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Netanyahu Says It’s Antisemitic For Israeli Soldiers To Describe Their Own Atrocities
(caitlinjohnstone.com.au)
this post was submitted on 29 Jun 2025
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Learn a new trick, fuckface. This one doesn't work anymore. People are going to start responding to accusations like this with "so what?" because the word has been watered down to such a ridiculous degree that it is no longer meaningful.
And that's really dangerous because it provides cover for actual antisemitism against Jewish people.
Tbh, it used to be justified, and in some circumstances it still is justified.
Jews used to be the biggest "live-in" minority in Europe. So, a minority that lives in the same country and doesn't have a separate homeland. Kinda similar to black people in the USA. Contrary to regular migration, groups like that can't return home and they can't just assimilate.
If you look at regular migration, if someone's family has lived in the country for 4 generations, they aren't foreigners any more. Someone might say they have a Polish grandma, or they might say they are of Italian ancestry, but they aren't Polish or Italian themselves any more.
Jews, especially before WW2, couldn't do that. They were a discriminated against minority that was kept separate of the rest of society. A bit like black people in the USA after slavery was abolished.
So racism against them was a whole other order than the regular racism/xenophobia faced by other immigrants.
WW2 showed how bad that special kind of racism turned out to be, but WW2 wasn't an isolated event in time or location. Anti-Semitism had been rampant for centuries if not millennia before that, and it wasn't just localized to Germany. Just read up on e.g. Henry Ford, just to pick a random name from the bucket.
That said, things have shifted after WW2. Specifically antisemitic laws are pretty much gone in the western world, religion in general is not nearly as critically important as it was and there are now more than enough people of Jewish descent in the western world who don't identify as Jews or who aren't noticeable as Jews. And for a large part, society has accepted a special "protection" status for Jews to prevent a second Holocaust.
In consequence, the hate against Jews has mostly shifted into hate against Muslims, and many far-right/right-extremist people are now arguing that they can't be Nazis because they now don't hate Jews but instead hate Muslims. As if the problem with the Nazis wasn't genocide and suppression of minorities, but instead genocide and suppression of Jews specifically.
But yeah, Nazis will be Nazis, and they will argue in bad faith to justify themselves. Nothing new there.
The person you are responding to characterized antisemitism as "supposedly committing racist actions" which is an ignorant and hateful thing. You are arguing whether or not the existence of a word "still is justified". Words don't need to be justified or not; they go in or out of favor based on utility.
This holocaust denialism. One of the major and specific problems with the nazis was their attitude regarding jews. They didn't have a problem with "minorities". They used long standing conspiratorial intolerance to consolidate power into the hands of their minority.
One of the reasons israel thinks it can keep riding the "everything is antisemetic" horse is because of how comfortable people clearly are with actual anti semitism.
I think you missed my point. For one, Nazis didn't only want to exterminate Jews. Roma, Sinti, homosexuals, communists and disabled people (just to name a few other groups) were also on the chopping block.
But my main point here was that if the holocaust wasn't about killing Jews but instead about exterminating the French, it would have been just as horrible and Nazis would have been just as horrible.
No, I'm not arguing about the justification of the existence of the word, but of the applicability of the concept. Slavery is still a word and we still all know the word, no question about that, but at least in Europe, legalized slavery isn't really a concept we need to put a lot of political effort into, because it doesn't exist any more.
The concept is not applicable to today. We don't need to have laws governing how slaves are treated, how the process of freeing slaves go, how former slaves are treated in society. We don't even need to have discussions about that topic, because there's no legalized slavery any more.
And in the same vein I think it's justified to think about whether Jews really still need this protected status over e.g. Muslims or refugees. At least over here, it's not so rare that e.g. refugee homes are set on fire by right-wing extremists. All sorts of Jewish institutions in my city have a permanent police guard stationed outside of them to protect them from potential attacks, even though they haven't really happened in decades, while mosques or refugee homes usually don't have that.
