The video is already linked in the comments I’m replying to :p
He claims that the majority of Jews in the world are “not real Jews”, and “supporting genocide”. I can’t imagine a more dangerous thing to say, and it’s indistinguishable from antisemitism.
I understand the context in which he places these statements, but IMO it’s not great. Israel needs to be made a pariah, and held to account for its crimes, but that’s not what this rhetoric advances.
He doesn't claim it is the majority jews, but he isn't very specific. He talks at length about colonisation by Israel. Here he is referring to things like the Israeli lobby, and he then refers to Judaism being colonised and that it has been colonised by zionism. This isn't a controversial point, Israel has sought to conflate zionism with jewishness. And then he says that it is these jews which he says are supporting genocide in great numbers. So depending on how you interpret this sentence then he is either referring here to Israeli zionist jews, the Israeli's who have colonised the western mind, judaism etc, or if you prefer then he is referring to zionist jews in general who are supportive of Israel's current action in Gaza. Neither of these groups are a majority - the majority of jews in the world are not zionist.
I do not believe it to be a stretch to interpret his remarks as referring to all Zionist Jews, which unfortunately do make up a majority of world Jewry, and certainly the vast majority of Jewish institutions.
I think they were stupid things to say, and it completely flips the structural relationship between western powers and Israel. It’s classic “tail wagging the dog”. It’s by the interests of western (particularly US) imperialism that Israel is allowed to get away with their crimes against humanity.
As someone who’s nominally anti-Zionist, even i know there are many, many zionist Jews who are horrified by the genocide perpetuated by the Israeli regime, but find themselves paralyzed by this rhetoric ¯_(ツ)_/¯ completely irresponsible speech; there are plenty of ways to make the same points without resorting to antisemitic canards :\
When I listened to his speech, when he said "those jews" I understood that he meant the colonising Israeli Jews. He is an academic, they are usually quite precise, they don't usually switch about who they are referring to. If you listen to the way he says it, that part of speech is written in a long paragraph, of more or less one sentence.
But I guess you could argue other people listening to it, might interpret it differently, as you have, and you interpret it as a guilt by association kind of comment, being a zionist means (implicitly) supporting genocide. Does he mean that though? Or is this a more direct statement, that zionist jews (in general, your understanding), are supporting a genocide in greater numbers, in which case he is referring to those zionist jews who support genocide, and he says there are large numbers of them.
Is this correct though? Are there large numbers of zionist jews who support genocide?
We know that there seems to be general support in Israel amongst the Jewish population for ethnic cleansing of Gaza. It is raised on Israeli TV talk shows, by senior politicians, and also in street interviews with Israeli's.
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u/R0BBES Nov 04 '24 edited Nov 04 '24
The video is already linked in the comments I’m replying to :p
He claims that the majority of Jews in the world are “not real Jews”, and “supporting genocide”. I can’t imagine a more dangerous thing to say, and it’s indistinguishable from antisemitism.
I understand the context in which he places these statements, but IMO it’s not great. Israel needs to be made a pariah, and held to account for its crimes, but that’s not what this rhetoric advances.