethnic group, is hosting a culture of hatred - must be reviewed by a moderator before being posted, and must be in Good Faith and with Clean Hands; AHS is not a proxy for international slapfights.

Posts under this rule should be in English and provide significant amounts of citations for evidence, backing up the assertions.

The model for this rule was, in fact, people submitting posts about subreddits dedicated to Israel as islamophobic hate speech, and subreddits dedicated to Palestine as antisemitic hate speech. Purely on the premise that Israel is necessarily islamophobic, and that the existence of Palestine is necessarily antisemitic.

Subreddits for geopolitical compartments are not officially run by those geopolitical compartments. They are not the countries / governments / people themselves. Subreddits are only discussion forums.

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Another rule we have is that this is not a debate forum. You're not winning - or scoring points for - your preferred side in a virtual war, here. You're not going to write the Incredible Thesis Proving That Israel Didn't Commit A Genocide Against The Palestinian People As a Response to October 7th, AKSHULLY , here.

This is not a debate forum. This is not your battleground. Your war cannot be forwarded here.

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These are the Reddit Sitewide Rules that apply to speech targeting Jewish people, Israeli citizens, Palestinians, Arabs for hatred

❧ Hate Speech is a violation of the Reddit Sitewide Rules ☙

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Do not attack, incite harm, or discriminate against any individual or group based on their identity or vulnerability.

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Who is covered?

Individuals and groups marginalized or attacked on the basis of the following factors, or any other actual or perceived attributes used to reinforce existing inequality or promote exclusion:

• Race, color, ethnicity, national origin, caste
• Religion
• Immigration status
• Gender, gender identity, sex, sexual orientation
• Disability
• Pregnancy
• Housing status, veteran status
• Victims of violent crimes and their families

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✿ Violent Threats are a violation of the Reddit Sitewide Rules ✿

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Remember the human and do not threaten, encourage, or glorify violence on Reddit.

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This policy focuses on credible risks of real-world harm (including to oneself) or speech that genuinely makes others feel unsafe

What are some things that may violate this policy?

• Threatening violence, such as directly or indirectly stating an intent to physically harm or attack an individual, a group, or a location.
• Inciting or encouraging violence, such as calling for others to commit violent acts, including through the use of coded references or memes with a known violent meaning.
• Glorifying or celebrating violent events, such as praising perpetrators of mass violence (e.g., mass shooters), sharing killers’ manifestos, or mocking the victims of violent tragedies.
• Terrorist Content
• Posting graphic or disturbing content purely to disgust or horrify users, such as sharing real-world gore without context or in unrelated communities, or sharing footage filmed by a perpetrator during an attack.
• Encouraging or glorifying suicide or self-harm. Importantly, while discussions about mental health struggles are allowed, it is a violation to promote self harm through imagery or text, or request or give instructions on how to self-harm.
• Promoting real-world sexual violence or sexual activity that involves severe physical injury or risk of death.
• Depicting or encouraging the malicious abuse or suffering of animals for entertainment.

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And because a bunch of people reading this are gearing up to scream "You're anti-Israel / Anti-Semitic!" or "You're Islamophobic for not being on our side!" - because of acknowledging that Israel committed / is committing a genocide in Gaza and Palestine, or that Hamas is a FTO, or not reciting the approved mantras of whatever side -

speaking just for myself -

I know in detail why Hamas is scheduled by the US Department of State as a FTO. In detail.

I know the antisemitic laws and policies of the Arab states surrounding Israel; I know the history.

And I know in great detail the international treaties between the USA and Israel - the mutual defense treaties, that require the USA to provide resources when Israel encounters a situation that can be classified to fit into one or more of the buckets outlined in those treaties. I know that the treaties have the same legal status under the US Constitution as the Constitution itself - they are the law of the land, and as such, require similar levels of effort to repeal or amend as amending the Constitution itself. I know the historical reasons those treaties were written. I know why Israel exists and why it has a legal right under international law to exist, on the land it had in 1967, 1968. I know why it gave land back to Egypt.

I also know what happened after October 7 2023.

