Antisemitism rising sharply across Europe

Matt Barrett wrote: »

Let's re-visit your anti Rothschild comment...

Do you see the hypocrisy here?

No.

Franz Von Peppercorn II wrote: »

So one flag proves anti semitism on the left but the fact that most fascist groups, the far right, many Christian fundamentalists, most nationalist groups, the national front in France and our friends the fleg burners etc. are pro Zionist tells us nothing about Zionism, or at least something about Westerners who support Zionism?

It’s clear even here that’s there’s a fair amount of anti Muslim sentiment in the pro Zionist camp.

Having spent far too much time debating with conspiracy theorists, many of them use "Zionism" to cover for their blatant anti-semitism

As mentioned, there's normal criticism, then there are those who are overly obsessed

ILoveYourVibes wrote: »

Soros is a man who places people before money every time. He doesn't care about his image.

I am always HIGHLY amused by people complaining this rich man spends all of his money on leftist politicians and charity.

Do you think he doing it for himself?? this big business man who throws money at people like Ocasio Cortez???

This big business man who throws money at muslims refugees.This big Business man who threw money at poor black students going to university in Apartheid South Africa.This rich Business man who threw 100 million to Russian Universities.
Yes this man who throws money like water towards education and Newspapers its HIM who is an enemy of democracy.

He even funded the yes side for our abortion ref.

He throws money like WATER at human rights in places he has never even BEEN. He throws money like WATER at politicians who want to tax the bejaysus out of him!

Yet its purely for his own selfish ends. And do you know what ..YOU ARE RIGHT it is. He does all this ...because he wants to. For his own selfish reasons.

And that is why he is own of my personal heroes.

I mean, I have a different take on rich people using their money to subvert democracy than you But the point is, why does being Jewish somehow make him immune to criticism for it? Are we not allowed to say "Rich people using their money to sway democratic election - especially when they do it in foreign countries whose internal politics are none of their damn business - are w@nkers, and f*ck those people whether they happen to be Jewish or not"? That's what I find disturbing about this argument. People acting like hatred of Soros from the right makes them anti-semitic, as if he's never done anything which the right could find legitimately democratically repulsive, is bizarre. He happens to be Jewish, true. That's a completely irrelevant and unrelated issue to the other issue, which is that he happens to use his money to influence politics outside his own country. That is also true, and that is why people on the right wing despise him. If he was French, or American, or Muslim, or Christian, or black, or Asian, or dreadlocked, or balding - none of these factors would make the right hate him more or less than they do. They hate him because of what he does, not who he is. Hell, Jared Kushner is Jewish and the right wing love him.

Why is it that when someone Jewish does something political objectionable, such as using money to influence foreign elections, people aren't allowed to criticise that without being accused of doing so with an identity politics angle? Am I suddenly Francophobic (that's hatred of Frenchies as opposed to hatred of Franco and hisantics in Spain) for despising Nicholas Sarkozy over his attempts to interfere in Irish politics? I have literally never been accused of such even though I have spoken extensively of my hatred for the man on this and many other forums. But no one is allowed to feel about George Soros as I do about Nicholas Sarkozy, because those people must hate him out of bigotry and not because his political activities are incredibly scummy.

Do ye not see why this makes the whole question of anti-semitism very difficult to fully take seriously? People are constantly conflating spats entirely politicsl in nature, which coincidentally involve one or more Jewish individuals, with hatred specifically of Jewish individuals. That's no different to supporters of George Bush accusing the world and its mother of being Anti-American because many of us thought George Bush was a grade A twat who should be told to f*ck himself at every opportunity.

Does anyone actually have a rebuttal to any of this? It really perplexes me how this isn't called out more often.

Matt Barrett wrote: »

Maybe any rise in antisemetism in Europe has something to do with the rise in white supremacy, I mean they have previous? Just a thought.

yeah you cant walk do the street without bumping into white supremacists these days

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

I mean, I have a different take on rich people using their money to subvert democracy than you But the point is, why does being Jewish somehow make him immune to criticism for it?

You can criticize Soros for what he does, not what he is. Is someone waving Soros' religion in your face when you do?

Are we not allowed to say "Rich people using their money to sway democratic election - especially when they do it in foreign countries whose internal politics are none of their damn business - are w@nkers, and f*ck those people whether they happen to be Jewish or not"?

Of course.

Do ye not see why this makes the whole question of anti-semitism very difficult to fully take seriously?

Not even slightly. Antisemitism is hatred of Jews because they're Jews. It's a very serious problem worldwide and the whole point of this thread is whether it's rising in Europe.

