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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   11221 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 20, 2026

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What is the Zionist model of antisemitism*?

Matt Yglesias posted what turned out to be a surprisingly hot take that the downturn in public opinion of Israel is a result of Israeli actions, and that the best way for Israel to fix its public relations problem is to change its actions vis-a-vis the Palestinian issue and foreign policy.

I was surprised at the pushback. This seems straightforwardly true. There was a great chart I saw a few days ago, which I am unfortunately unable to find, which showed that public opinion of Israel has been approximately this low before. It was in 1982 with the invasion of Lebanon and the notoriously brutal siege of Beirut.

Most of the alternative theories fell into two camps.

  1. Antisemitism is a result of massive, society-wide misinformation perpetuated by the press, universities, and social media. This is the “wall of dead children” model. Israel’s actions don’t really matter because they will be twisted and misrepresented anyways. The solution is to exert more control over the information environment.
  2. Antisemitism is an intrinsic force of nature. It doesn’t have a cause, or if it does, it has a cause which cannot be effectively operated upon. Asking what causes antisemitism is like asking what causes DeCarlos Brown to stab people on the subway. The way to deal with antisemitism is to kill, deport, or disenfranchise antisemites.

It’s hard to tell how religious the people in 2. are, but my general impression is, “quite a bit”. Many of them seem to speak of antisemitism as if it were a spiritual fault, another manifestation of the platonic ideal of pure evil. Seen as a spiritual problem, the correct response is to become even more aggressively Jewish. This has the rather large problem of being counterproductive when, e.g. smashing idols goes wrong.

*By “antisemitism” in this post I almost exclusively mean “antizionism”. I use the term to maintain consistency with the pro-Israel literature I am engaging with, not as an endorsement that antizionism = antisemitism.

Sort of related: I recently read an article called "On Collective Jewish Guilt".

I understand that anti-Zionism is not intrinsically reducible to antisemitism, and that, in theory, one could oppose the existence of Israel while harbouring no ill will towards Jews and wanting them to be safe. But it's hard to avoid the conclusion that, in many cases, anti-Zionism is the motte and antisemitism is the bailey. This article argues that you can tell a lot of anti-Zionists don't really mean what they say based on how they react to antisemitic terror attacks and hate crimes that take place outside of Israel (e.g. the recent Hanukkah mass shooting on Bondi Beach). After all, if anti-Zionists were really only opposed to the state of Israel, you would logically expect them to be the first to condemn attacks on the Jewish diaspora, and in the loudest possible terms: after all, if they believe that a dedicated Jewish state is not necessary to ensure the safety of Jews, they should be the ones most opposed to attacks on Jews outside of Israel. That is, to put it charitably, not what would we see. Every time there has been an antisemitic terror attack or hate crime in the last two and a half years, I have seen one or more of the following:

  • sympathetic framing of the perpetrator ("his family were killed in an airstrike in Lebanon")
  • claims that such attacks are bound to be expected as a consequence of the war in Gaza i.e. victim-blaming (as if a handful of Australian Jews, many of whom had presumably never set foot in Israel, have the slightest say in Israeli politics or IDF tactics)
  • outright suggestions that the attack was staged by Mossad as a false flag attack

I am sure there is someone out there who is opposed to the existence of Israel on philosophical grounds but legitimately harbours no animosity towards Jews on an interpersonal level and sincerely wishes them no harm. (This is the person Freddie deBoer claims to be; I don't believe him.) But in my experience, nine times out of ten a Gentile who calls himself anti-Zionist will eventually be revealed to be antisemitic, and I'm sick of trying to pretend otherwise.

"So I know the group our people are targeting for harassment and abuse now is the same group our people have been targeting for harassment and abuse for centuries. And I know that our justifications for harassing and abusing them (they murder children, they control the banks, they control the media, they're sexual degenerates) are literally word-for-word the same as the justifications we used for centuries before now. But our harassment and abuse is totally justified now because of anti-colonialism, guys."

in many cases, anti-Zionism is the motte and antisemitism is the bailey.

This strikes me as very likely in some cases

After all, if anti-Zionists were really only opposed to the state of Israel, you would logically expect them to be the first to condemn attacks on the Jewish diaspora, and in the loudest possible terms: after all, if they believe that a dedicated Jewish state is not necessary to ensure the safety of Jews, they should be the ones most opposed to attacks on Jews outside of Israel.

I don't see how any of this is logical at all actually.

I have no problem with Jews, I admire their culture. Frankly, any culture that prizes educational attainment and hard work is desperately needed given how hard the West is abandoning these values.

I think the state of Israel, while in a very shitty neighborhood, is going absolutely ham to a degree that is impossible to support ethically. There are many examples of the various attrocities they have recently inflicted on Palestinians (rape, violence, blah blah blah). Also fun stuff like death penalty laws that only apply to Palestinians. Or the entire concept of West Bank settlements and the Swiss cheesing of that area. Or how gaza is levelled and the ~2mil ppl there are now pressed into less than 50% of the pre 2023 land area. It goes on...

Of course, the Palestinians, and the Arab Muslim world at large, are terrible neighbors and have inflicted lots of attrocities back on Isreal. I dislike them as well.

So in sum, I dislike everyone in that area, and I hope they resolve their problems (they never will). If I meet a Jew in real life, I'll shake their hand and hope I can get invited to Shabbat because I'm a slut for Challah.

But I also think the state of Israel is being run by essentially cartoon villains and I absolutely do not support them.

I don't understand why I have to yell loudly about not liking violence against Jews forever to demonstrate that I'm "one of the good ones". I don't like violence against Jews, people shouldn't be violent ahainst them. I dislike violence against most people.

My point (made more eloquently in the linked article; I'm drunkenly paraphrasing) is that there are a lot of people who would never dream of suggesting that a hate crime targeting e.g. black people might be justified because of how a group of black people behaved in a different country. But when a hate crime targets Jews minding their own business in a country other than Israel, these same people will outright state that such violence is "only to be expected" in light of the actions of Israel (even if the targeted Jews don't hold Israeli citizenship, have never set foot in the country and have personally expressed discomfort with IDF military tactics).

A person who is opposed to the existence of Israel on philosophical grounds but who harbours no ill will towards Jews would presumably condemn anti-Semitic violence outside of Israel just as loudly as they condemn anti-black hate crimes, gay bashing etc. The fact that they tend not to do this, but rather will excuse or justify the violence in question, rather suggests that their motivating impulse is something other than a philosophical opposition to the existence of the Jewish state.

there are a lot of people who would never dream of suggesting that a hate crime targeting e.g. black people might be justified because of how a group of black people behaved in a different country

Not only would a lot of people never dream of suggesting that, the US even has a government agency that supposedly coerces people into making explicit statements regarding the denial of race as a factor in crimes committed against their families.

Ohhhh I understand, thank you

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