I said this when Mamdani was elected but a lot of the "vote blue no matter who" Democrats who up until now have been allies against the rise of antisemitism are going to abandon us and start downplaying antisemitism as antisemitism stops being an extremist element and becomes more and more mainstream in the Democratic party.

The real test of whether someone is going to abandon the Jews and start accusing us of lying/being hysterical about antisemitism at some point, is whether or not they are ok with calling out antisemitism that is personally politically inconvenient for them right now.

Up until now, there's been a significant group of people who saw antisemitism as a threat to the success of the Democratic party in the US, because this antisemitism is associated with extremist politics that have been generally unpopular in general elections. However, if/when accepting antisemitism becomes so mainstream that it is just a part of mainstream Democratic politics, you're going to see a lot of people suddenly agreeing that the Jews are being hysterical or lying about antisemitism, and/or that the antisemitism we are dealing with from their own political faction isn't actually antisemitism at all.

This is about Kamala Harris’s people feeling somehow compelled to ask Josh Shapiro if he was an Israeli double-agent.

They never asked Tim Walz if he was a Luxembourgish double-agent.

Holy fuck.

I don't know, I think they might be understating the extent to which both racialized and religious anti-Jewish tropes persist in "anti-Zionist" discourse, not only at the extremes... unless we should just understand those extremes as becoming increasingly prevalent in the population. Western anti-Zionists would certainly like us to think it's completely distinct from antisemitism, and some of them would probably like to think it themselves, but often I think it's just the "official" line in much the same way as in the USSR. And the more they take on the MENA discourse as would-be allies to the "colonized" -- whom they regard as infallible authorities on their oppression (real or perceived; Arabs and Muslims outside Israel/Palestine have little claim to being oppressed by Israel!) -- the more the strands are re-fusing on the Western Left. Westerners in keffiyehs are as happy to parrot "Palestine is Arab" and the Khaybar chant as they are to wave Hamas, Hezbollah, and Houthi flags; and they were the audience eagerly lapping up the Damascus blood libel that an Arab academic was preaching to them at University College London.

It's complicated yet more of the same.

Louis-Klein is really doing some groundbreaking research on it. His last discussion with Haviv Rettig-Gur is immensely insightful.

He also runs a Facebook page of his own, where he drops various charts and thoughts. He is the scholar of the topic next generations will be reading.

The joke is that every Jewish holiday is the story of “they tried to kill us, we won, let’s eat.”

The truth is they tried to kill us before and they’re trying to kill us now. I’m afraid of people around me. I’m tucking my magen david under my shirt.

The truth is we won. We won those wars, we survived those genocides. The Romans couldn’t do it, the Spanish Inquisition couldn’t do it, the Nazis couldn’t do it, and you can’t do it either.

The truth is we will sit together again and share a meal. As a community, as a people. We will gather. We will sing. We will share food and laughter.

They can try to kill us. We will win. We will eat.

My abortion was really one the most hated kind of abortion. I wasn't underage. I wasn't raped. I wasn't in medical need.

I got pregnant not through some fluke or 1 in a 100 contraceptive failure. I got pregnant because I was knowingly and willfully having unprotected sex. Out of wedlock too if that matters.

It was my own fault, I was being irresponsible because I knew I could always get an abortion if I got pregnant. My abortion was as close as it comes to 'using abortion as a contraceptive' as anti-choicers love to say.

I didn't abort it because my health was in danger or because I didn't have the ability to care for it or whatever else. I did it purely because I didn't want a child. I wanted sex and I didn't want to deal with any consequences from it.

There's no moral here. I don't feel bad about it whatsoever. I suffered no karmic consequences or punishment from god. My life is amazing. I want to rub this in the face of every conservative and anti-choicer. I did the terrible thing. I had an abortion for the most selfish of reasons and literally nothing happened. Suck it.

Look: If you are a self proclaimed leftist that believes there shouldn't be a state for Jewish people and you also think Jews should leave Israel bcs it is ''stolen land'' and yet you live in fucking Thessaloniki you probably live in a Jewish person stolen house and if you are serious about the fact that Jews shouldn't need a seperate state you better fucking return it

4PM WASHINGTON SQUARE PARK NYC, TODAY, FRIDAY, JANUARY 9TH!

Please come!! I will be bringing SIX extra posters besides my own that I will post as soon as they are finished, for anyone who wants to come but didn't have a chance to mak a sign! Even if it's just for a few minutes, please come. This is the moment!

It appears I will have quite a few visitors to my blog here. Hello folks. I have learned my lesson arguing with my general knowledge against strangers on the pedantry website. Wave at the fool.

