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How Republicans Echo Antisemitic Tropes Despite Declaring Support for Israel (www.nytimes.com)

submitted 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

27 comments fedilink hide all child comments

The Republican speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, traveled to Columbia University two weeks ago to decry the “virus of antisemitism” that he said pro-Palestinian protesters were spreading across the country. “They have chased down Jewish students. They have mocked them and reviled them,” he said to jeers from protesters. “They have shouted racial epithets. They have screamed at those who bear the Star of David.”

. . .

Amid the widening protests and the unease, if not fear, among many Jews, Republicans have sought to seize the political advantage by portraying themselves as the true protectors of Israel and Jews under assault from the progressive left.

. . .

Debate rages over the extent to which the protests on the political left constitute coded or even direct attacks on Jews. But far less attention has been paid to a trend on the right: For all of their rhetoric of the moment, increasingly through the Trump era many Republicans have helped inject into the mainstream thinly veiled anti-Jewish messages with deep historical roots.

The conspiracy theory taking on fresh currency is one that dates back hundreds of years and has perennially bubbled into view: that a shady cabal of wealthy Jews secretly controls events and institutions contrary to the national interest of whatever country it is operating in.

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[–] [email protected] 72 points 4 months ago (3 children)

I'm Jewish and I'm going to echo several points I made in previous threads. Apologies if you have already seen them:

I have never in my life, until Israel started this genocide, heard any Republicans stand up and collectively speak out against antisemitism. They sure didn't give a fuck when I was watching in horror while Nazis in Charlottesville chanted "Jews will not replace us."
The George Soros antisemitism shit is so fucking transparent. They don't even hide it. To paraphrase what Matt Gaetz said in the article because I don't want to look it back up, "not every criticism of George Soros is antisemitic." Some More News did a really good episode on this subject that just came out and does point out some legitimate criticisms of Soros, none of which Republicans make: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEZzlC3gYk8
It is true that evangelical Christians believe that Israel has to exist for Jesus to return. This is the part they don't say out loud: Every Jew in the world has to be exiled to Israel for this to happen.
Not all Jews are Israelis and not all Jews support Israel's genocide or apartheid. I certainly don't and never have. I feel no allegiance to Israel whatsoever. I am from Indiana and have far more things in common with a Christian from Indiana than I do practically anyone in Haifa. The entity that benefits the most from people thinking all Jews are Israelis is Israel. Do not fall for it.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 4 months ago

Exactly. Well said. Netanyahu is also to blame for leveraging antisemitism as a defense against criticism of Israel. It muddys the waters and confuses actual messages condemning antisemitism. Many incorrectly read Biden’s condemnations of antisemitism as being critical of anti-Israel protest, for example. It now requires the listener to first determine the speaker’s understanding of antisemitism, and filter it through perceived agenda to determine their actual intent, leading to a subjective message and dilution of a two millennia plight of the Jewish people. It’s despicable.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago

Thank you for commenting. Your perspective is invaluable.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago

It is true that evangelical Christians believe that Israel has to exist for Jesus to return. This is the part they don't say out loud: Every Jew in the world has to be exiled to Israel for this to happen.

I grew up fairly fundamentalist and just wanna point out that while some evangelicals believe this it's far from universal. (The every Jew in the world being there part, not the Israel having to exist part)

[–] [email protected] 30 points 4 months ago (1 children)

MTG, the person who blamed CA wildfires on Jewish space lasers, is showing her support for Israel...

[–] [email protected] 19 points 4 months ago (1 children)

And then tweeted this a few days ago:

Antisemitism is wrong, but I will not be voting for the Antisemitism Awareness Act of 2023 (H.R. 6090) today that could convict Christians of antisemitism for believing the Gospel that Jesus was handed over to Herod to be crucified by the Jews

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/05/02/mtg-votes-against-antisemitism-awareness-act-antisemitic-trope/73539622007/

The act itself is bullshit, but that's just sick.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I think X is wrong, but I want it to be legal to do wrong stuff that I like.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

Okay? This has nothing to do with Twitter apart from it being the medium she used to be antisemitic about a bill going through congress.

