The idea that you have to believe every ethnic group deserves its own state or you are racist against them is low key insane - as if China or India or numerous African states are all just ethnostates. Even a lot of European identities are sort of manufactured - Spain has more than one ethnicity for example.
The antisemitism comes from the double standard. A lot of time is spent attacking the legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish state, but almost none the legitimacy of India or Spain or Japan or the countless other "ethnostates." It is fine to say you do not think any state should be an ethnostate, but then why only ever talk about it in regards to Israel?
Because Spain doesn’t have separate death penalty laws that only apply to the Basque minority? Honestly I think the best comparison to Israel really is China, which also has separate laws depending on whether you are Tibetan or Uyghur or Han. Chinese diplomats try to say all criticism of China is racist too, but it’s seen as the self-serving BS that it is.
You're making a completely different argument now.
We can disagree with the laws of Israel or Spain or China, but not liking the laws of China is not the same as thinking China doesn't have the right to exist. Criticizing Israel is not antisemitic, just like how criticizing China is not Sinophobic. However, holding Israel to a double standard very quickly crosses the line of antisemitism. For whatever reason, you and many others only seem to have the capacity to criticize and attack the existence of the one Jewish state, even though there are dozens of other states across the globe that are doing the same or worse things.
I’m actually fine criticizing ethnostates in general? Especially when my foreign aid dollars are at play, it seems plainly bad and something that any reasonable person should be fine opposing.
> Spain doesn’t have separate death penalty laws that only apply to the Basque minority?
Neither does Israel. Spain does, however, have laws specifically targeting Catalan separatists for harsher sentences, but as in Israel these laws are race-neutral in writing.
Most states have laws punishing anti-government terrorism more harshly than ordinary crimes.
But once again, your selective education about Israel is rather telling.
The tell is “race-neutral in writing.” During Jim Crow the literacy tests were also race-neutral in writing. We all know that the intention and effect of those laws — and the Israeli death penalty law — is anything but.
I don’t think harsher sentences for anti-government terroristic murders are a particularly compelling example of racial bigotry.
Anti-lynching laws targeted white murderers. Should we treat that as racially motivated?
There are plenty of very unpleasant, obviously racist aspects of Israel’s current government and past policies. But the law that was clearly passed in order to ensure future Hamas-style hostage-taking will not result in the mass freeing of war criminals seems like a foolish target.
Hyperbolic criticisms of Israel from uneducated “anti-Zionists” (who often mistake American Jews they dislike, such as Epstein or Soros or Bloomberg, as agents of Israel) are much more difficult to distinguish from outright antisemitism than you generally seem willing to admit.
In that case the ADL definition of antisemitism is even more incoherent - the idea that every existing ethnic group or people group deserves its own state is beyond unworkable. And Palestinians are a people too…
The ADL does not deny that Palestinians have a right to their state…
But more importantly, you’ve just misunderstood their claim. What is antisemitic, according to the ADL, is a particular focus on Israel as an “ethnostate” without similar criticisms of Spain, Japan, China, or the proposed composition of any Palestinian state.
If you oppose “ethnostates” on principle, but reserve any criticism on said grounds for the Jewish one, you should probably examine your biases.
Not opposed to Israel’s existence. But Israel doesn’t get to be treated differently than other countries either. If any large US corporation talked about Israel the way they talk about China or Russia (other countries with track record of military aggression and repression of domestic minority groups) they would face boycotts and outrage.
I basically agree. I guess my preference is that the US treat all these countries from the standpoint of American self-interest. Which should include being able to freely criticize and call for regime change if needed.
Where did I say Israel has any more or less right to exist? I just said it doesn’t get the right to exist merely by being representative of an ethnic group (the Kurds for example don’t have a state and I don’t think that we need to rearrange the Middle East to make one). Israel has the exact same right to exist as Russia or China - it is a state which exists on the map. If a Democratic candidate campaigned on export controls to Israel the way Biden did with China, while also maintaining an embassy (which by definition means recognition of Israel as a country), I would vote for them.
Would be curious to see what would happen to the data if you replaced the word “Jews” with “Zionists” in the Hersh poll. My guess would be that a lot more young and liberal folks would agree with at least 1/3 statements. This is relevant because while many people seem to identify prejudice against Jews as bad, there seems to be less of a taboo against discriminating against “Zionists” in liberal spaces.
