Anti-semitism - explain this to me!

[798686]

Oh fuck off. I have a lot of issues with people's attitudes/beliefs etc but race isn't one of them. Jog on

This springs to mind...

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2084629174887222&id=1087259527957530

 

[TexanStar]

@Jason @englad

You guys are going to have to help explain to a clueless American what Jewdas is. When I google, it comes up that it's a Jewish organization that's anti-Israel? But that means it is made up of Jewish people? So kinda like a Catholics -vs- Protestants kind of thing? I don't understand :/

 

[englad]

In many of your posts replying to posters you suggest you somehow know something about the posters and can judge them. This is both wrong and dangerous.

In the very many posts on this board there are plenty of things I've got het up about. I've been concerned for example about the treatment of the Roma (the Gypsies).

I'm very good at picking up sub-texts, both in terms of the language people are using and in terms of what their focus is. I can also notice gaps, and I have interacted with you on the site for years, I cannot ever recall.you mentioning the Roma specifically, I can imagine you would have, as that could also tie into your political agenda, as you are a rabid eurosceptic and that would suit your world view quite strongly. This specific bigotry is the one that you mention week in, week out, all the bloody time. It is so easy to see why you do that, Jase.

The issues around anti-Semitism right now are two-fold:
* this form of abuse is growing very, very fast. The official figures aren't yet compiled, but every local community in the UK (where there is a Jewish population) will be aware of incidents.
* Labour/Momentum/Corbyn are actively supporting anti-Semitism. Corbyn's decision to attend the Jewdas meeting last night has been regarded by the Jewish community as a provocation.

There have always been incidents of racism in political parties in UK and elsewhere. The new development is that the leader of one of the two big political parties has embraced anti-Semitism. Following the Jewdas meeting there is no room for ambiguity. Corbyn is anti-Semitic. He is using anti-Semitism as a trial whistle for his Momentum followers.

At no point have I ever denied that there are some anti-semites in the labour party, there is absolutely no evidence that Corbyn is personally anti-semitic. Jewdas is a Jewish diaspora group for goodness sake. Now you are conflating Israel and all Jewish people, which was yet another thing I said at the beginning of the post. They do have a very critical view of Israel, but again, British Jews are not some communal bloc who all have tribal loyalty to Israel, many are very critical of it. And merely conflating the two speaks volumes itself:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewdas

Look at all the bigotries I was able to tie back to your oh, so wonderful tory party, especially with their new bed fellows the DUP thrown in toe.

The Labour Party is now the moral equivalent of BNP. It is worse than France's Front National or Germany's AfD, parties whose manifestos are not actually anti-Semitic (even if we might not believe them). Corbyn hasn't quite put it into words yet, but Labour is threatening Jews/capitlists/bankers. What we are seeing is the equivalent of the rise of Hitler in the 1930s. It is beyond terrifying. The Labour Party that Corbyn has taken over isn't some fringe that no-one votes for but really is getting serious numbers of votes.

No, that would be UKIP mate. Ah right, so now you're putting a higher corporation tax = anti-semitic, that is curious now, and funny how you add "Jews/capitalists/bankers" into a combination sentence, that is curious in and of itself.......

This section was utter polemic, politically partisan, transparent toxic shite.

So let's recap, you threw in "Jews/Capitalists/bankers" into the same bunched group, you used a reductio ad hitlerum against the labour party, then you conflated all Jewish people = Israel. Given how much of a focus you've given this particular form of bigotry, you sound worringly close to an anti-semite yourself. You will be bloody hard pressed to find a single anti-semitic factor in the Labour party's manifesto.

At least in my case the reductio ad hitlerum was accurate:

https://www.theguardian.com/politic...-ukip-breaking-point-poster-queue-of-migrants

[/QUOTE]

 

[englad]

@Jason @englad

You guys are going to have to help explain to a clueless American what Jewdas is. When I google, it comes up that it's a Jewish organization that's anti-Israel? But that means it is made up of Jewish people? So kinda like a Catholics -vs- Protestants kind of thing? I don't understand :/

Yeh exactly it's an anti-zionist Jewish diaspora group. They're still Jewish last time I checked, so not sure how that qualifies as anti-Semitism

But then again he is conflating Jewish people with the state of Israel, as I said in my first post that many of the right wingers do.