Edit: I see you completely edited your original comment which talked about being blocked from Twitter.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago

I think there may have been a tragic misunderstanding... It looks like they were using X as a placeholder, rather than the noun that Elon wants it to be; but the sentence construction could have been clearer.

Something like "I think X is wrong, but I want it to be legal for me to do wrong things Y and Z" might be a bit closer to what they were going for.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

Where did I talk about Twitter? And I didn't edit anything.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 months ago

Just as criticism of Israel's behaviors isn't antisemitism, defense of their authoritarian violence isn't pro-Jewish.

Most right wing support of Israel comes from an interpretation of Revelations from the 20th century that Israel needed to exist again for Jesus to float down from the sky, when he would subsequently resurrect the believers into heaven and cast the nonbelievers (including the Jews) into eternal torment.

So the 'support' of Christian nationalists for Israel in their mind is kind of like a Looney Toons character pretending to be nice as they guide another character under an anvil.

They are so supportive that they can't wait for all the Jews to be in one place so they can be cast into hell by their beloved ancient comic book character.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

There's a lot of folks who believe that the destruction of Israel is the first stage in bringing the Messiah back.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

What? Should it be the other way around? “Restoration of Israel”, “Rebuilding of the Third Temple” are Christian professors leading to the second coming of Jesus. That’s the reasons why religious right supports Israel.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

https://bible.org/seriespage/13-armageddon-and-second-coming-christ

Can't have Jesus without breaking a few eggs.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

Well, for that you need Armageddon, not tiny Israel, and only AFTER the third temple, which has not happened.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

For fun, look up a recent TV show called 'Dig.' It's about the efforts of a cabal of different religious types to push the clock forward and bring about the End Times.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Well, we don’t use fictional TV shows to describe reality, do we?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

The first two words of my comment were 'For fun.'

BTW, people have been using fiction to inspire reality for years. Back in the day, Nellie Bly travelled around the world in 75 days and NASA named an actual spaceship "Enterprise" because of a TV show whose name escapes me.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I understand your suggestion is for found, but it sounded as if it is possible to learn something from those. Which I seriously doubt. As for inspiration, other than names and words (e.g. robot), not a lot of ideology got transferred into real lives. There are exceptions, of course. Like Ann Ryan’s book “Atlas Shredded” is popular on the right, Heinlein’s “Stranger in a Strange Land” influenced the left in the sixties, but I think those are rather exceptions. A very small fraction of books and shows do that. I hope that the show you suggesting is not one of those.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

'For fun'

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

They like Israel more than Palestine so they will support Israel.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Do they not do the thing with the parentheses anymore? Or is that just too much punctuation for them.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

Parentheses thing?

You mean vampire Kirby?

<( •,_,•<)

Or do you mean vampire slayer Kirby?

<===|—<( •_•<)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Heh, no they used to do (((person’s name))) to say “they’re Jewish” although their particular phrasing might have been a little more crude. Haven’t seen it for a long time tho. Well, several years anyway.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

And I thought I was weird for vampire Kirby….

The 2k’s were weird,

They seem weird and deranged.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Zionism has always been antisemitic

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

Now that's not true. Zionism, as originally envisioned by Theodore Herzl, was about getting Jews the fuck out of Europe before there was a genocide, which he saw coming after the Dreyfus affair. He said he thought defeating antisemitism in Europe would never happen. Yes, the place that Herzl, and others, envisioned was "The Holy Land," where Israel is now, and that was always a bad idea, but it was originally an attempt to avoid the genocide that eventually happened.

Now, to Herzl's credit, he tried very hard to negotiate a settlement with the Ottomans for a legal land transfer of Palestine to create a Jewish state. The Sultan turned him down, but he never intended to seize the land through military conquest.

Herzl also wanted a secular state and was not a religious Jew. In fact, he was an Atheist. He and his wife even refused to circumcise their son. He just wanted to save his ethnicity from being killed off in Europe... and then, about 50 years after he died, that's exactly what the Nazis tried to do.

Zionism today certainly promotes antisemitism, but the original idea, where it was a peaceful land transfer and a secular state designed to avert a coming genocide, was the opposite of antisemitism.