Comradeship // Freechat

You already admitted your title sucked, but your title alone is worthy of a ban imo. Idk about permanent if you're willing to to take some criticism, but writing off the rest of your post as going "I guess the title was a little inflammatory" tells me you're more interested in justifying your pov.

Sympathy for your loss. I hope they unban you (don't make the same mistake though, you have to be clear you're talking of 'anti-semitism' in relation to Israel)

If you're talking about Israel, I'm sure they don't give a shit

In the brief period where the post was up, I did not receive any real counter arguments, only people flinging insults who clearly either did not understand the text I wrote or didn’t even read through it. I was then of course banned. I expected the forum named @askchapo to be open to discussion.

Really? Let's see the comments

plinky (polite)

i mean, if they support existence of isntreal, they are nazis, and why are you arguing with nazis? if they don't then you can talk.

that's leaving aside that anti-semitism is socialism of fools and things of that nature.

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So far you got only 2 unpolite and uninformed comments...

The primary issue here is in the broad-brushing and lack of care in the post (e.g. the title), which makes it easy to leave impressions of antisemitism. In your spoiler quote, you say things along the lines of, "if a state that exists in your name commits genocide, of course you will be hated". While you are not explicitly saying so, the sentiment here has a rhetorical next step: "so antisemitism is valid and correct". I'm not saying you believe this, but it would feel natural to have seen that written next by the flow of the rhetoric. The post is playing with being on the edge of antisemitic language and possibly crosses that border depending on how you interpret it. I don't think that's a very effective way of communicating in addition to the possibilities for causing harm.

Contrast to something like this: "Zionism is perhaps the greatest purveyor of antisemitism on the planet by engaging in ethnonationalist genocide and conflating everything they do with Judaism. In addition to the inherent antisemitism of associating race hate mass violence with Judaism, it inspires antisemitism among those who sympathize with the victims, as there has always been a real risk that those sympathizers take "Israel" at their word in conflating their project with Judaism. Even just adopting and then negating Zionist language can lead to problematic statements."

Basically the same sentiments, but communicated in a way that is careful about how it is presented.

I would also disagree that Jewish people, including Ashkenazi Jewish people, are fully integrated into whiteness. They are partially integrated. Most can pass as white basically any time they want to by just not saying certain things. A lot of (most?) white people are going to treat them as white, as will others. But there is still a reactionary group that others Jewish people, follows and maintains antisemitic mythologies, and participates to one degree or another in ensuring there is always a bit of a threat in the background. In the most reactionary circles this does lead to overy antisemitic actions and violence, but the soft reactionaries and edgelords help to pipeline them. There is a dual character of whiteness and Jewishness for Ashkenazi Jews in white supremacist societies and which is dominant various regionally and on an individual basis. So on one hand most Jewish people in the US face very little discrimination due to being mostly assimilated into whiteness. On the other hand, there is still antisemitic violence and rumbles of more if reactionaries become more powerful and numerous and.

I would agree that antisemitism is not as common or extreme of an issue as islamophobia or anti-blackness and that Zionist organizations lie about what constitutes antisemitism, thus diluting it. But your thoughts that overstate Jewish assimilation into white supremacy may be a case of reacting to and negating Zionist framings too simply and on their terms. Zionist organizations call every single expression of sympathy for Palestinians antisemitic. Those organizations are lying in support of an active genocidal ethnonationalist project. But they also list real cases of antisemitism that should not be dismissed.

Re: moderation, well it's a friendly socialist instance so I don't want to exactly start a fight about it, but I would say they are quick to ban and bad at conflict resolution and explanations. They tend to describe this in terms of protecting their members, but I think it is mostly a consequence of having basically zero irl organizing experience and therefore making the mistakes of young organizers. Having no interest in listening to or guiding disagreement and being quick to drop a hammer is one of those mistakes. Communists grow out of this if they are self-critical after joining and leaving (or watching implode) a few organizations. At the same time, you should consider that your post was fairly flippant, inconsiderate, and flirted with antisemitism, so I wouldn't say they made a greater error.

I'm going to link "Are Israelis Jews?" and say that the idea that "Jewish people [...] have been fully integrated into 'whiteness'" is only really possible if you're thinking of Jews as an abstract, hypothetical, monolithic group, and thinking of whiteness as an absolute and unnuanced quality. That's not really a systemic analysis, is it? That is, as another commenter says, really just saying a bunch of BS pulled from thin air — and I will concur that you should accept the ban and do some self crit.

The tone of your post was definitely off but hexbear does have some serious moderation issues. They could have just as easily taken the post down and DMed you to ask you to maybe write it in a less acuatory and confrontational way.

Just take the ban. You are in good company.

That last comment that you posted in spoilers is wild to me.

I understand your point of view, and I've made similar arguments before (not all of them though LOL)

I remember reading (but can't find) a poll showing that ~85% of Jewish people in Europe support "israel" even when 60% of them said that they condemn / were embarrassed in what "israel" was doing.

I've had the same discussions with my partner who is Jewish (and I'm Palestinian, hah!). Yes, a lot of reported "antisemitism" is just anti-zionism. Yes, antisemitism does not occur as much as other forms of hate (Islamophobia, racism against blacks, asians, latinos, etc), but I wouldn't go as far as saying that antisemitism isn't an issue.