I’ve talked to Yair Rosenberg about these results and he has the same theory. The thing is that “Jews” is an ethnic/religious group while “Zionist” is an ideological group. There’s overlap but it’s not perfect, so I don’t think we can infer that negative views of “Zionists” represent 100% dogwhistling for “Jews”
Definitely agree that there is a distinction between the terms “Jews” and “Zionists” which is tricky—but I think that distinction really has to be understood and reckoned with before drawing the conclusion that anti-Jewish attitudes is a problem predominantly of the America right. Explicit anti-Zionism (ie Israel should be dismantled, not just criticism of the current Israeli government) is I think more predictive of anti-Jewish attitudes than this analysis suggests, and importantly, lead to some pretty awful outcomes.
Judaism has 3 parts: a religion, an ethnicity and a land. This may seem strange, but it’s because Jews developed as an ancient tribal people (ethnicity) practicing a particular religion (Judaism) with customs suited to in a particular land (Israel). Discrimination can happen at all 3 levels: denial of the Jewish religion (anti-Judaism), denial of the Jewish people (anti-Semitism) and denial of the Jewish state (anti-Zionism). So while all anti-semitism is anti-Jewish because you can’t escape your race/ethnicity, in practice anti-Zionism and anti-Judaism often lead to anti-Jewish attitudes and behaviors because they strike at a core of Jewish identity; they set conditions for what it means to be a “good Jew,” giving permission to attack Jews who don’t renounce their religion or their homeland. For centuries, if you converted out of Judaism you could be spared. Now, if you revoke ties to Israel you could be forgiven. Since during the Holocaust you could not change your ethnicity there was no escape and you were sent to the gas chambers no matter what. So yes, while anti-semitism as a hatred is more complete/absolute since there is no way out of it, anti-Judaism and anti-Zionism can still have very severe consequences (eg blood libel, jihad, October 7th).
Einat Wilf (author of the “War of Return”) is a great source of understanding Jewish identity and Zionism from the Jewish perspective.
I think the third part of your formulation is somewhat weak. Anti-Zionism (in its most generous interpretation) rejects the modern political ideology of Zionism rather than the theological significance of the land of Israel. Zionism (in its most generous interpretation) sees its modern political project as continuously linked to an idea of the land of Israel as theologically significant to Jews. To me, this is a valid area of historical inquiry as to how much Jews have renegotiated their relationship to the land of Israel over the longue duree (and as to how much we can think of modern political Zionism as continuous with a long tradition), but not one that I will opine on since I am not an expert in this area.
An adjacent example that is illuminating for me is the way that the central government in India has a rhetoric and political project of the "Hindu-ness" (Hindutva) of India. Like Israel for Jews, the landscape of India is incredibly ritually important to Hindu worship and identity, but critiques of the BJP aren't characterized as anti-Hindu in the same ways that anti-Zionists are as antisemitic. Of course, I think one of the reasons for this is that there hasn't been as successful a lobby of BJP-aligned advocates linking India and Hindu-ness (and, in turn, marginalizing Indian Muslims) in the United States as there is a pro-Israel lobby.
We'll put the raw data up on Yale Dataverse soon. For now, here's an expanded version of the apartheid question chart that we didn't put in the piece because it's a bit unwieldy. https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/Gp6Pa/6/
I'm not sure what to think of the ideology score. This magazine would probably identify as "extreme liberal", but it's definitely not on the left end of any horseshoes!
The majority of both Israelis and Palestinians do not want a one state solution. A quarter of the Palestinians, 14% of Israeli Jews, 49% of Israeli Arabs, and 21% of all Israelis, Jews and Arabs, support a one-state solution with equal rights for Jews and Palestinians
The idea that you have to believe every ethnic group deserves its own state or you are racist against them is low key insane - as if China or India or numerous African states are all just ethnostates. Even a lot of European identities are sort of manufactured - Spain has more than one ethnicity for example.
