'Jews in France are stand -ins for Israeli targets'

[King_David]

Days after demonstrators, angry over the latest Israeli bombardment of Gaza, tried to storm two Paris synagogues, leaders of Jewish groups in France tell The Local that the community is braced for more anti-Semitic attacks.


The scene on Sunday of pro-Palestinian protesters laying siege to two Paris synagogues was a disquietingly familiar one for many in France's Jewish community.

Since 2000, France, which is home to the world’s third largest population of Jews, has repeatedly seen bursts of anti-Semitic behavior when violence kicks off between Palestinians and Israelis.

The current threat is real enough that President François Hollande said the country will “redouble vigilance” in the wake of Sunday's attacks that left two Jewish men injured. He was also to meet with the head of Jewish umbrella group CRIF on Tuesday.

“I do not want there to be any possible consequences in France,” Hollande said.

And as in previous incidents France’s nearly half-million strong Jewish community was braced for more anti-Semitic violence as Hamas rockets continued to strike Israel and Israeli bombs blasted the Gaza Strip, further inflaming passions on both sides of the conflict.

http://m.thelocal.fr//20140715/frances-jews-feel-israel-palestine-violence

[King_David]

1. Some posters in this group "bravely " call these hate crimes

Blowback.

[bemildred]

2. Hate crimes quite often are blowback, the one does not exclude the other.

9/11 was definitely both, for example.

[King_David]

3. You can't use an incident to justify or excuse

A hate crime and most times especially with antiSemitic attacks on Jews in the Golah no incident or provocation needed or justifies.

[bemildred]

4. I'm not excusing anything, I'm saying it's a false dichotomy,

and cannot be used for much or anything. Neither implies or prohibits the other, in fact they are common together, as in the example I provided.

[King_David]

5. I have seen posts in response to vicious antiSemitic attacks saying

" End the occupation. Terrible for the Rabbi, frightening blow back."


Occupation caused attack .

Solution to ending violent attack on Jews in Seattle morrocco Frankfurt Sweden and Paris is to end the occupation .

Blowback and solution .

[bemildred]

6. It is perfectly obvious to anyone who pays attention that antisemitic incidents "spike"

when one of these little wars happens. You can argue it's not blowback in France because the French don't have that much to do with it, but it is fatuous to argue that the rockets are not blowback for Israel, justified or not. It is not blowback because it is justified or not justified, it is blowback because it is a likely forseeable result of ones own policies.

This is a perfect example of using words as though they have no meaning, like little labels one attaches to ones friends and foes. After a while this sort of thing leads to not being able to think at all.

[King_David]

7. So if Israel ends the occupation

AntiSemitism in France will end huh ?

[bemildred]

8. No, it will go on regardless.

But you can expect it to "spike" when the conflict in the Middle East heats up. And if the conflict were resolved there would likely be less of it. Political polarization leads to political violence, just about anywhere you go.

[King_David]

9. Violence against Jews never started in 1967

And the "spike" is way way before 1967.

[bemildred]

10. Straw man. I made no such argument. nt

[King_David]

11. C ya

[bemildred]

12. Bye. nt

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

33. Just keep on turning the spin, king.

[sabbat hunter]

19. it was wrong after 9/11

and it is wrong now, and we should condemn it without any exceptions.

[bemildred]

20. I assume you mean hate crimes?

If so, then indeed, let's condemn the heck out of it.

[sabbat hunter]

21. I mean hate crimes

or people attacking a group of people because of what other people did. (jews because of what Israel does, or muslims because of what a small group of radical Muslims did).

So called blowback attacks need to be condemned unequivocally.

[bemildred]

22. They generally are.

I condemn them myself, but I haven't noticed that it does much good.

[King_David]

35. Instead of excusing it.

[King_David]

17. If anyone ever had any doubt that antiZionism equals AntiSemitism they just need read these threads.

Especially the thread on a Rabbi beaten up in morrocco as blowback for Israel's actions.

In other words there's no pretending anymore that hey these antisemites are not really Jew haters they just hate Israel or Zionists or money lenders .

Once it's said to be a result of the occupation to justify an attack on a Jew it means the Jew / all Jews are responsible for Israel's deeds .

In other words antiZionism is AntiSemitism. I knew this all along mind you , now it's reaffirmed.