A similar thing is happening on a grander scale with Israel and its neighbours. They've been squashing Palestine under their heels for decades, but in false anti-antisemitism the governments of countries like Germany have been agreeing with everything Israel's government does, because Jews are the better minority and Muslims are sub-human, or something like that.
So my point is not "does the word antisemitism has a place in the dictionary", but instead "do Jews need this higher protection status over everyone else, or is there maybe another group that could need protection as well/more?"
I guess you have never heard of the UK's 2015 Modern Slavery Act ("An Act to make provision about slavery, servitude and forced or compulsory labour and about human trafficking, including provision for the protection of victims; to make provision for an Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner; and for connected purposes").
If you web search for any organization or company that's active in the UK, you will find they have a bunch of disclosures and policies relating to slavery. Here are some randoms ones to save your fingers from working too hard: the NHS, Apple, Levi's
There is movement towards EU-wide anti-slavery legislation.
Presumably you have spent
zeromoments looking into the validity of the claim about no attack in decades, just like the one about slavery being a non-issue. I proceed on the premise that you are ignorant and incorrect."Anti semitism" describes a unique and specific form of bigotry which is deeply entrenched in Europe and elsewhere which is influenced by European culture. It's different than anti-black racism, orientalism, or islamiphobia to name a few. They all "deserve" their own words to describe the nuances.
Obviously you should do something about people's houses being set on fire. Jews are are certainly not the primary barrier. I bet if you were to look at people who are in positions to actually do anything, you'll find most of them are Christians. And do you think those cops who are paid to stand around all day as street furniture would really change anything for the better if they were re-deployed? They'd probably assist the arsonists.
Israel is a criminal enterprise from top to bottom. It has many advocates, the most effective and powerful of whom are not jewish, who conduct themselves in heinous fashion. Israel was created after WW2 by europeans who were semi-regretful about the holocaust, but were happy to not have a bunch of poor jewish refugees returning home. And by Europeans who didn't regard the arab or muslim inhabitants of Palestine as human beings. Europe and the US have been in active support and benefiting from Israel's crimes for decades.
We need to be able to use our brains to get through the swamp of propaganda without falling back on old bigotries. Blaming jews for structural problems is one of the core tenants of nazisim. I don't know if you are a nazi or you've just picked up a bit of it through culture, or something in between.
I think you might be falling into reflexive attack patterns instead of actually trying to understand what I am saying.
What I am saying is that all minorities should have the necessary protections, and that Jews are used for "non-Nazi-washing" by a lot of the right-wing speakers.
It's a common argument to claim that one isn't a Nazi because he's for the Israelis mass-killing Muslims in Palestine.
Yep. Sadly only a reflexive attack pattern instead of actual trying to understand what was said.
I have always voted for left parties. I am for human rights for everyone. I am for rights for all minorities including Muslims and Jews. I am pro immigration. I am for trans/LGBTQ+ rights and for abortion rights. I am against genocides being committed regardless of who is committing them. According to you I am a Nazi, totally fits the bill, correct?
the existence of a specific term is due to pervasive and long standing existence of antisemitism in Europe.
I understand the literal reason, I just don't think it's a particularly good one.
According to wikipedia you have several choices: "antigypsyism, anti-Romanyism, antiziganism, ziganophobia, or Romaphobia".
Furthermore there are terms "porajmos (also porrajmos or pharrajimos—literally, "devouring" or "destruction" in some dialects of the Romani language)... Balkan Romani activists prefer to use the term samudaripen ("mass killing")" to describe the holocaust on Romani people.
It's difficult to over emphasize how willfully ignorant the above commenter is. They don't care about jews or roma. This is an example of real anti semitism, which continues to pervade, and is the reason why Israel and its oligarchs can get away with mislabeling legitimate activity as such. Because everyone knows there are people like this running around who are seeking to ride the wave of empathy for the palestinians (who they also don't care about) to stir up anti-jew attitudes.
Maybe don't commit hate crimes?
Ask yourself, really what the fuck do hate crimes and vocabulary have to do with each other? I see your point, it's just not really a point.
It's all they have to hide behind.