The antisemitism comes from the double standard. A lot of time is spent attacking the legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish state, but almost none the legitimacy of India or Spain or Japan or the countless other "ethnostates." It is fine to say you do not think any state should be an ethnostate, but then why only ever talk about it in regards to Israel?
Because Spain doesn’t have separate death penalty laws that only apply to the Basque minority? Honestly I think the best comparison to Israel really is China, which also has separate laws depending on whether you are Tibetan or Uyghur or Han. Chinese diplomats try to say all criticism of China is racist too, but it’s seen as the self-serving BS that it is.
You're making a completely different argument now.
We can disagree with the laws of Israel or Spain or China, but not liking the laws of China is not the same as thinking China doesn't have the right to exist. Criticizing Israel is not antisemitic, just like how criticizing China is not Sinophobic. However, holding Israel to a double standard very quickly crosses the line of antisemitism. For whatever reason, you and many others only seem to have the capacity to criticize and attack the existence of the one Jewish state, even though there are dozens of other states across the globe that are doing the same or worse things.
I’m actually fine criticizing ethnostates in general? Especially when my foreign aid dollars are at play, it seems plainly bad and something that any reasonable person should be fine opposing.
> Spain doesn’t have separate death penalty laws that only apply to the Basque minority?
Neither does Israel. Spain does, however, have laws specifically targeting Catalan separatists for harsher sentences, but as in Israel these laws are race-neutral in writing.
Most states have laws punishing anti-government terrorism more harshly than ordinary crimes.
But once again, your selective education about Israel is rather telling.
The tell is “race-neutral in writing.” During Jim Crow the literacy tests were also race-neutral in writing. We all know that the intention and effect of those laws — and the Israeli death penalty law — is anything but.
I don’t think harsher sentences for anti-government terroristic murders are a particularly compelling example of racial bigotry.
Anti-lynching laws targeted white murderers. Should we treat that as racially motivated?
There are plenty of very unpleasant, obviously racist aspects of Israel’s current government and past policies. But the law that was clearly passed in order to ensure future Hamas-style hostage-taking will not result in the mass freeing of war criminals seems like a foolish target.
Hyperbolic criticisms of Israel from uneducated “anti-Zionists” (who often mistake American Jews they dislike, such as Epstein or Soros or Bloomberg, as agents of Israel) are much more difficult to distinguish from outright antisemitism than you generally seem willing to admit.
If Spain has more than one ethnicity, so does Israel. There are dozens of Jewish ethnicities.
In that case the ADL definition of antisemitism is even more incoherent - the idea that every existing ethnic group or people group deserves its own state is beyond unworkable. And Palestinians are a people too…
The ADL does not deny that Palestinians have a right to their state…
But more importantly, you’ve just misunderstood their claim. What is antisemitic, according to the ADL, is a particular focus on Israel as an “ethnostate” without similar criticisms of Spain, Japan, China, or the proposed composition of any Palestinian state.
If you oppose “ethnostates” on principle, but reserve any criticism on said grounds for the Jewish one, you should probably examine your biases.
Not opposed to Israel’s existence. But Israel doesn’t get to be treated differently than other countries either. If any large US corporation talked about Israel the way they talk about China or Russia (other countries with track record of military aggression and repression of domestic minority groups) they would face boycotts and outrage.
The common factor between China and Russia is more likely the fact that they're American adversaries while Israel is an ally.
I basically agree. I guess my preference is that the US treat all these countries from the standpoint of American self-interest. Which should include being able to freely criticize and call for regime change if needed.
Where did I say Israel has any more or less right to exist? I just said it doesn’t get the right to exist merely by being representative of an ethnic group (the Kurds for example don’t have a state and I don’t think that we need to rearrange the Middle East to make one). Israel has the exact same right to exist as Russia or China - it is a state which exists on the map. If a Democratic candidate campaigned on export controls to Israel the way Biden did with China, while also maintaining an embassy (which by definition means recognition of Israel as a country), I would vote for them.
Would be curious to see what would happen to the data if you replaced the word “Jews” with “Zionists” in the Hersh poll. My guess would be that a lot more young and liberal folks would agree with at least 1/3 statements. This is relevant because while many people seem to identify prejudice against Jews as bad, there seems to be less of a taboo against discriminating against “Zionists” in liberal spaces.