That's the thing. You don't even have general knowledge. You have "rancid bigotry, raging prejudice, egotistical self-satisfaction, and unexamined assumptions from your upbringing" along with all of the blistering arrogance that you can dictate a minority's history based on your own biases and vibes. You are, fundamentally, no different than the Christian Evangelicals you claim to despise, and your effort to dismiss your disgusting Jew-hate as merely "arguing with general knowledge against pedants" is just as revolting.

You wanted to know here what you could do to convince me that you're not a sneering Jew-hating bigot?

Well, trying to paint yourself as being just a little misguided and lacking in specialist knowledge--when your entire stance was "I am smugly dictating to Jews about their own history, culture, beliefs, oppression, and politics and acting like I'm innocent when I get pushback for my arrogance"--is precisely the wrong way to go about it.

Bigot.

“What could I possibly say to you to overcome your prejudice of me?”

You could idk not say things that are blatantly untrue about Judaism and Jewish history, like it’s not that hard

I have made so many friends in the Jewish community and with Jewish allies alike in the past couple of years and not once have I been called a bigot or antisemitic. It really is not that fucking hard. You're either incompetent, to which I say fucking skill issue, or you're being an asshole on purpose.

The question to ask here should be "what could Jews possibly say so that you overcome your prejudice against them?"

But we all know the answer cause there is nothing they can say to change your mind. The bigotry is the point.

For context for those just joining, the thing that OP originally stepped in here was, he claimed that the Mormon cultural connection to stolen Native American land in the would-be nation of Deseret was equivalent to the Jewish cultural connection to historically Jewish cultural sites in Levant – and that as an Ex-Mormon who understood that Joseph Smith’s fake archeology was fake, he had unique and valuable insights into how all of the real archeology performed by real archaeologists in Levant was probably also fake, or at least didn’t matter. Part of his rhetorical argument was, I shit you not, “we both even call it Zion!”

OP then was surprised and offended that a whole bunch of non-Mormons – not all of whom were even Jews, btw! – took exception to the notion that there was literally no difference whatsoever between a) claiming that there was a solid archeological record of there being Jewish communities living in Levant continuously dating all the way back to at least the Edict of Cyrus, and b) claiming that a magic rock that you put in your hat told you that the Native Americans are all the distant descendants of the Israelites, that their skin color is the result of a fall from a higher civilization, and that their land is yours by divine right and their genocide is a moral obligation.

Like brother, I don’t know how to fucking tell you this, but however ex-Mo you think you are, you very clearly need to deconstruct a little further. Maybe like. Idk. Read the CES Letter, and then compare it to the entire field of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies, and see if you can’t spot a difference or five.

Joseph Smith may have made obvious, ridiculous, fraudulent claims about ancient Israelites, but that doesn’t mean that the history of Levant prior to the Arab Conquest of Syria is unknowable.

It is the height of arrogance to think that merely knowing that “the historical account in the Book of Nephi is a bunch of racist lies” – a thing that almost everyone except for Mormons already understands – qualifies you to speak on literally anything at all, but especially on something as nuanced and complex as eg. the relationship between modern day Middle Eastern politics and the millennia long path of bloody history in the region that lies between the Iron Age and today.

"arguing with my general knowledge." ....as someone who worked in an archaeology museum that was involved in excavations which helped shape the standards of modern archaeology (and which had an ancient Israel & Canaan collection!) — this isn't even having general knowledge.

This is basically zero knowledge of archaeology and history in general, with a bonus side of "now that comparison just doesn't make sense." I don't even need to be a pedant about that.

OP the problem wasn't using "general knowledge on the pedantry" website. The problem was saying something regarding a subject you clearly don't understand even a little bit on a website where there are people who do know a lot of things about that subject! Or even anything at all!

"they both called the land Zion!" Mormon supersessionism isn't evidence which disproves Jewish archaeological history. What a weird argument. Like okay? And Philadelphia was also a city in what is now Turkey. So obviously we should transpose the history of Philadelphia, USA onto Philadelphia of the Kingdom of Pergamon! Brilliant! What does that have to do with anything?

Like this is just....so deeply unrelated as to be baffling.

OP also went into the comments section of another post about antisemitism, and compared the Jewish refugees fleeing the Holocaust and joining already-existing Jewish communities in the Levant to, I shit you not, Christian missionaries.

