Any discourse about the terror state of Israel is going to draw in strange characters, including express antisemites, and I’ve been noticing a sparse but present range of bigoted language and sentiment in response to Israel’s invasion of Gaza. I can’t tell if people are merely erroneously equating the state of Israel with Jews broadly (as Israel itself does), or this is a cynical hijacking of the anti-imperialist movement by right-wingers and other bad actors. Either way, it’s not too uncommon to hear people express inappropriate hatred of Jewish people in general when criticizing Israel specifically.

I want to be absolutely clear that I have not seen a single instance of such behavior on this site, but it does exist elsewhere, even if in small amounts. Obviously, the problem of imperialist genocide goes far beyond, and does not necessarily encompass, Jews or Judaism, and it’s clear that communists understand this far better than most.

With all that in mind, is there a way to educate these folks? When you see antisemitic remarks like I’ve described, what do you say?

  • HaSch@lemmygrad.ml
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    10 months ago

    "In answer to your inquiry:

    National and racial chauvinism is a vestige of the misanthropic customs characteristic of the period of cannibalism. Anti-semitism, as an extreme form of racial chauvinism, is the most dangerous vestige of cannibalism.

    Anti-semitism is of advantage to the exploiters as a lightning conductor that deflects the blows aimed by the working people at capitalism. Anti-semitism is dangerous for the working people as being a false path that leads them off the right road and lands them in the jungle. Hence Communists, as consistent internationalists, cannot but be irreconcilable, sworn enemies of anti-semitism.

    In the U.S.S.R. anti-semitism is punishable with the utmost severity of the law as a phenomenon deeply hostile to the Soviet system. Under U.S.S.R. law active anti-semites are liable to the death penalty."