This is so stupid, I should probably just walk away, but I think I’ve been permabanned, so it’s worth a try.
The context is a thread titled “Israeli minister says Israel has created and owns the European far right parties”. It consists of a screenshot of a tweet auto-translated from french about an Israeli minister talking about building a network of relationships with European far right parties.
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Which mod was PTB: @MysticMushroom1776@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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What sanction was imposed: comments removed (whatever), ban from the community !europe@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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Screenshot of the modlog entry, attached.
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The context of the posts that were originally removed is basically:
- a factual post that OP’s title does not follow from the content. The tweet talks about Israel helping build the European far right alliance, not “creating” and “owning” the European far right.
- In response to another user pushing back, I think we got a bit of a misunderstanding with the meaning of the word “conspiracy”, with me taking the word literally and arguing that the framing of “conspiracy” is basically an antisemitic trope harkening to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. There is a bit of (I think respectful) back and forth, which I think basically would have been resolved in a couple more turns.
- The mod intervenes and removes my posts without banning me yet. The mod accuses me of “dismissing anti-Zionism as antisemitic conspiracies”, “parroting pro-Zionist rhetoric” and “apologia” and “accusations of antisemitism”.
- I respond to the mod, underneath and that gets me banned. I don’t seem to have access to the post that triggered the ban, it does not appear in the modlog, but after the mod removed a 3 posts with the accusation of trolling, bad faith, zionist apologia and zionist rhetoric, I basically said “you misunderstood me, but I’m not going to “try to play chess with a pigeon”, just FYI I was not trolling, I was arguing in good faith and I was trying to say that we don’t need employ harmful antisemitic tropes in antizionist rhetoric”. I guess the most offensive thing I said was the pigeon-playing-chess, thing.
- That gets me banned as a “bad faith zionist troll”, with a nice little final message “Sayonara you worthless Zionist apologist.” Power tripping much?
- Why I think that’s unfair, and what I would ask as remedy:
Read my freaking posts. I am not doing zionist apologia. I’m not pushing zionist rhetoric. I am not trolling, and I’m engaging in good faith. I’m repeatedly referring to Israel as the “genocidal Israeli apartheid regime”.
What I am doing is pointing out that the conspiratorial framing is unnecessary and harmful. I am not conflating antizionism with antisemitism, I quite specifically say so. What I am saying is that “there exist antisemitic ways of doing antizionist politics”, which, I don’t know man, I think it’s …pretty obvious? My strongest claim is in the longer of my removed comments:
it is possible to do anti-Zionist politics in an anti-Semitic way. Let’s not fucking do that. Let’s instead do anti-Zionist politics in an anti-fascist way.
This is basic shit, no? In what fucking way is saying “let’s do anti-Zionist politics in an anti-fascist way” even remotely “zionist apologia”?! I mean, come on.
In terms of the substance of my disagreement in the discussion that was interrupted, I honestly think that it was a misunderstanding about the word “conspiracy” that would have been resolved in a couple of turns. In my view, the Israeli regime is publicly organizing the European fascists, so there is no “conspiracy”, it’s literally in the open. The conspiratorial framing only hurts the antizionist attack, because of its antisemitic roots. Before the mod intervened to gut the discussion, I was trying to clarify the language of “conspiracy” with the other user.
To summarize: I think the mod jumped the gun, being triggered by the word “antisemitism”. Yes, the Israeli propaganda machine uses the accusation of antisemitism as chaff, but that doesn’t mean we need to turn off our own critical thinking. We can freaking do better than give actual pro-Israeli apologists hooks to accuse the antizionist movement of antisemitism.
As a remedy, just lift the ban, for fuck’s sake.
EDIT: I’m unsure how the notifications work, but for full transparency, I have just sent the mod this DM, to let zir know that I started this thread:
If it is bad etiquette to send such a heads up via DM, I apologize and take responsibility.