So yeah.

pov you’ve just watched persuasion (2022)

Darcy’s introduction in Pride and Prejudice is really ‘what if you had just had the worst month of your life because your ex-bestie tried to lover boy scam your baby sister out of her share of your dad’s life insurance and your friend dragged you to a shitty party in a dive bar in the neighbourhood where he’d just signed a short term lease, and you decided to let your bad mood show because you were never going to see any of the assholes in this stupid shitty bar EVER again. And your friend ended up making out with a girl he’d just met there while you were stuck talking to her sister who was less cute and then her mother appeared and started trying to matchmake and started saying how if she was twenty years younger she’d clime you like a redwood and ooooh is that a black Amex, guess the next round is on you hahhahahahaha, while her other sister (how many fucking sisters does she have?!) flashed an obviously fake ID at the bar and ordered six vodka-diet red bulls and no one in her family except the less-cute sister even tried to stop her. And you went home and consoled yourself that you would never see any of these people again but then you met them over and over again because they live next door and your friend and the cute sister keep meeting up to make out but not actually date and then. You fall in love with the less-cute sister because it turns out she’s really witty and charismatic but she already knows and remembers and resents the fact that on a day when you were in a shitty mood you called her mid out loud in a dive bar.’

It appears I will have quite a few visitors to my blog here. Hello folks. I have learned my lesson arguing with my general knowledge against strangers on the pedantry website. Wave at the fool.

That's the thing. You don't even have general knowledge. You have "rancid bigotry, raging prejudice, egotistical self-satisfaction, and unexamined assumptions from your upbringing" along with all of the blistering arrogance that you can dictate a minority's history based on your own biases and vibes. You are, fundamentally, no different than the Christian Evangelicals you claim to despise, and your effort to dismiss your disgusting Jew-hate as merely "arguing with general knowledge against pedants" is just as revolting.

You wanted to know here what you could do to convince me that you're not a sneering Jew-hating bigot?

Well, trying to paint yourself as being just a little misguided and lacking in specialist knowledge--when your entire stance was "I am smugly dictating to Jews about their own history, culture, beliefs, oppression, and politics and acting like I'm innocent when I get pushback for my arrogance"--is precisely the wrong way to go about it.

Bigot.

“What could I possibly say to you to overcome your prejudice of me?”

You could idk not say things that are blatantly untrue about Judaism and Jewish history, like it’s not that hard

You'd think (not Israel) attacking (also not Israel) for reasons unrelated to Israel would give the goys something to talk about other than Israel, but alas

It’s so exhausting having to constantly prove antisemitism. People will believe someone is racist or homophobic based on the flimsiest hearsay but anytime someone is accused of hating jews we’re expected to pull out detailed receipts dating back decades like some kind of IRS audit

The state they have cut off the internet for looks like a fucking war zone. The videos are insane people are putting police cars on fire!!! They are hitting the cops with STONES!! They are getting shot STRAIGHT into their bodies but they’re still protesting and closing streets with fire.

This is INSANE. We had protests before but this is just on another level

Oh and also my friend went to the protests in her town and she told me they were straight up shooting people and the cops murdered THREE protestors.

The people of Iran are so brave! The courage everyone is showing in the face of this evil government in order to try to build a better and freer future fills me with so much emotion I don't even have the words for it. These sacrifices will not be forgotten. This is what fighting Fascism looks like. You are an inspiration to us all.

I wish with my all my heart to see a free Iran soon. I hope any Iranians read this know that there are many of us around the world who are thinking of you and rooting for you. Stay safe and stay strong. We love you.

And if you're outside Iran please take a moment to contact your government and ask them to show solidarity with the Iranian protestors.

Thank you so much!

With regards to governments of other countries, please tell them that the people of Iran can't fight alone. People are fighting with their bare hands and won't be able to fight back when the violent repression gets even more intense. They always make the statement that Iranians should be the ones to make the change themselves, which is true, but without the resources, we won't be able to take control to change things. Better yet, ask them why they refuse to help people whose only weapons are their own bodies and how they expect them to win. Empty statements of support aren't enough.

Also, while we're at it, I'd like to bring it to people's attention that no left-wing politicians, especially in the US, have mentioned Iran at all, despite claiming to care about human rights and equality. They need to be called out on their silence, and everyone needs to see their hypocrisy. People like Emmanuel Macron need to be held accountable for being against regime change.

Finally, people need to hold news outlets accountable for minimizing and misrepresenting what's happening in Iran. They still are painting it as protests and complaints, not people fighting to overthrow the regime. This is insulting to Iranians and helps misrepresent what's happening in a way that makes it easier to not hold governments when they don't do anything. Worse than that, they repeat regime propaganda and platform people who regime for the lobbyists. Put pressure on them to drop this dishonest, unethical practice.

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