People are constantly conflating spats entirely political in nature, which coincidentally involve one or more Jewish individuals, with hatred specifically of Jewish individuals. That's no different to supporters of George Bush accusing the world and its mother of being Anti-American because many of us thought George Bush was a grade A twat who should be told to f*ck himself at every opportunity.

Does anyone actually have a rebuttal to any of this? It really perplexes me how this isn't called out more often.

Feel free to criticize George Soros for what he does.

Igotadose wrote: »

You can criticize Soros for what he does, not what he is. Is someone waving Soros' religion in your face when you do?

Of course.

Not even slightly. Antisemitism is hatred of Jews because they're Jews. It's a very serious problem worldwide and the whole point of this thread is whether it's rising in Europe.

Feel free to criticize George Soros for what he does.

The problem is that people, including in this thread, are using the barrage of hatred for Soros from the right as evidence for the disputed claim that anti-semitism is on the rise. Same with anti-Israel sentiment - its ubiquity is being used as evidence for the disputed claim that anti-semitism is on the rise.

When issues which have nothing directly to do with the alleged problem are used as evidence that the alleged problem is a real problem, it's understandable if some are going to hear about the alleged problem and think "oh, that's just people trying to draw lines between things which are unconnected". That's why opposition to Israel and hatred of George Soros are two issues which, if someone brings them up as evidence that "antisemitism is rising sharply across Europe", make me, and I'm sure many others, immediately think "ah, so this person doesn't have any actual evidence that anti-semitism is rising sharply across Europe, instead they're taking legitimate political views which have a tangential (at best) connection to anti-semitism and trying to make the claim that X=Y, therefore Z."

To give you an analogy, it's like someone saying "Irish social media users are sexist" because Irish social media users have spent the last fortnight ridiculing Maria Bailey over her moronic swinging antics. "Irish social media users dislike Maria Bailey, Maria Bailey happens to be a woman, therefore Irish social media users dislike women". That's why it's so grating to see this crap always being brought up in threads like this.

Many people don't like Israel because it was literally created through the British Empire giving away land which it had stolen from someone else. Many others don't like Israel because it took land which wasn't even part of that original deal, which many feel was morally wrong to begin with, and forced civilians out at gunpoint to expand their state. Many people don't like George Soros because he uses his wealth to exert influence over democratic elections, even in countries which he has no connection to on a personal level. In all three cases, the fact that Jewish people are involved is unrelated and coincidental. People who oppose Israel because of either (a) how it came into existence, or (b) its continued and illegal expansion of its borders since then, would hate it just as much if Israel was a French ethnostate, or an American ethnostate, or a British ethnostate. People who support right wing causes, or simply oppose the idea that money should be a factor in who wins elections, would despise George Soros if he happened to be an Irish catholic, or an English protestant, or an Iranian muslim, or an American atheist.

The ethnic identity of the state of Israel and George Soros are not why people dislike the aforementioned state and human being, respectively. And trying to imply that their Jewish identity is the reason people dislike them, completely undermines and invalidates the subsequent claim that anti-semitism is on the rise. If that claim is based on 'evidence' which is patently false, such as these two tropes I've highlighted in this thread, it's not unreasonable that people will go on to presume that the claim itself is also patently false.

It'd be like climate deniers using La Nina, a cyclical cooling of the Pacific, as "evidence" that global warming is not occurring. When it's established, as it is, that La Nina has absolutely nothing to do with global warming and is caused by different mechanisms, then if this is the main argument climate deniers use to state "the Earth is not becoming warmer over time", it's perfectly reasonably for people to say "your claim that the Earth is not becoming warmer over time" is probably bullsh!t, because the phenomenon you are using as evidence for it is totally unconnected and unrelated to the phenomenon you are trying to prove the non-existence of.

I'm not really sure how else I can analogise this. Imagine someone trying to use the general dislike of Denis O'Brien or Daniel Kinahan in Irish social media discourse as evidence that Irish people hate... Irish people. It won't fly, because there are other legitimate factors in why people might dislike these two individuals, and their being Irish is unrelated.

EDIT: By the way, I'm not actually disputing that anti-semitism is indeed on the rise - for all I know it could be. All I'm saying is that when I see people use the words "Israel" or "Soros" in a post which is making the claim that anti-semitism is on the rise, I immediately dismiss the entire argument. Because it is bringing in issues which are entirely unrelated and irrelevant to the claim, to try and prove the claim.

Criticism of Israel is rising sharply across Europe, lets not confuse this with anti-semitism.

Franz Von Peppercorn II wrote: »

It’s clear even here that’s there’s a fair amount of anti Muslim sentiment in the pro Zionist camp.

More so among Christians but true.

I think hundreds of years of anti-antisemitism has shaped the lefts view of Israel.

