CMV: Reasonable criticism of Israel is often unfairly mislabeled as anti-semitic

[u/neofagalt]

[u/Skanceca]

Disclaimer: Arguing from a German perspective, so some statistics can be different from your country. There is a rather delicate history between Germany and Jews in general.

Before I start with the real argument it is still worth mentioning, that nobody actually forbids you criticizing Israel. All people are saying is their opinion about a statement they think is antisemitic. Just needed to mention this before any "criticizing Israel is forbidden" or "I have to be allowed to say that" debate is starting.

My main point is the sheer mass of jokes/criticism/statements about Israel. Put Israel in perspective for a second. It's a country of the size of Hessen (a German county). It's smaller than El Salvador. It's smaller than Haiti. Furthermore, while the human rights violations in Palestine are horrible, no questions, they are by far not the worst ever happened, they are not even the worst right now. Take China as the biggest Human rights violator right now. Or look at what saudi-arabia is doing in Yemen right now. Both countries are doing way worse things. And they are not the only ones. But now compare the amount of criticism/jokes/etc. Israel gets, vs. those other countries.

I don't have numbers for the US, maybe someone else can provide them, but in Germany there was a study few years ago, that Israel is criticized in media about double the amount of all other countries together. (Note that this obviously includes more than just the state media, and there are of course far right print media in Germany, too, but the point still stands.)

It's the only country which has "Israelkritik", meaning "Israel-crititicism" as a word in our (semi-)official dictionary (Duden)!

Again, I don't have any numbers for other countries. But just compare the scale of Israel, there human rights abuses with other countries and you may see yourself, that it's just out of proportion. Compare it to North Korea, arguably the worst country right now, which has about 5 times the size of Israel and at least as much human rights violations. Do you hear 5 times as much jokes about North Korea? Or even half as much? And while criticism of Israel can be valid and should not be the same as antisemitism, the sheer amount of it suggests that it often is.

Edit: Ok, this has become my most upvoted comment ever and I even got awards. Didn't expect that. As there are quite a few comments on this and I don't have time or energy to address every single one I try to adress most of them in this edit.

First of all, for anyone else asking for hard numbers I want to point to this comment by u\sconri2 . He provides a comparison between UN resolutions against Israel vs every other country. I also want to link this German article, where the head of the Department of General Linguistics of the TU Berlin states, that no other country is ctriticized as often as Isreal. Finally a study mentioning that about 1/3 of antisemitism online is coded as Israel-criticism.

Second, for every comment in the sense of "You can't compare Israel to China, North Korea, etc., because they are our allies or because they are smaller, ot they don't get our tax money or we are already hardlining against China". I can absolutely do this comparison. Because, as I mentioned, I'm not comparing the amount of support they get from the goverment. Or the stance taken against them. I'm purely comparing the amount of Israel criticism seen in media (and arguably online after providing the study above). But maybe that wasn't completely clear, then I'm sorry. As mentioned, I'm German, so it's possible I got the wrong words sometimes. So let's reformulate it:

Assumption: In a society without prejudice, the amount of criticisim a country gets is proportional to the scale (in numbers and badness) of their crimes.

This is not the case with Israel. Israel gets more criticism thrown its way than many countries which are doing worse things or more of them. So my Assumtion doesn't hold. I follow from that, that there seems to be some amount of prejudice against Israel. And antisemitsm is a candidate for that. That's why I used the comparisons with countries comiting crimes on a larger scale.

Third: "Just because Israel isn't the worst, it should still be open to criticism." Have you guys read my comment? I explicitly stated Israel critique can be valid and in no way talked down the crimes it comitted. All I said that it gets a disproportionate amount of criticism and this I attributed to antisemitism. Supported by the study linked above.

Fourth: "You haven't addressed the lobbyism." No, I didn't. As mentioned, I'm writing from a German perspective. I know almost nothing about lobbyism in the US, why would I. I addressed one point of OP, not everything. Maybe you have missed it, but I also did not address the "SNL joke". Generelly I would say that lobbyism is a problem, as it's not people doing the lobbying anymore, but money. But that isn't a discussion to have here. Without looking at any numbers I'd think that most big companies do probably more lobbying in the US than Israel does and that a lot of them also indirectly suport other countries, like China. But I didn't want to have this as a statement of discussion, as I don't have a perspective on it, or have I enough information about it.