 

[englad]

Slut.

You all want me

 

[Jason]

I'm very good at picking up sub-texts, both in terms of the language people are using and in terms of what their focus is.

I've news for you: you're not!

There are linguistic techniques for analysing language to suggest what people really think. Proficient language users of course do some of these things instinctively. However a proper discourse analysis can reveal more. It's not easy to do well.

You believe you have a skill you don't.

 

[Jason]

@Jason @englad

You guys are going to have to help explain to a clueless American what Jewdas is. When I google, it comes up that it's a Jewish organization that's anti-Israel? But that means it is made up of Jewish people? So kinda like a Catholics -vs- Protestants kind of thing? I don't understand :/

We've all been finding out about Jewdas in the last 24 hours. A key point is that it is NOT well-known or mainstream, and has much criticism from mainstream UK Jewish groups. An idea of what the group believes is here. They are Jews who are also Marxists and anti-Israel. Curiously they really are an anti-Semitic Jewish group.

The UK Jewish community has condemned this as a provocation. The Jewish community is no-longer calling for Corbyn to act on anti-Semitism in Labour but is calling him out as anti-Semitic.

 

[englad]

I've news for you: you're not!

There are linguistic techniques for analysing language to suggest what people really think. Proficient language users of course do some of these things instinctively. However a proper discourse analysis can reveal more. It's not easy to do well.

You believe you have a skill you don't.

Believe that if you wish, the all Jewish people = Israel, and "Jews/capitalists/bankers" thrown in to the same thing spoke volumes too. As did the blanket carpeting of British Muslims as virulent anti-semites was another example.

You're calling what you're doing "a proper discourse" and you're constantly referring to the labour party as the Nazi party, and then ironically comparing them with right wing socially conservative political parties in other European ( ) countries like the AfD and the Front National, which are much more closely linked to UKIP than any other British political party. And for that matter UKIP is most similar to the BNP too. That is also pretty ironic that you did that.

It's just shameless politically partisan rhetoric being used as a cheap political tactic. It doesn't feel nice when that is thrown back at you, which is so easy to do given what the right wing is like in the UK.

 

[Jason]

@englad I'm talking of the compound noun "discourse analysis". I qualified it with the adjective proper. Discourse analysis is a fundamental linguistic skill for the discipline of forensic linguistics.

 

[englad]

We've all been finding out about Jewdas in the last 24 hours. A key point is that it is NOT well-known or mainstream, and has much criticism from mainstream UK Jewish groups. An idea of what the group believes is here. They are Jews who are also Marxists and anti-Israel. Curiously they really are an anti-Semitic Jewish group.

The UK Jewish community has condemned this as a provocation. The Jewish community is no-longer calling for Corbyn to act on anti-Semitism in Labour but is calling him out as anti-Semitic.

Again, you are conflating all British Jews as a single bloc, they are not. Jewdas is kind of an example of them having diverse views on the topic of Israel's foreign policy.

They are indeed an anti-zionist group, that is not the same as anti-semitism. Was it a wise move? Nope. But none the less, he did not go as the labour party leader, he went in a personal capacity:

https://www.theguardian.com/politic...ponsible-after-attending-radical-jewish-event

And the article contains this key bit of information:

"A spokesman for Corbyn earlier said he attended the event, in his Islington constituency, in a personal capacity and not in his official role as Labour leader, after his attendance was revealed by the Guido Fawkes blog. “He wrote to the Board of Deputies and Jewish Leadership Council last week to ask for an urgent formal meeting to discuss tackling antisemitism in the Labour party and in society,” the spokesman said."

But you will probably dismiss that as it's the Guardian.

 

[englad]

@englad I'm talking of the compound noun "discourse analysis". I qualified it with the adjective proper. Discourse analysis is a fundamental linguistic skill for the discipline of forensic linguistics.