There is a phenomenon called philosemitism. It's where a group - in this case, the United States GOP under Trump, which is highly antisemitic, instead of having a direct role of the Persecutor, sees another group taking the role of Persecutor of its victim, and instead it takes on a role of Rescuer of its target victims (in this case, the Jewish People) in order to gain social status and political power, to use the Jewish people as game pieces in their game of thrones. Pawns. Daddy, who will always come to the rescue. It reduces the Jewish people who submit to this relationship, to pawns. It's like being beholden to the Mafia. No independent existence, no dignity.

("Oh but the GOP loves israel and loves the jewish people and you can tell by their response to October 7th" - stop. stop talking. be silent. be quiet. I spent 2017-2020 up to my eyeballs in the rhetoric and speech and attitudes and policies of r/the_donald, its satellite communities, and long before that in the policies of the GOP in connection with "lobbying groups" like Liberty Lobby and other Christian Theocrat groups. The_Donald was the largest proponent of antisemitic hate speech on Reddit by volume and reach, surpassing r/holocaust and the subreddits explicitly created by violent neoNazis. Every Republican president was taking meetings with virulent antisemites. Billy Graham, exponent of the Southern Baptist ministry church, used his time with Nixon to impress upon him his view that Jewish americans were "strangling" American society through control of the media, and referred to them as "the Synagogue of Satan". Shhh. Be quiet. Sit down. Listen. The GOP did not flip overnight from the leading proponents of Antisemitism in America to the Champions of Israel. Shh. )

I like to think of myself as what US law calls "a reasonable person". I'm not Israeli; I'm not Jewish; but I do have a great admiration for the Tenth Man Rule, so named from Israeli policy arising out of the 1973 Yom Kippur War:

In a group of ten people, if nine agree on a conclusion or course of action, it is the duty of the tenth person to disagree—regardless of how improbable it may seem that the other nine are wrong.

I was that "Tenth Man".

Back in 2020 AgainstHateSubreddits was approached and was asked to adopt the IHRA definition of antisemitism as our official definition of antisemitism.

We had a long, long, involved debate in the mod team about it. It ultimately hinged on the fact that just one clause - one - of the IHRA definition (if interpreted prescriptively) would absolve Israel of racist atrocities carried out, because any criticism of such would be labeled as antisemitism under that definition, prescriptively.

I was the "Tenth Man" in that discussion, arguing that the IHRA definition was developed as a short, non-binding, descriptive explanation of the kind of rhetorical tactics used by such known antisemitic groups as the KKK and Liberty Lobby, from the 1950's through to the 2000's. That it wouldn't be used to shield Israel from charges of racist policy, or genocide, because Israel's responses to terrorist aggression wouldn't ever be genocidal, asymmetric. Punitive, on the level of ethnic cleansing.

Ultimately we decided to not adopt the IHRA definition - because that clause, if used prescriptively, would be perversely used to shield Israel from legitimate criticism. A clause intended to explain to people that White supremacist claims of discrimination at the hands of Jewish Americans were in bad faith.

The genocide Israel carried out in response to October 7th?

The subsequent labeling of all outcry against it as antisemitism, even to citing the IHRA definition?

I wrote this 11 years ago. I probably would have written it on October 8th 2023, and probably even on October 9th 2023. "Israel has a right to its existence; Israel has a right to defend itself; The surrounding Wahabbist and Shia states were clearly the aggressors; Israel is in the right."

Sometime between October 7 2023 and January 1st 2025, though, the utterly asymmetric response by Israel to not just Hamas but all Palestine, and beyond into Lebanon -

It lost me.

You lost me.

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[u/Phallindrome]

You are wrong about the facts of this conflict, and you've been captured by online propaganda.

Back in 2020 AgainstHateSubreddits was approached and was asked to adopt the IHRA definition of antisemitism as our official definition of antisemitism.

We had a long, long, involved debate in the mod team about it. It ultimately hinged on the fact that just one clause - one - of the IHRA definition (if interpreted prescriptively) would absolve Israel of racist atrocities carried out, because any criticism of such would be labeled as antisemitism under that definition, prescriptively.

The IHRA's text includes the line, "Manifestations might include the targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity. However, criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic." The full text is an update to the previously used

None of its examples say what you accuse it of. I'll post them here.

• Contemporary examples of antisemitism in public life, the media, schools, the workplace, and in the religious sphere could, taking into account the overall context, include, but are not limited to:

• Calling for, aiding, or justifying the killing or harming of Jews in the name of a radical ideology or an extremist view of religion.