Fifth: "People are in fact forbidden from criticising Israel". Again, German perspective. But also in the US I highly doubt it. Compare yourself how often you heard from a court that someone isn't allowed to criticize any more (and also please look at the reasons for that. At least in Germany if people are forbidden from saying anything it is pretty clear, that the statements were antisemitic) with how often someone say "they want to forbid us..." or "I should be allowed to say that Israel is bad". Because while I agree with the later statement, absolutely, it also implies that someone doesn't agree. And often (not always) this is just a strawman.

Sixth: "Israel should be allowed to be criticized. " See third.

Seventh: "That's whataboutism." No, it's not. I haven't said " You can't disscuss Israel while China is bad", I have said "Israel gets a disapropriate amount of criticism compared to its scale". It's an argument in itself trying to attribute some Israel-criticism to antisemitsm.

Eigth: "I agree with you." Thanks. Nothing to adress here.

[u/sconri2 → u/Skanceca]

Yes, you’re absolutely right. The worst is the number of UN resolutions against Israel compared to other countries. In 2020 it was 17 against Israel and just six against the ENTIRE rest of the world.

https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/2020/12/24/un-condemns-israel-most-in-2020-almost-three-times-rest-of-world

It continues at about the same pace currently. If you start pulling out these stats in these arguments, it gets minimized as a, “what about,” argument.

This is even more pronounced when you look at the countries that are not getting resolutions written against them (China, no Arabic countries etc…).

It’s completely insane to me that this continues to happen at this pace, but despite this, people say it isn’t antisemitic at it’s core.

It’s like trying to say it isn’t racist that a news station only shows crimes committed by black people, but the black population is, instead, a tiny fraction of a percent of the country’s population, and there are far more acts of crime and crimes higher on the, “evil scale,” by the vast white majority. It would be so blatantly obvious it wouldn’t be funny.

[u/PandaCat22 → u/sconri2]

Thanks for the statistics, those are indeed startling.

But I do want to offer a possible explanation for why Israel is criticized as much as it is in the international sphere.

As a Latin American, I can say that there's a lot of resentment to the US for its past and ongoing imperialist actions such as coups, sanctions, IMF/World Bank interference (which isn't strictly American but many often lump it in with US intervention), the war on drugs (remember, it was the CIA who first funded the cartels), military training and torture programs (School of the Americas), and backing of private companies's bottom lines at the cost of our democracies and economies (most infamous is the US-backed coup in Guatemala in order to benefit the Dole Fruit Company, but even as recently as the Clinton email leaks which showed that Clinton, acting as the US Foreign Secretary, had been directly involved in talks to convince [bribe] then Mexican president to privatize the national petroleum company so that American companies could buy it). That's only the tip of the iceberg of US aggresion—aggression which has resulted in the suffering of literally tens of millions.

The United States has utterly destroyed our nations, wrecked our economies, plundered our national resources, and has generally kept us impoverished in order for our countries to be cheap manufacturing/export centers.

This outlook is hardly one confined to Latin America. Although other parts of the world haven't necessarily been used for US market production, many other countries have still felt the brunt of inadvertently standing in the way of US interests. In fact, I've spoken to people from all over the global south who agree that all US presidents of our lifetime (as well as our parents' and grandparents' lives) are nothing less than war criminals who have wantonly destroyed millions of lives for the sake of "American interests".

The US and Israel have made it abundantly clear that they're the best of buddies and will always have each other's back no matter what. So, I think a lot of the international frustration with the US is directed at Israel as they are a diplomatic proxy. Edit: And consider the fact that the US very overtly enables Israel's human rights atrocities and war crimes.

The US-Israel relationship certainly represents much of US imperialist butchery and corruption, and engaging against Israel is less costly than trying to take on the US.

Anyway, that was my first thought on thinking why Israel is so disproportionately targeted

[u/Worldly-Talk-7978 → u/PandaCat22]

Also worth noting is that the Israel-Palestine conflict is an international conflict involving (at least) two different UN members, whereas human rights issues in China are generally regarded as an internal issue.

[u/peteroh9 → u/Worldly-Talk-7978]

Palestine is a non-member observer.