You are using partisan polemic to attack the labour party, and you're exaggerating it to ludicrous levels.

 

[Jason]

You are using partisan polemic to attack the labour party, and you're exaggerating it to nearly ludicrous levels.

The UK political divide used to be right v left. Now it is right v wrong, good v evil.

 

[englad]

The UK political divide used to be right v left. Now it is right v wrong, good v evil.

Good = throwing 1.2 million of your own citizens down the river, turning your own country into an international laughing stock, blue passports, using bigotry victims as a cheap political football, continuing the ideological underfunding of our healthcare system, and placating xenophobes. Let's look at the other things you "good guys" are after:

http://metro.co.uk/2017/03/29/heres...-bring-back-from-caning-to-shillings-6541331/

Evil = raising the minimum wage, more social care funding, better funding for the National Health Service, higher corporation tax, scrapping tuition fees (currently £9000 a year) and scrapping an insanely expensive nuclear weapons programme.

.....umm ok, guess I'll be evil then.

 

[englad]

@TexanStar how are you finding the show?

 

[TexanStar]

We have some of this same conflation in the US. There are more Jews in the USA than there are in Israel (actually there are more Jews in the USA than anywhere. The US has the highest population of Jewish persons of any country in the world).

The majority of US Jews believe in a two state solution for Israel and Palestine, do not think Israel should be building settlements in the west bank, etc.

But the Republican party has aligned its policy making with Israel rather than US Jews, and then in the same breath accuses Democrats of being anti-Jewish / anti-semitic for being opposed to some of Israel's political/military policies.

http://www.pewforum.org/essay/ameri...n-portraits-from-pew-research-center-surveys/

 

[b.c.]

"Jeremy Corbyn's UK Labour Party have come unstuck with the (alleged) anti-Semitic rhetoric within the party. He has long dismissed anti-Semitic behaviour as a 'small number' of people who are deeply unpleasant and has been lacklustre in condemning it."

This was also part of the post, whilst I agree with you wholeheartedly on why you're arguing with him (that's why I'm only quoting you on this sentence). I am still getting the vibe that you are ignoring the full context of the OP's original post, i.e. the country the OP comes from, and especially the political context in the UK. I come from the UK as well, I have repeated a few times that the OP's intent may very well not be as genuine and heartfelt as the way you're inferring.

This could very easily be a British conservative disingenuously using purported anti-semitism within some sections of the British labour party as a method to either bash that party for political motivations, or to indirectly bash the British muslim community. The reason why I'm reiterating this and providing further context to the situation in the UK, is because there is a reasonable chance that this was the intent of the post. I have seen this happen on numerous occasions, and it consistently comes from the right wing gutter press in the UK and many right wingers in the UK (including some on this site). This suspicion is also strengthened by the wording of the section that I've quoted for you at the top of this post, as a Brit, that wording does give off a strong conservative voter vibe.

I appreciate your input, englad. And yes, I am aware that the op may not be of a liberal bent based upon commentary I recall his having made in past threads. Nor was it my intent to ignore the full socio-political context in which his opening post was framed, though I do appreciate your taking the time to explain it.

However, as to that part having to do with the notion of "not getting" racism bigotry, anti-Semitism, I found malakos's remarks disparaging (as you've already agreed) and like you've referenced (in post 38) Jason's past commentaries (or the lack thereof) in drawing conclusions about his sentiments/motives on the subject, so have I drawn conclusions as to the sentiment behind malakos's dismissal, in part because, as I've already pointed on, I might have said exactly the same thing ("I don't get it") and undoubtedly would've received the same rebuke.

And that's because on this side of the pond, conservatives (and ESPECIALLY defenders of the alt-right) are wont to QUICKLY deride political correctness and those who they call "social justice warriors." They have a PARTICULAR knack for making concerned citizens and student protestors out to be villains, for making truths out to be lies, and vice versa.

