Summer Lee on Benjamin Netanyahu remarks on college protests: ‘This idea that every criticism of Israel is antisemitic is dangerous’
Summer Lee on Benjamin Netanyahu remarks on college protests: ‘This idea that every criticism of Israel is antisemitic is dangerous’
29 comments
This is currently a major problem with some politicians and many in the media. They see every criticism/opposition to Netanyahu and Israel’s response to the horrific October Hamas attacks as antisemitic. And that simply is not true.
Somebody needs to photoshop Bibi’s head on Fonzi while he’s “jumping the shark”.
But on the other hand we have folks like the Columbia University protest leader who said “Zionists don’t deserve to live”. It’s clear that there’s a loud and sizable contingent among the critics of Israel who are rabidly antisemitic and want people like me dead. We shouldn’t tolerate this sort of thing
Logical Fallacy of Either/Or Reasoning: Aka: False Dilemma, All or Nothing Thinking; False Dichotomy, Black/White Fallacy, False Binary
A fallacy of logos that falsely offers only two possible options even though a broad range of possible alternatives, variations, and combinations are always readily available.
If I’m critical of the Saudi, Pakistani, or Iranian governments does that mean I’m biased against Muslims?
Thank god someone else is saying this. Criticism of Israel is not the same as criticism of the Jewish people, in Israel or elsewhere.
That’s where we’ve been for 20 years. What’s changed now is that Israel (specifically, Lukud and Netanyahu) is doing such horrible things that the narrative no longer holds together.
It is amazing to watch people turn on people for simply disagreeing with what Israel is doing to Palestinians and calling it antisemitism. It isn’t. Saying hateful things about Israelis is, disagreeing isn’t. When the adults of the world are acting like school children fighting on a playground it’s very disappointing for the future generations. It sets the bar sooooo low. I mean look at Trump. All we can do is go up from this point. I wish the world leaders would act like adult leaders.
Let’s be real, criticizing Israel’s policies isn’t the same as being anti-Jewish. It’s a cheap trick to conflate the two and silence critics.
Sure, but so is the parallel claim that *no* criticism is antisemitic. Because we also have things like one of the leaders of the Columbia protest saying they don’t think Zionists deserve to live, while appearing to define “Zionist” as anyone who opposes a single-state Palestinian solution
I agree that criticizing Bibi and his gov’t isn’t inherently antisemitic. The problem is that the criticism rarely targets just Bibi and his gov’t; it’s always broad criticism of Israel coupled with silence about Hamas’ use of human shields and Palestinian support of Hamas. If you only criticize “Israel” and never talk about what Hamas is doing and the broad support it enjoys, then you are not being honest about the issues.
I know that usually you shouldn’t look to one person to speak for everyone but if Bernie Sanders says it’s not antisemitic, it’s not. But then again I think he should’ve been president so I’m might be biased
This is the ”Dixie Chicks are anti-American for criticizing the Iraq War“ situation all over again.
Hamas and Likud agree on basically everything except which people should be exterminated.
At the same time, there have been some very real antisemitic chants and targeting of American Jews on campus. It hasn’t all been legitimate criticism of Bibi and bigots like to use “Zionism” as an excuse. Left or right politics doesn’t matter. It’s inexcusable to dismiss that it is happening. I recommend reading the ADL report card: https://www.adl.org/campus-antisemitism-report-card
Why do we allow a foreign country to have so much involvement in our domestic affairs?
Netanyahu would prefer Trump get elected so there will be no restraint whatsoever on what he does. Kushner already made a comment about how Gaza had great beach front property. People need to remember that the Kushners and Netanyahu are such close friends that he would stay at their house when he visited the US.
I’m sure Netanyahu sees this political division in the US as a good thing and something that works to his advantage. He gives zero fucks what those kids protesting think.
Israel is a political organization no different than any other country; it uses religion as a shield from criticism.
I give the following example. A strip club can be owned by Christians (or Jews for that matter) that doesn’t make it a Christian organization.
Bibi is a criminal who will say and do anything to keep his corrupt ass out of prison.
Benny is following Russia and China’s play book. Any criticism is racism to them. China steals your personal information. Chinaphobia. Russia kills your family and rapes you children. Russophobia. Yes I know that’s not what it’s actually called but I’m making fun of these shit head countries and don’t really care.
Now you don’t like the death of thousands of children and murder of Innocent people. It’s antisemitic.
Has nothing to do with race or religion, asshole. People don’t like that you’re killing innocent people. I don’t support terrorism but I definitely don’t support genocide.
I’m an American who believes Bush should rot in prison because of what he did in Iraq and Benny’s making the Iraq war look good in comparison.
Everything and everyone is open to criticism. To pretend otherwise is to virtue signal for bandwagon purposes. Anytime I get told that something is off limits for criticism it is almost always by someone who doesn’t know the subject matter that well and doesn’t want to look to closely other than to reinforce their own opinion.
Whenever anyone is accused of anti-Semitism, they seem to fall back on the canard that any criticism of Israel is regarded as anti-Semitic, even though that is demonstrably false. Many people criticize Israel without being regarded as anti-semitic, like hundreds of thousands of anti-Netanyahu demonstrators in Israel, Schumer’s speech criticizing Netanyahu, Pelosi’s call for Netanyahu to resign, etc.
Perhaps they would be better served by asking themselves why they are being called anti-Semitic. Whatever you feel about Palestinians, there is no question that the protests are [rife](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.thefp.com/p/at-columbia-i-am-told-go-back-to&ved=2ahUKEwj7uJ2On-aFAxXb78kDHVSzBWIQFnoECBMQAQ&usg=AOvVaw2W3a5EF-KxNS3hAOvEHU1Y) [with](https://www.instagram.com/jews_of_ny/reel/C6AgqchugpP/) [anti-semitism](https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/antisemitism/article-798160), and when the main group orchestrating the protests has issued an official [statement](https://www.palestine-studies.org/en/node/1654384) celebrating the Oct. 7th murder of over a thousand youths at a music festival during peacetime and another leader of the protests [says](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/26/nyregion/columbia-student-protest-zionism.html) “Be grateful that I’m not just going out and murdering Zionists…I feel very comfortable, very comfortable, calling for those people to die,” maybe they should look in the mirror and consider that the reason they are being accused of anti-semitism is not just because every criticism of Israel is called anti-semitism.
Now she’s antisemetic. It spreading /s
I’d like to see another Mark Regev interview explaining things for Bibi
I’m a Jew, very critical of Israel, I’ve been called antisemitic by many pro-Israel Jews. I’ve heard so many ridiculous accusations of antisemitism that it’s losing its meaning to me.
And now there are some protesters doing antisemitic things that clearly cross the line, but at the same time, weaponized antisemitism is going hyper speed. So when I hear accusations of antisemitism on these campuses my first thought is extreme skepticism.
These pro-Israel types not only call me an antisemite, but they’ve also made it harder for me to identity actual antisemitism. It’s really infuriating.
It’s a slippery slope silencing people by calling legit criticisms antisemitic.
Not to mention labeling every action antisemitic makes people less likely to take actual cases of antisemitism seriously. You cheapen the effects of the word.
Yup
Who the hell is Summer Lee?
Edit: obligatory, fck Netanyahu and fck Hamas
Conflating criticism Israel’s apartheid state with antisemitism is very old. Glad to see the cracks forming.