Yes you could even say that Jewish people did manage to integrate well into white society, but that really only applies to Ashkenazis. But I wouldn't say that privilege is impossible to revoke. The most antisemitic people support israel because they can send their jewish populations there when the time comes. They are perfectly fine working with jewish people when it comes to establishing and protecting a state, but I would disagree that they are integrated at all.

There is no integration with these racists. They focus on oppressing the easiest-to-oppress class. Nazi Germany did it with Gays, Romanis, Slavs, Jewish, the disabled. Each of these groups were minority groups, the same way America has oppressed indigenous populations, blacks, latinos, gays, japanese, and muslims / arabs.

The oppression will never end, but they will go up the "caste", so to speak. They will oppress the "weakest" minority before moving on to the next, and they don't have to be weak, they just have to be able to convince the rest of their followers and centrists that this minority group deserves to be put into internment camps / genocided / deported.

Right now we have Muslims, Latinos, Haitians, and the LGBTQ being targeted by this administration. But if the oppression continues, and they get to be able to round us all up or deport us to CECOT, the job isn't done there.

Next they'll find another population to oppress, Blacks, Asians, Jewish people. After that they'll target anyone who isn't a protestant or other characteristic that they decide makes one less "pure" than they are.

The oppression won't ever really end; Jewish people may seem to be safer than Latinos, Gays, and Muslims currently, but they will not have this privilege forever if the fascists get their way.

You can also argue that "israel" has corrupted many Jewish minds in America. My partner's father is old as shit and he even said himself that after the establishment of "israel" his Hebrew school began to split their focus on religion AND "israel".

While I believe it is abhorrent for anyone to support "israel" after witnessing the horrors they've committed, I do think it would be more productive to discuss intersectionality with a Jewish person than it is to scream at them for supporting the settler-colony.

I will also give my own (unwanted) anecdotal evidence and say I have met more anti-zionist Jewish people than I have zionist Jewish people. Maybe it's who I hang around, but even random interactions with strangers who are Jewish that have shown solidarity.

Please let me know if you want to discuss more!

I'm sorry if this is not the appropriate place for this. I was not able to respond in depth on Hexbear, for obvious reasons, so I thought this was the next best place.

You can feel free to push back on anything I said.

You are conflating Judaism and Zionism though. You were banned because you were saying bullshit pulled from thin air. Do some self crit

About most Jews being Zionists, I don't know why they threw a fit over that. That's a factual statement, most Jews ARE Zionists. I mean, almost half of all Jews globally live in the settler project.

That shouldn't make anyone reconsider their anti-zionist stance, because genocide, ethnostates, fascism, and colonialism don't magically become better bc it's not white supremacy flavored. To me, I accept that most Jews are Zionists. That's not going to make me support killing babies and blocking aid, bc I don't care what most Jews think. If something is wrong, it's wrong no matter the race.

This is why people keep getting called anti-Semitic, they're banking on you caring that you're going against the wishes of a majority of Jews which makes you (in their eyes) an anti-semite. If you don't care and tell them "no matter the race genocide is wrong" they'll learn to use another argument. Don't budge, don't let them use their Jewishness (or someone else's) as a bludgeon against your values.

Unironically being concerned with being called an anti-semite will only associate Zionism with Judaism/Jewishness. That's when actual anti-Semitism starts to rise. I can't tell you how many times I've seen the take that isntrael controls America (and not the other way around) across countless social media sites. Whenever you correct them, they bring up AIPAC, they bring up how people can get deported for bigotry* against Jews but not any other race, the various wars & operations in SWANA for isntrael, etc.

They're drawing horrible conclusions from actual facts, the days of "Jewish cabals are secretly ruling the US illuminati style!!1!" are gone, now they bring up things that are actually happening or have actually happened.

I think they overreacted, that place is stupidly toxic and doesn't want to call out/ is very uncomfortable with calling out the mistakes that marginalized people can make. I think you should take the ban as a blessing, there's nothing to go back to except death threats and mods that want to ignore the user base.

*Bigotry here is any criticism against isntrael. They actually do not care about conspiracy theories and lies against Jews. They have no intention to protect Jews and Jewishness outside of isntrael support.

One more comment for now (as I'm making too many comments all in one go rather than just one):

I just want to say that while I prefer Lemmygrad, and really like this place, and even all the people within it, I think Hexbear has its perks and stuff to learn from; it's definitely a boisterous and active community, but, from my own personal experience, is very toxic, at times, when certain topic, at least, are broached. And, additionally, I myself have had friends there and got along with a lot of people, and, hell, I wouldn't mind returning, but it's just too argumentative and I've also noticed strands of, err, anti-Semitic thinking.

Hard to explain, but seeing it arise, especially in that last screenshot within the spoiler tag you highlighted, is rather much, and goes beyond what I suspected.

Okay, done. I've got to be somewhere for maybe a few hours; I'll be back here and there, but I don't mean to dominate the comments section! So I'll stop for now until more people jump in.

G'day!