I’ve talked to Yair Rosenberg about these results and he has the same theory. The thing is that “Jews” is an ethnic/religious group while “Zionist” is an ideological group. There’s overlap but it’s not perfect, so I don’t think we can infer that negative views of “Zionists” represent 100% dogwhistling for “Jews”
Definitely agree that there is a distinction between the terms “Jews” and “Zionists” which is tricky—but I think that distinction really has to be understood and reckoned with before drawing the conclusion that anti-Jewish attitudes is a problem predominantly of the America right. Explicit anti-Zionism (ie Israel should be dismantled, not just criticism of the current Israeli government) is I think more predictive of anti-Jewish attitudes than this analysis suggests, and importantly, lead to some pretty awful outcomes.
Judaism has 3 parts: a religion, an ethnicity and a land. This may seem strange, but it’s because Jews developed as an ancient tribal people (ethnicity) practicing a particular religion (Judaism) with customs suited to in a particular land (Israel). Discrimination can happen at all 3 levels: denial of the Jewish religion (anti-Judaism), denial of the Jewish people (anti-Semitism) and denial of the Jewish state (anti-Zionism). So while all anti-semitism is anti-Jewish because you can’t escape your race/ethnicity, in practice anti-Zionism and anti-Judaism often lead to anti-Jewish attitudes and behaviors because they strike at a core of Jewish identity; they set conditions for what it means to be a “good Jew,” giving permission to attack Jews who don’t renounce their religion or their homeland. For centuries, if you converted out of Judaism you could be spared. Now, if you revoke ties to Israel you could be forgiven. Since during the Holocaust you could not change your ethnicity there was no escape and you were sent to the gas chambers no matter what. So yes, while anti-semitism as a hatred is more complete/absolute since there is no way out of it, anti-Judaism and anti-Zionism can still have very severe consequences (eg blood libel, jihad, October 7th).
Einat Wilf (author of the “War of Return”) is a great source of understanding Jewish identity and Zionism from the Jewish perspective.
I think the third part of your formulation is somewhat weak. Anti-Zionism (in its most generous interpretation) rejects the modern political ideology of Zionism rather than the theological significance of the land of Israel. Zionism (in its most generous interpretation) sees its modern political project as continuously linked to an idea of the land of Israel as theologically significant to Jews. To me, this is a valid area of historical inquiry as to how much Jews have renegotiated their relationship to the land of Israel over the longue duree (and as to how much we can think of modern political Zionism as continuous with a long tradition), but not one that I will opine on since I am not an expert in this area.
An adjacent example that is illuminating for me is the way that the central government in India has a rhetoric and political project of the "Hindu-ness" (Hindutva) of India. Like Israel for Jews, the landscape of India is incredibly ritually important to Hindu worship and identity, but critiques of the BJP aren't characterized as anti-Hindu in the same ways that anti-Zionists are as antisemitic. Of course, I think one of the reasons for this is that there hasn't been as successful a lobby of BJP-aligned advocates linking India and Hindu-ness (and, in turn, marginalizing Indian Muslims) in the United States as there is a pro-Israel lobby.
I would be really interested in views on the apartheid question split by both antisemitism and ideology or 2024 vote.
We'll put the raw data up on Yale Dataverse soon. For now, here's an expanded version of the apartheid question chart that we didn't put in the piece because it's a bit unwieldy. https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/Gp6Pa/6/
Thanks, although that of course doesn't have the joint split that I'm thinking of.
I'm not sure what to think of the ideology score. This magazine would probably identify as "extreme liberal", but it's definitely not on the left end of any horseshoes!
Would be interesting to see how the strongest conservatives answer other questions and to look into the rate at which they hit yes/ extreme boxes.
No one wants a 2 state solution but you have to want a 2 state solution
The majority of both Israelis and Palestinians do not want a one state solution. A quarter of the Palestinians, 14% of Israeli Jews, 49% of Israeli Arabs, and 21% of all Israelis, Jews and Arabs, support a one-state solution with equal rights for Jews and Palestinians
https://en-social-sciences.tau.ac.il/peaceindex/joint-israeli-palestinian-surveys/2024-09
Well they did elect Hamas, equal rights would be a bad idea