Gringo180 wrote: »

Criticism of Israel is rising sharply across Europe, lets not confuse this with anti-semitism.

Anti-semitism is rising across Europe according to the reports. I think it is hardly coincidental that this parallels the rise of populism on both the right and left extremities.


Many governments in Europe criticise aspects if Israeli policy, and probably few more than our own. Criticism of Israeli policies is quite legitimate and is not anti-semitism. The barely concealed hatred of Israel, and the demonisation of Israel, by some populists groups and their followers is a completely different matter, which reeks of anti-semitism.



Of course here in Ireland anti-Israelism has been fueled long before the rise of European populism by Sinn Fein/IRA, because of their instinctive support and association with any terrorist organisation they could find worldwide - excepting their blood brothers in the UDA/UVF. So it was PLO = Good, Israel = Bad (subtle, wasn't it?).
They were fortunate to have got out of the terror business (formally at least) before the rise of Al Qaeda and ISIS or they wouldn't have known which way to turn.

The Sinn Fein/Aontu types contort themselves to shoe horn the Middle East into some type of anti-Brit narrative. So it may be more of a need to find an outlet for their "Brits out" mindset than anti-semitism that fuels them (however irrelevant this is to the situation).

1641 wrote: »

The barely concealed hatred of Israel, and the demonisation of Israel, by some populists groups and their followers is a completely different matter, which reeks of anti-semitism.

It isn't, though. It's more about Western hegemony and double standards than anything to do with race.

So it may be more of a need to find an outlet for their "Brits out" mindset than anti-semitism that fuels them (however irrelevant this is to the situation).

How exactly is it irrelevant? Israel exists because the Brits gave away something they had absolutely no moral right to make any decisions about whatsoever, against the will of the majority of people living there at the time. That places Israel on shaky enough ground to begin with, but most on the left will tell you that they would be willing to let that slide if Israel hadn't decided it had a right to seize even more land - again, without the consent of the people living there - by military force. The reasons for doing this are irrelevant, forcing civilians from their legitimate homes is an absolute moral wrong under any circumstances whatsoever.

Israel has a right to exist now (within its original borders, not the post-1967 clusterf*ck they're trying to pass off as legitimate) because many generations of people have now been born there through no fault of their own, because their parents moved there. But Israel should never have been created in the location it was located in, and that is 100% a British f*ck up, and yet another example in the world of British imperial bullsh!t.

There's a joke in an episode of Yes Minister in which two characters are discussing partition:

"Partition? You mean like we did in India, Cyprus, Palestine and Ireland?"

"That was our invariable practise in giving independence to colonies - it always worked."

"Eh... But didn't partition always lead to civil war? It did in India, Cyprus, Palestine and Ireland..."

"Exactly! It kept them busy, instead of fighting with us they were content to fight eachother!"

This is obviously political satire but it's an accurate representation of how things actually turned out. The Brits had no right to do what they did in the region, and for a state which existed on wafer thin ice as a legitimate concept in the first place to act as if it has a God-given right to take whatoever it wants from its neighbours with total disregard for how much misery this inflicts on innocent indigenous civilians is what makes Israel so infuriating as a state.

None of this is in any way grounded in anti-semitism. If Israel was a French colony or an Italian one, those of us who are anti-Zionist would still be absolutely repulsed by both its history and its present-day criminality.

I'll compare this with a comment I made in the "feral teens" thread a few days or weeks ago, when the thread devolved into an argument about the race of those involved and whether there was a racist element in those condemning it, or whether indeed there was a racial element in the gangs themselves - it doesn't matter what colour or creed a scumbag is, what matters is that they're a scumbag. So f*ck 'em.

What would it take, argument-wise, for those in the anti-Israel camp who are routinely accused of being anti-semitic to demonstrate that they are not - while maintaining their entirely legitimate political view that Israel is a state of ill-founded origin, and abhorrent present-day behaviour?

To state that holding these beliefs necessarily makes one anti-semitic in nature is simply untrue, and ironically you have perfectly summed up why in referencing the British Imperialist origin of the Israeli state in an attempt to delegitimise people whose beliefs on Israel stem at least in part from that very factor.

Is someone an anti-semitic racist for believing that the Balfour Declaration, apart from being an illegitimate act of attempted governance by an illegitimate foreign invader, was a monumentally moronic blunder, with decades-long catastrophic consequences?

Note that I actually support the right of Israel to exist, by virtue of so many third-generation Israelis (second and third generation Israelis comprise 70% of the population) who have nothing to do with the crimes of their ancestors. The same cannot be said for the Occupied Territories, where the generational demographics are rendered irrelevant by the fact that Palestinians outnumber Israeli settlers by millions to a few hundred thousand.