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

32. Apparently you don't have a firm grasp of what blowback is.

Or perhaps you do, but would rather pretend otherwise for some other reason.

[Igel]

13. Yeah, it makes some kinds of argumentation absurd.

Granted, for some there is a real difference between "Jew," "Israeli," and "Zionist." You really can be just one, or just two. For them, it's not the case that Zionist = Israeli = Jew.

For them it's easily possible to be anti-Zionist or even anti-Israeli and not be anti-Jewish, i.e., anti-Semitic.

Others are more rooted in the idea of a community that isn't the same as citizenship. "Natio" is a better way of putting it. Anti-Semites view Jews as a separate race with loyalty first and foremost to their natio, so they always have divided loyalties or even primary loyalties not to their country. It certainly held true for Zionists, which often discounted national identical for ethnic identity.

"Natio" translated into Arabic is almost surely "ummah," and the same is true for many Muslims.

For people like that--that either hold to a transnational "ummah"/"natio" or who believe that others do, the idea of Zionist = Israeli = Jew *does* hold. If you take revenge on a French Jew because of what Israelis did in self-defence but which supports your idea of a Zionist world-view, then you've already shown that you think Zionist = Israeli = Jew. To strike against any Jew is to strike against the tribe that governs Israel and has a tribal goal that is Zionism.

When these folk argue that being anti-Israeli isn't equivalent to being anti-Semitic, they're just lying.

What's a problem are the people in between, for whom the three terms are different and deny, for whatever reason, that more than a few people view them as contextually determined variants of the same thing. If you're arguing against Israel then you're anti-Israeli, but if you're vandalizing a synagogue in Paris then you're anti-Zionist, even as all you're doing is something that's anti-Semitic.

By not allowing themselves to be categorized into two groups, one nasty and one with often valid arguments they shelter the nasty. Sometimes this is to keep a critical mass of protesters. Sometimes it's to avoid accepting being fellow-travellers with people they disagree with. Sometimes they just haven't considered that there are people not like themselves.

In any event, this kind of incident is evidence that those who say "anti-Semitic" isn't always and therefore is never the same thing as "anti-Israeli" or "anti-Zionist" have a confirmation bias problem going on. You can't make a deal with the devil and say you're only kidding. In the end your side may be the Lilliputs and the other side--they might be giants.

[King_David]

14. Good analysis nt

[shaayecanaan]

27. Israel supporters generally conflate Israelis and Jews

when it suits them, and distinguish those two concepts when it does not. Generally speaking, when Israel is the victim, they are likely to be called Jews, but when they are the perpetrators, they are more likely to be Israelis.

Hence the rockets by Hamas are "an attack on Jews everywhere", whereas if settlers beat up Palestinians, their religion is not worth mentioning.

[King_David]

28. Yes but now it seems there's an agreement now that

AntiZionism is in fact AntiSemitism

[shaayecanaan]

29. only in your mind

Zionism is an ideology that sought to replace palestine with Israel, either in whole or in part. As such, it was inherently adverse for the Palestinians and their own national aspirations.

The argument that antizionism is antisemitism is no less crass than the argument that Zionism is racism.

[bemildred]

23. Blowback (intelligence)

Blowback is unintended consequences of a covert operation that are suffered by the aggressor. To the civilians suffering the blowback of covert operations, the effect typically manifests itself as “random” acts of political violence without a discernible, direct cause; because the public—in whose name the intelligence agency acted—are unaware of the effected secret attacks that provoked revenge (counter-attack) against them.[1]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blowback_%28intelligence%29

[King_David]

24. So Jews no matter where suffer this

Because antiZionism AntiSemitism and anti Israel are all the same thing.

[bemildred]

26. Bigotry is like that, it thinks in categories, it makes few distinctions, and those crude ones.. nt

[King_David]

25. When Hezbollah blows up a Jewish center in Argentina or neo Nazi beats up a yeshiva student in

Antwerp ,It's all blowback for the occupation because antiZionism is AntiSemitism

[Jappleseed]

30. So it's bad to hold many accountable for the actions of the few?

This is so confusing.

It is apparently not bad to bomb the many for the actions of a few. Is it the killing that makes the difference? The color of the skin? The religion?

Please help.

[King_David]

31. What do you mean. ?

The Jews in France are accountable ?

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

34. It was pretty clear. Two sets of standards are being applied.