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Notes -
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.
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.
> Pass an anti-terrorism law that de facto applies only to one ethnicity, which you're already being accused of apartheid-ing, which calls for "death by hanging, carried out in no more than 90 days" as the default sentence.
> "there is literally nothing we can do, the fake news is just going to twist our ethnic death penalty laws to make us seem like monsters"
> "this is why we need to control tiktok"
Damn, can't help but notice this seems absolutely bananas
If it was after the US Civil War and they passed a law which says you go to the gallows if you're still keeping a slave, that would only apply to one ethnicity, but it seems like it would be an appropriate measure anyway. It would be silly to object to that on the grounds that it wouldn't convict any black people so it's ethnically based.
That's a fair point, to counter though, this law isn't "terrorists get the death penalty" it's "people who intentionally cause the death of a person with the aim of denying the existence of the State of Israel" as judged by a military tribunal, with absolutely 0 appeals allowed after sentencing.
So in your situation it's more like a law that only applies to slave owners who also don't like Abraham Lincoln/the union, i.e. any northern slave owner caught with slaves wouldn't get the death penalty.
Also the law absolutely violates their due process and other legal rights.
Appeals inherently dull the intended effects of deterrence and the lack of ability for a prisoner exchange.
If due process is what the objection is, well, maybe thats true. Or maybe modern due process is actually an affront to victims rights.
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