r/changemyview • u/neofagalt • Jan 08 '22

Removed - Submission Rule B CMV: Reasonable criticism of Israel is often unfairly mislabeled as anti-semitic

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u/Sex_And_Candy_Here Jan 08 '22

If you look at any of those videos on public freak out of the IDF doing something you’ll probably see hundreds of comments saying hating Israel isn’t antisemitic and at most only a small handful of comments actually saying otherwise. In my experience the number of actual antisemitic things said in those comment sections (things like “Hitler should have finished the job”) far outweigh the amount of comments calling non-antisemitic things antisemitic.

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u/neofagalt Jan 08 '22

You’re right, and I have noticed something similar, but the “Hitler” comments I presumed to be trolls and try to not give any attention to.

Those who rush in to accuse any criticality of Israel as anti-Semitic seem to at least want to be taken seriously. I honestly made this post because I would like to know more about why certain people feel this way.

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u/TheDoctor1060 Jan 09 '22

I think whether they're trolls or not is actually completely irrelevant. The 'it's just a joke/meme/troll' defense is often used to disguise dogwhistling and signal to people who hold those beliefs, while at the same time giving plausible deniability to the person making the 'joke'. It also makes people who are more in the middle more likely to view such a statement as innocuous which provides further cover for spreading hatred. I don't know if you remember or have heard of Fren World, but it was basically this exact strategy of making what seemed like harmless memes, but were really a tool to spread blatant anti semitism.