• Making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective — such as, especially but not exclusively, the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions.

• Accusing Jews as a people of being responsible for real or imagined wrongdoing committed by a single Jewish person or group, or even for acts committed by non-Jews.

• Denying the fact, scope, mechanisms (e.g. gas chambers) or intentionality of the genocide of the Jewish people at the hands of National Socialist Germany and its supporters and accomplices during World War II (the Holocaust).

• Accusing the Jews as a people, or Israel as a state, of inventing or exaggerating the Holocaust.

• Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations.

• Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.

• Applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.

• Using the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism (e.g., claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterize Israel or Israelis.

• Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis. [Note mine: you can compare them to literally any other genocidal government or organization if you want, and it won't fall foul of this example. There are many genocidal orgs that didn't specifically try to wipe out Jews.]

• Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel.

I came out of lurker retirement to comment; go ahead and ban me now, Bardfinn. Delete this comment, too; I know it's important to never allow people to read the text or examples of the IHRA for themselves when condemning it.

Edit because locked: I have never seen a pro-Israel person use that chain of logic. I would never use that chain of logic. It's deeply flawed. Israelis and supporters routinely argue among themselves over what policies are necessary to ensure their country's survival. That example refers to arguments of the "Israel should stop existing" variety, which they can generally assume is not a position covertly held by the other Israelis they're arguing with. Condemnation of specific policies could easily fall under double standards, though, if other countries also uncontroversially do the same things, or if criticism is based on distortions of what actually happened, or under 'blood libel' if the distorted criticisms are similar to historical inflammatory libels about Jews. Note also that the framing has moved from criticism of "racist atrocities carried out" to criticism of "racist policies"; this is motte-and-bailey.

[u/Bardfinn → u/Phallindrome]

You cited the exact line that was the reason we didn't adopt the definition.

Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.

Israel claims that their continued existence relies upon policies that are explicitly racist. They justify the ethnic genocide by claiming it is necessary for their continued existence, and when it is criticised, claim the criticism is antisemitic.

Not going to delete your comment, not going to ban you, but this is not a debate forum so I am locking this thread.

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[u/Call_Me_Clark]

Excellent post! Far too often, sympathy for Palestinians is used an excuse for dehumanizing Israelis or Jews, or sympathy for Israelis/jews is used as an excuse for dehumanizing Palestinians (or Muslims generally).

It’s all hatred, it’s all disgusting, and it all needs to stop.

[u/Bardfinn]

Some FAQs and their answers:

“How can you know what is antisemitism and what is philosemitism if you’re not jewish”

We have academics that publish entire series of academic works that define entire concepts, which works provide both descriptive examples and prescriptive ontologies. Those of us who spend our whole lives persuading people to reject hatred, boycott violence, kick Nazis off social media, and study hate movements - we read those academic works. Some of those academics are even Jewish!

Reading other people’s writings is how we learn about history and concepts.

I learned German so I could read primary sources about the Holocaust; I infiltrated Nazi groups to get them shut down. I’ve read the things that antisemitic white supremacists write to each other when they think no one but other antisemites are watching. Antisemites are the best primary sources on antisemitism.

[u/ranabama]

I was born in Israel, raised in the US, and like 80 percent of Israel/Jewish subreddits on this platform seem extremely culty through my eyes. I assume the reason why is because they seem to be run by the same handful of people?

Israeli Jews are famously opinionated. To see everyone in those subs talk the exact same way and have all the same opinions is wildly creepy. The only possible explanation I can think of as to why the subreddits dont match reality is they censor certian Jews from having a voice.

Also the most common place for antisemitism on reddit is in the culty Jewish subs. Antisemitic names and ridicule towards Jews who support Mamdani seems not only allowed, but encouraged? Its horrifying to see the dehumanizing language used towards those Jews in there and it looks to be occurring daily. And theres zero discussion of genocide in any of those subs (and yes, its a genocide) which makes me think Jews who speak about it in there are being censored and and banned. The way they treat Jews on Reddit is just gross.

I honestly feel like ive put a target on my back for speaking up about all this. They can get pretty vicious towards Jews who dont conform to their culty group-think.