this post was submitted on 10 Oct 2024
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Antisemitism was (still fundamentally is) systemic in Europe because of the formation of capitalist nation-states.
The nation-state seeks to establish a difference between people based on borders, in order to prevent solidarity between workers who share a way of life, and even sometimes a language, customs, a religion, despite being born across borders. It will use anything to both unite the people inside its border and antigonize the ones beyond, especially racism.
Jewish people, as a disaspora, as well as any nomadic people like the Romani, fundamentally challenge the nation state because they are united beyond borders. Therefore they became prime targets for persecution. People literally said shit like "they can't be trusted because they have no country, no state"
So the origin of anti-Semitism is that Europeans though that the Jews being stateless was bad. So when the Europeans are trying to "give" Jewish people a state, they are in fact trying to "fix" them. Zionism is an attempt by the anti-semites to make Jewish people conform to their worldview. Zionism wants to get rid of the cosmopolitans, it's a project of sending the Jews "back home" so they leave Europe and stop being a threat to the oppressive capitalist regimes. Zionism wants to erase what makes Jewish people special and progressive. Zionism is the death of Jewishness.
This is a great post, thanks
GOOD POST
Damn. Now I have even more reason to root for Jewish people. Thank you for telling me all this.
Anti-semitism in europe predates nation-states, feudal europe was very anti-semitic as well
Yes I formulated my post in a way that might imply that pre-capitalist Europe was chill with Jews which is obviously false.
Thing is, in medieval Europe, the Christians were apparently dead set on eradicating everyone else during this time, Jews included but not only.
But, when Europe became more secular and the first republics were established, there was progress on that front, even for Jews. So what begs an explanation is why did we stop crusades, the inquisition, massacres of protestants etc.. but somehow, only for the Jews, shit escalated to trying to "send them back home" and later literally kill them all?
That's where I bring the nation-state. It didn't invent persecutions, it modernized it. It prevented the liberal ideals of the republican revolution from taking grounds.
Edit : I'm realising that I'm getting lost in the details here. My point is, the existence of a people as a disaspora is fundamentally progressive and Zionism is robbing the Jews of what makes them a historical force.