 

[michael_3165]

This issue is beyond awful. My Jewish neighbours are talking (again) about emigrating. The are old and they don't want to leave. The synagogue closest to me is guarded when it is open by a couple of police men in stab-proof vests. There have been a lot of low-scale incidents: name calling, graffiti, an elderly Jewsih man (80) pulled from his car and roughed up. This is England.

The far left make the link between Jews and capitalists. The key word for them is Rothschild. The far left has bought into the conspiracy theory that Jews are bankers and run the world. The revolution will require the destruction of capitalists and therefore of the Jews. In England there are far left groups that are "joking" about where the concentration camp will be. The idea is that all property is theft, and the bankers/capitalists/Jews will be the first to have their property seized and will have to be accommodated somewhere.

Last night Corbyn attended a Jewdas meeting. He has caused outrage in the Jewish community. However his followers love it. While Labour has lost members in the last week there are over 1,000 new ones, inspired by the hatred shown by Labour. Jews in the UK are terrified. Everyone in the UK and indeed in the world should be terrified. Anti-Semitism is being used as a recruitment device for the shock troops of Momentum

Do they really get that much abuse? I am blinkered with ignorance on this because I live in an area where we don't have a huge Jewish community at all (if they are Jewish its undercover!) What makes your neighbours think about leaving? Also how to people know they are Jewish? I know some Jews who I have known for years but never knew their religious persuasion until recently.

Really interested in just how back this ACTUALLY is because I am sheltered in my white atheist male bubble.

 

[michael_3165]

So snarky contempt for virtue signaling is a reliable indicator of Anti-Judaic attitudes? I wouldn't have thought they were inherently related.[/QUOT
Virtue signally? A little lazy that...

Firstly the term is an alt-right buzzword - maybe throw 'SJWs' in there whilst you are at it. It essentially accuses people who disagree with you and who have a reasonable, 'nice' and/or compassionate view of something as trying to look like they are a good person. No matter if the person actually believes what they say - in good faith. If you disagree just scream 'virtue signaller'.

Interestingly compassion (I don't understand nor appreciate racism) for other people is the easiest target for this type of nonsensical argument.

Lets just take for a moment that I said (hypothetically) 'nice' things to make myself look good and virtuous for calling out people on racism (to a load of non-faces on an internet site dedicated to big dick)... it doesn't invalidate my actual point.

Secondly I am really interested in how you can read someone's mind or connect with a person's inner feelings. Virtue signalling (as an argument) is predicated on the belief that you know what I think, feel and the intentions of what I say or do.

Finally by saying that I was virtue signalling kinda falls into the trap of giving the unintended message that 'I am smarter and better than you because I don't virtue signal'... You wear a badge of non-virtue signaller as though it somehow shows how virtuous you are...

In short... well I think that's all I need to say really Moving on...

 

[englad]

I appreciate your input, englad. And yes, I am aware that the op may not be of a liberal bent based upon commentary I recall his having made in past threads. Nor was it my intent to ignore the full socio-political context in which his opening post was framed, though I do appreciate your taking the time to explain it.

However, as to that part having to do with the notion of "not getting" racism bigotry, anti-Semitism, I found malakos's remarks disparaging (as you've already agreed) and like you've referenced (in post 38) Jason's past commentaries (or the lack thereof) in drawing conclusions about his sentiments/motives on the subject, so have I drawn conclusions as to the sentiment behind malakos's dismissal, in part because, as I've already pointed on, I might have said exactly the same thing ("I don't get it") and undoubtedly would've received the same rebuke.

And that's because on this side of the pond, conservatives (and ESPECIALLY defenders of the alt-right) are wont to QUICKLY deride political correctness and those who they call "social justice warriors." They have a PARTICULAR knack for making concerned citizens and student protestors out to be villains, for making truths out to be lies, and vice versa.