It’s not so easy as you frame it. There is no other country on earth that has a population that is defined by a homogeneous religion - the binding between religion and genealogy is much stronger than anywhere else. That also has an effect on how Israel is perceived: there is a very strong correlation between Jews and Judaism, and both of them strongly correlate with Zionism. You cannot cleanly separate Religion, Genealogy and State identity in this case (and that is intended, so you can frame aggression against Zionism as antisemitism), you can only acknowledge that some Jews do not want to engage with Zionism.
This is bullshit. Since the invention of Zionism there was already jews who opposed the ideology so no there is no strong correlation betwen both . Zionists leaders literally intentionally killed jews before the creation of the illegitimate state of Israel. They assassinated an antizionist jew called Israel de haan, during the bombing of king David hotel 17 jews was killed , they sabotaged the French ocean liner SS Patria in the port of Haifa. killing 267 jews on it they did multiple false flags to push many jews to move from arab world to the new state which i do not mean by it that Arab leaders did not expulse many jews with no Zionist interference in response to the Nekba. Claiming that Zionism strongly correlate with Jewishness is like claiming isis strongly correlate with Islam. Even today you keep seeing anti zionism jews within israel getting beaten by the police , you see black jews being discriminated .
I do not agree that this is bullshit, because you underscore what i said. The Zionists nowadays are the jewish establishment, and it punishes and eliminates whoever isn’t with them. For the people living in Israel, the Zionists are the authority regarding what it means to be Jewish, increasing the semantic conflation of jew/judaism/zionist.
As everywhere, there are people who are thinking for themselves, but they are the minority inside of Israel, and they pay for it.
The Zionists nowadays are an establishment pretending to represent all jews . There is strong correlation between Israel and Judaism
They are not pretending. They ARE the defining majority of the jewish population in Israel. Don’t fall victim to the “no true scotsman”-fallacy mate.
Majority, but not all. That’s the important part. Every Jewish person I know is antizionist, and I know a lot of Jewish people. They shouldn’t be lumped in with the Zionists
Edit: rereading this comment chain I agree with both of y’all, which makes me think you’re talking past each other
I agree! There are Jews out there that do not approve of Bibi’s policies, and those are type of people that get wrecked when they are inside of Israel and not somewhere else in the world. Sadly, the diaspora does not count for much inside of Isreal itself.
You keep proving that you are the antisemite. Believing that israel has the right to globally define what a jew is . You literally making look like jews as an ethnic group support genocide and settler colonialism. I did not use any no true scotsman fallacy, you did by conflating judaism with zionism .Shame on you
I do NOT say they have the right to do it. But they do it, and it’s obvious. I am no antisemite, i don’t give a fuck where you are coming from as long as you don’t fuck with others peoples lives.
The Jews living in Israel ARE AN ETHNIC GROUP COMMITTING GENOCIDE AND SETTLER COLONIALISM. I don’t know where you had your head the last years, but it is obvious that this path has wide support in the population of Israel, consisting of close to 100% of jews.
E: I want to add that this is the result of a heavily militarized and propagandized population. If those factors weren’t there, i’m sure that a substantial amount of the Israeli population would not approve of the current events. But how it stands today, public resistance against the Zionist agenda in Israel is close to zero.
E2: I also want to add that the aggression towards palestinians not only comes from the IDF, but from the Israeli populace itself. 2 days ago i read that the IDF was creating a security zone around a palestinian settlement in the west bank because Israeli settlers were on the regular setting fires and lynching palestinians there.
Conflating jews with the state of israel again. You are the antisemite. Do you realize there is anti occupation jews in israel too . Did you ever heard of btselem it is an israeli organization constituted of jews and muslims that expose israel and the colonizers in the west bank terrorist acts?
You are the one conflating critizism of Zionism with critizism of Jews. I have now multiple times agreed that there are jews who don’t want to engage with this system, and that they pay a heavy price. But you seem to be unable to realize that whatever you are offering as counterargument are small fractions inside of Israel and not the defining part of the populace. As i said - you fall victim to the no-true-scotsman fallacy, and i would advise you to look it up. If even just 70% of Jews inside of Israel is pro-Zionism (it is for sure a higher percentage), 10% go against it and the rest just keeps their head down to not become a target, then effectively the whole state is working towards elimination of palestinians.