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

..... Israel exists because the Brits gave away something they had absolutely no moral right to make any decisions about whatsoever, against the will of the majority of people living there at the time. That places Israel on shaky enough ground to begin with, but most on the left will tell you that they would be willing to let that slide if Israel hadn't decided it had a right to seize even more land - again, without the consent of the people living there - by military force. The reasons for doing this are irrelevant, forcing civilians from their legitimate homes is an absolute moral wrong under any circumstances whatsoever.

This is obviously political satire but it's an accurate representation of how things actually turned out. The Brits had no right to do what they did in the region, and for a state which existed on wafer thin ice as a legitimate concept in the first place to act as if it has a God-given right to take whatoever it wants from its neighbours with total disregard for how much misery this inflicts on innocent indigenous civilians is what makes Israel so infuriating as a state.

What would it take, argument-wise, for those in the anti-Israel camp who are routinely accused of being anti-semitic to demonstrate that they are not - while maintaining their entirely legitimate political view that Israel is a state of ill-founded origin, and abhorrent present-day behaviour?

Is someone an anti-semitic racist for believing that the Balfour Declaration, apart from being an illegitimate act of attempted governance by an illegitimate foreign invader, was a monumentally moronic blunder, with decades-long catastrophic consequences?

Note that I actually support the right of Israel to exist, by virtue of so many third-generation Israelis (second and third generation Israelis comprise 70% of the population) who have nothing to do with the crimes of their ancestors. The same cannot be said for the Occupied Territories, where the generational demographics are rendered irrelevant by the fact that Palestinians outnumber Israeli settlers by millions to a few hundred thousand.

I am not defending the Balfour Declaration or historic British imperialism in general. But Israel was not created by Britain or by the Balfour Declaration. There had been Jewish immigration to Palestine for centuries before the Balfour Declaration, mainly in response to some outbreak of pogromming or other. It accelerated rapidly from the 1880s onwards, even before Herzl founded the Zionist movement with the aim of establishing a Jewish state there. Britain had nothing to do with this. In the midst of the first world war the British made duplicitous and incompatible promises to both sides - with a view to getting the support of each to win the war. Certainly duplicitous but not exactly unprecedented in the context of war.


Certainly immigration continued thereafter but the biggest acceleration came with the 1930s as anti-semitism hit its worst in Europe. The British actually tried to control Jewish immigration and were not regarded as friendly or supportive by the Jews.


The partition of Palestine in 1947 was by a vote of the United Nations General Assembly. It was not a creation of the British who had by then given up trying to find a solution. Thereafter, Israel was constantly attacked by Arab neighbours, not with the aim of setting up a Palestinian state, but to "drive the Jews into the sea" and seize and divide up the spoils.


So, yes, the attempt to frame the very difficult problem as some kind "Brits Out" issue is pure bull. By the way, you say that "Israel should never have been created in the location it was located in". Where exactly had you in mind ? And as it was the place they were migrating to in ever increasing numbers, how were you going to move them to this other location ? Would they have to have been locked in there? Would you have preferred if the Jews who migrated had stayed in Europe and met there fate? Would that have spited the Brits enough for you?



Your description of Israel, its foundation and history is pure simplistic nonesense which only serves to support the vicious anti-Israeli (and often anti-semitic) narrative of a least a significant section ot the left. Its all down to the big, bad Israelis. I am perfectly capable of criticising Israeli policies, and I think they have made many wrong turns. But then so have their neighbours and so have the Palestinians.



I note your kind conclusion that you " actually support the right of Israel to exist, by virtue of so many third-generation Israelis (second and third generation Israelis comprise 70% of the population) who have nothing to do with the crimes of their ancestors". I hope you have communicated these good wishes to the people of Israel. It will no doubt help them feel secure and not worry any more about their situation.

Matt Barrett wrote: »

But seemingly antisemites are everywhere, go figure

both contentions are total bollox

Odhinn wrote: »

Being "anti-Israel" is being in fact anti-colonialist, and thats been the raiso d'etre of the objections to Israeli policy since 1967.

How do you suppose that when over 70% of the population are descended from jews living in the area for centuries?

https://timeline.com/nazis-muslim-extremists-ss-6824aee281d2

Maybe this had something to with what happened in Hebron.


The arab regime in Palestine has done nothing but evil for humanity. It might not be pc to say so but its true.

God HELP the Palestinians if Israel fell because it would be a blood bath.

Prominent Labour MP Rupa Huq being taken to court after hounding 2 Jewish employees out of her office.

When the last one was pushed out she tore a poster against antisemitism off the wall and on the floor.

They were Labour Party workers but they were still Jews at the end of the day for enough in Labour.

Naturally Huq has nothing to worry about.