generalspeaking: Yes, Doubters, Anti-Zionism IS Antisemitism

Friday, June 21, 2024

Yes, Doubters, Anti-Zionism IS Antisemitism

"You would've thought there would be some sympathy from the world; you might've thought the world would pay attention to the attack and at least pay attention to the people behind it."
"You might've expected, like me, there might have been worldwide opposition to the terrorists and rapists and murders of Hamas."
"But no, there was immediate outpouring of rage against the state that had been attacked."
British author and political commentator Douglas Murray

"This debate is about racism and creating double standards, where you make an exception for the Jews."
"The genocide libel inverts reality. Hamas has spent 16 years embedding its terror infrastructure in mosques, schools, hospitals and every second house. Its central military tactic is to use civilians as human shields."
"Genocide is the latest modern blood libel that antisemites use to justify their anti-Zionism."
Natasha Hausdorff, U.K. lawyer

"Look, I get it. I do. I get it."
"Antisemitism is undeniably on the rise; hate crimes are on the rise; ancient tropes and conspiracy theories are back in circulation. No one is denying that."
"And so Jewish people, understandably, feel unsafe, threatened, insecure. So we should take a stand."
"But this isn't it. This is not it. This motion is not it. I'm sorry."
"This motion is an attempt to play you, to manipulate you, to gaslight you by propagandists and apologists for Israel's current government."
"In fact, this motion could've been written by the Israeli government."
Mehdi Hasan, former MSNBC and Al Jazeera English anchor

https://pbs.twimg.com/card_img/1803117389191520256/-hprBOCu?format=jpg&name=small

‘Majority at Munk Debates say anti-Zionism equals antisemitism.’ ⁦

On Monday night a packed crowd attended Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto for the occasion of a debate on whether antisemitism and anti-Zionist are one and the same thing. Before the debate, 61 percent of the audience supported the proposition A number that increased to 66 percent of those convinced by the discussion where support for the opposite side of the argument dropped from 39 to 34 percent.

Wearing a yellow ribbon on his lapel, a symbol linked to the release of Israelis taken by Hamas terrorists on October 7 as hostages to Gaza, Douglas Murray made his pitch, an emotional appeal to reasonableness and a condemnation of the world at large that failed to stand with Israel at its existential time of responding to the sadistic savagery meted out by Gaza's terrorist horde to Israeli civilians, children, women and men, from babies to the elderly when videos were taken by body cams worn by the terrorists as they set fire to homes with families inside and as they tortured women before raping and slaughtering them.

Murray addressed an event that occurred in Toronto just previous to the debate, when anti-Israel activists attempted to infiltrate a Jewish community centre in early June with a view to intimidating and harassing a Jewish community. The group carried huge Palestine flags, wore masks as they made their way through a Jewish neighbourhood. "F--king filthy f--king Zionist pig. You're a dirty Zionist rat. That's what you are. Happy about killing babies, right? Happy about killing babies?" one of the masked men screamed at an onlooker, the event videoed and posted online.

The argument was made that double standards applied exclusively to Israel echoeing antisemitic tropes of past years. Hausdorff's argument was that "modern blood libels are widely believed -- as widely believed as the ancient blood libel", alluding to the European conspiracy that held Jews slaughtered non-Jewish children for their blood, to be used in religious Judaic rituals.The present-day libels of Israel being a colonial state; it has ethnically cleansed Palestinians; it is an apartheid state; and that it is committing genocide in Gaza represented arguments Israel is held guilty of, in reflection of historical forms of bigotry.

Israeli journalist Gideon Levy and Mehdi Hasan, formerly of Al Jazeera, held that equating anti-Zionism with antisemitism had the effect of silencing critics of Israel. In actual fact there is not much that has the effect of stilling the slanderous claims against Israel by those with a vested interest in harming the Jewish State reputationally. Being labelled either anti-Zionist or antisemitic seems to please diehard haters of Judaism and Israel. And their irrational accusations owe more to passion than to reason.

There were well-founded concerns that the scheduled debate in downtown Toronto would face a loud orchestration of pro-Hamas protesters as has happened dozens of times when events casual and formal have been disrupted entirely by the presence of mobs shouting anti-Israel slogans while excoriating Canadian Jews for being -- well -- Jewish Canadians. That concern failed to materialize, to everyone's relief. A mammoth line of attendees instead queued for the opportunity to witness the debate unopposed by Israel-bashing antisemites.

"Some people thought this debate wouldn't happen, that the risks of protests would be too great. Well, so much for that argument."
"Others went further though, and lobbied me, the Munk Debates, people associated with our organization; that these proceedings shouldn't happen; that our topic tonight was too divisive; our society too divided, and that this debate would cause more harm than good."
"{I'd like to thank the audience for] support[ing] this debate; to support our shared belief that it's through more and better debate that we learn and confront difficult ideas."
Rudyard Griffiths, Munk Debates moderator and host