Is criticism of Israel antisemitic?

[Sympthsical]

70. Look, you're just advertising you're unfamiliar with this stuff

Which is fine. We don't all follow the same news stories. However, when I don't know what's going on, I usually don't try to lecture people about it. But that's my self-awareness working.

American campuses have had a very strong anti-Israel and anti-Jewish problem that stretches back several decades. If you scratch the surface of the BDS movement, for example, you will find a lot of antisemitic ugliness underneath. Not anti-Israel - antisemitic.

Now, I know this exists, because it existed back when I was in college in the late 90s/early 00s. I watched it then. I continued to watch it when I worked around UC Berkeley for ten years. The activists, the protests, the gatherings. It is very, very hostile to Jewish people. Not Israel - Jews.

The professors teach this stuff. The students repeat it. The activists stoke the fires of it. It is oppression ideology with Jews - not, Israel, but Jews - coded as oppressors. And once someone is coded in such a way, you have a free pass to hate them and be hostile to them as much as you want. Because it doesn't count as bigotry if the Other you're attacking is an oppressor.

These protests are the fruition of an ideology that has been formed and reinforced for as long as I've been an adult.

If you aren't familiar with that. Fine. Now you are. A whole internet awaits with examples to peruse at leisure.

I don't worry about being called antisemitic. I've criticized Netanyahu and Likud, I've said I support the US using leverage to put a stop to West Bank settlements, and I vigorously support a two-state solution. You know why I never worry about being called antisemitic?

Because it's a big, bright, joyous line between being anti-Israeli government and antisemitism that is super easy to spot. You could spot the fucker from space.

The only people who need to constantly iterate they aren't being antisemitic are usually the ones who don't know where the line is and keep marching on up to it, then getting frazzled when others point it out.

But that's their problem. Not really mine. Maybe stop marching up to the line. Simple problem, simple solutions.