Rising anti-Semitism: ‘The Pianist’ actress considers leaving UK

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

94. I think it points out a facet of reality, while actually also being illogical.

We KNOW that ignorant, unnuanced people exist in this world.

So when a Muslim terrorist kills a group of people somewhere in the world, we KNOW that there will be a spike in anti-Muslim hatred in the world, and an increase in attacks on Muslims who had nothing to do with the attack. By people who think (stupidly) that the answer to violence is more violence, and are indiscriminate in who they hurt.

Ditto with Netanyahu and the deaths of 2000 Palestinians. There WILL be a spike in anti-Jewish hatred in the world as a result, and an increase in attacks on Jewish people who had nothing to do with those deaths.

Do I have to 'assign blame' then? If we KNOW that action X will result in actions Y and Z, are we 'blaming' X if we acknowledge the correlation? Who bears the real blame? The people who actually commit any given act of violence. But pointing out that there IS going to be a reaction from violent idiots to actions taken by another violent idiot is reality.

But as to why I actually don't agree with you that that quoted statement is entirely 'rational'. (Or at least I don't see logic in it.) The person who wrote it seems to posit some logical jump between knowing about the destruction in Gaza and some 'understanding' about the number of attacks on innocent Jewish people. But even if you agree hypothetically (since I'm sure you don't agree in reality) and stated that there was a direct link between the slaughter in Gaza and a rise in anti-Semitism, I still don't see where that leads to any sort of 'understanding' about the relative numbers of such attacks as compared to deaths in Gaza. The number of such attacks isn't going to have any real correlation to total Gaza deaths, because the attacks are not being perpetrated by rational individuals.