No, absolutely. And I can completely see where you're coming from based on that. It is very easy to pick up linguistic cues off people based on the language. I can't stand bigotry personally in any form, this is why I will attack each version of it. But I won't ever use any form of it as a cheap political football to attack other groups, and use them as an attack tactic to go after either a different political party or a different minority community. In Jason's case he did both, he made ludicrous comparisons of the labour party = nazi party/BNP (the BNP are literally a white nationalist fringe fascist party, and highly socially conservative) and he blanketed the British muslim community as being rabid anti-semites who voted for labour because they thought the party was anti-semitic. That's not the case in the slightest, no community operates on a complete hive mind, that is incredibly disparaging for anyone to suggest they do. He didn't just do that with the British Muslim community, he did that with the British Jewish community too. As for the latter community I found the barely paraphrased conflation of "Jews are the same thing as the state of Israel" and then lumping in the three words together "Jews/Capitalists/Bankers" to be very telling too. Both of those frankly gave off unintentionally anti-Semitic vibes, that was ironic for someone who seemed to be so passionate about anti-Semitism.

He then moved into the traditional taunts of "marxist", "far left" etc. All of this coming from a guy who was claiming I wasn't engaging in a proper discourse, when he was using extreme partisan polemic (he's just scared Corbyn has a good chance of winning, and the tories are in a shambles atm with virtually no talent available). As for Malakos's responses, completely why you were taking him to task. I picked up the same vibe of why he was insinuating that "virtue signalling" was somehow something offensive, and he wasn't grasping that being unable to empathise with how people can be bigoted, is not the same as people being unable to comprehend how bigotry exists. It's just that I think it is highly likely that the OP wasn't doing this out of a genuine concern, he sounded like a conservative trying to come across as concerned. They're not good at that, because they aren't doing out of concern's sake, they're doing it because they want to paint someone else as looking evil (post 53 is a perfect example of that).

As for the SJW taunts, well the right wingers do that to a degree here as well. They are remarkably good at accidentally complimentary insults.

My main point is there are a number of parallels between the British right wing and the American right wing. Though of course the focusses differ, and there are different soundbites. The hate crime rates rose exponentionally post Brexit as they did post Trump election. Because both were run on virulently xenophobic campaign messaging. The opponents of it on both sides of the Atlantic are in this together.

 

[michael_3165]

I appreciate your input, englad. And yes, I am aware that the op may not be of a liberal bent based upon commentary I recall his having made in past threads. Nor was it my intent to ignore the full socio-political context in which his opening post was framed, though I do appreciate your taking the time to explain it.

However, as to that part having to do with the notion of "not getting" racism bigotry, anti-Semitism, I found malakos's remarks disparaging (as you've already agreed) and like you've referenced (in post 38) Jason's past commentaries (or the lack thereof) in drawing conclusions about his sentiments/motives on the subject, so have I drawn conclusions as to the sentiment behind malakos's dismissal, in part because, as I've already pointed on, I might have said exactly the same thing ("I don't get it") and undoubtedly would've received the same rebuke.

And that's because on this side of the pond, conservatives (Intand ESPECIALLY defenders of the alt-right) are wont to QUICKLY deride political correctness and those who they call "social justice warriors." They have a PARTICULAR knack for making concerned citizens and student protestors out to be villains, for making truths out to be lies, and vice versa.

Interesting take and I won't criticise if you have that view. My normal position is to open up alternative arguments for things - trying to take a sometimes lesser agreeable opinion to create conversation.

I am not liberal or right leaning - I am very centrist in my world view. Big on punishment for crimes, personal responsibility and freedom of speech (ANY speech) whilst leaning more left on social issues (healthcare, looking after disabled people etc).

On the political correctness front I am in two minds. Political correctness is essentially being nice and making the effort not to offend anyone. Whilst it is widely used by the alt-right as a way of kicking the hell out of 'liberals' it also points out that freedom of speech means all speech not just speech that is agreeable. The left seem to have this impression they are the paragons of morals, standing up for those that can't defend themselves and the rights of all whilst the right believe they are the reasonable, educated and measured opposition to an emotive left. I try to sit in the middle of those - neither blindly accepting things because its nice to do, nor nastily dismissing all compassion as 'virtue signalling'.

But hey what do I know. I only asked the original question to open my mind to how other people feel about things.