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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.
I mean, I suppose I fall into this camp.
When I look at Israel's actions during the relevant time periods where support for the state has gone down, I simply think they couldn't have done anything different, or at least substantially different. Because of the way Hamas and Hezbollah operate, every square foot of an area they occupy ends up being a legitimate military target. This is, of course, famously schools, hospitals, mosques, etc. If you want to disable Hamas soldier and rockets, you basically have no choice but to bomb targets in those categories. This will then create the "wall of dead children" as you put it. IMO responsible reporting would ignore said dead children, or, if they did report, emphasize strenuously that the children were killed by Hamas's actions.
That said this isn't unique to Israel. The same tactics are deployed by American press against America all the time. The press, as a rule, does not like competency and patriotism, and the mix of competency with patriotism is particularly offensive to them. Well, Israel is both so they will be hated by the press.
Does antisemitism help drop Israel below the floor that the press can drive America to? Yes. But the press's vitriol for a winner is even more important.
How about not occupying more and more territory. How about not sponsoring jihadists in neighbouring countries. How about not turning millions of people into refugees.
Compare Northern Ireland with Israel and the difference is massive. Northern Ireland is safe while Israel is still at war.
Antisemitism has one cause, jewish behviour. Jewish behaviour is caused by an exceptionally ethnocentric religion with a mindset that makes it difficult to co-exist with any other group. Jews stick together by being in constant conflict with the rest of the world.
Funny how this one always gets trotted out, and yet all the occasions Israel offered territory back to their Arab neighbours are overlooked.
They just want 77% of Palestine with settlements in the remaining 23% while occupying the Golan heights. That is pretty much the opposite of the deal the Irish got.
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