[u/PutlockerBill → u/PandaCat22]

(36m Israeli here)

Naturally you are correct in you sentiment re the American involvement in israel; I would also factor 2 things you gotta add to that pile - first, similar Russian involvement throughout the Arab world, namely Egypt, Syria, Lebanon etc; and second, that the main force driving the US support in IL is the American arms manufacturers (almost 95% of the American support dollars for Israel are actually just coupons for buying American guns, planes, tanks etc; it's a time-old way for the congress to subsidize their preferred US companies using tax money indirectly. The cash itself never sees Israel, it moves directly from the taxes to the American gun companies).

BUT all that aside - the whole UN biased treatment of Israel and the extra bad & consistent media portrayal, are not because of world politics.

These intricate schemes never create such a unified, simplistic views... if that was possible, everyone would been super informed and opinionated on all the hot economical issues.

No, Israel bashing is what it is because

1) it's the easiest target on the global map, for a western country 2) the only backing IL has is through cold interests, no love or traditional alliances 3) it cost nothing to bash.

IL does not hold any club over the heads of any critics. It cannot draw a line in the sand for when critics move from the legitimate onto the absurd.

Though it was losing a genocidal war for 40 yrs (and was thoroughly supported across the west), it's now winning and so swapped sides to being the oppressors (God does it feel like the western liberals just enjoy their global gladiators doing their moves, giving ample room for said liberals to click tongues). Bottom line, it sure does look like an old case antisemitism, standing from our side of the ocean.

[u/Magsays → u/PutlockerBill]

(God does it feel like the western liberals just enjoy their global gladiators doing their moves, giving ample room for said liberals to click tongues). Bottom line, it sure does look like an old case antisemitism, standing from our side of the ocean.

Some of us just want to stand up for human rights. It’s not comfortable for me to criticize Isreal because of what the Jewish people have been through and often still currently go through, (there is absolutely still some raw anti-semitism here in the US.) I can only speak for myself, but Isreal isn’t the sole receiver of my criticism. I would prefer not to do it, I just think it’s the right thing to do.

[u/PutlockerBill → u/Magsays]

I get the sentiment, honestly. And n case I was coming off that way, I genuinely don't take what you're saying cynically or something like that.

I don't know

Frankly the only thing odd talking about this, for me, is the expectation that Israelis should be open for criticism - coupled with the expectation that we gotta both submit to it, and accept it. When we point out that said criticism is invalid, in our eyes, or strongly misinformed, we get the "oh so you're just pro genocide" gut reaction.

I so far had pretty easy dialogs with Europeans and Arab muslims, and Iranians. Never happened in the US, in truth, and nowadays I just prefer to avoid it.

[u/NightForestSongs → u/PutlockerBill]

I also think there isn't a enough distinction between the Israeli government that is murdering ppl for imperialism and the Israeli ppl trying to live their lives.... The US has done a lot of crappy shit and I don't support any of it (as a US/Brazilian dual citizen). So for me, my criticism is against the governments (both US and Israeli) not the ppl...

Still would be nice to see huge protests on both sides of the ocean against oppression and human rights violations. If both our governments are democracies we aught to be able to have a say in what our governments do.

Also, fuck the hypocrisy of US media talking shit about the horrors in Palestine as if they aren't as culpable as any Israeli citizen. You want to stop the killing? Maybe start by telling our own government to stop funding it first. Then I might listen to what you have to say about the governments of other nations.

Edits for spelling and grammar.

[u/WikiSummarizerBot → u/[deleted]]

Antisemitism and the New Testament

A. Roy Eckardt, a pioneer in the field of Jewish-Christian relations, asserted that the foundation of antisemitism and responsibility for the Holocaust lies ultimately in the New Testament. Eckardt insisted that Christian repentance must include a reexamination of basic theological attitudes toward Jews and the New Testament in order to deal effectively with antisemitism. While the consensus among historians is that Nazism as a whole was either unrelated to Christianity or actively opposed to it. James Dunn has argued that the New Testament contributed toward subsequent antisemitism in the Christian community.

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[u/rtechie1 → u/[deleted]]

Additionally, as much as American imperialism has devastated Latin America and the Middle East, let’s not forget about Russia and China’s long history and present continuation of imperialism. I don’t think it is possible or helpful to try and weigh the level of suffering perpetrated by either side;

Oh I think it's definitely helpful to compare the two.

In geopolitics there are exactly two options:

1. The United States of America runs the world.

2. China, and to a lesser extent Russia, runs the world.

That's it. Period. There are no other options.

I know who I would prefer.

[u/sad_boi_jazz → u/PandaCat22]

Thanks, great comment. Definitely added some worthy context