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.
There is no strong bidding, it is bullshit. like explained in my other comment.
Putting down Israel is antisemitic! Saying Israel shouldn’t exist is antisemitic and genocidal! Jewish people deserve a safe place in the world as the most persecuted race on earth. Fuck you if you disagree!
Nobody here is saying Israel should be physically destroyed and all Israelis expulsed for the land… Jews being persecuted do not mean Zionists can go to an inhabited region ,ethnically cleansing the land to create a state then continue till this day stealing more land in the west bank.
Saying that Israel shouldn’t exist is saying the Jews should be left out on their ass at the mercy of the world! You might as well be saying they should be destroyed!
Israel today exists so yeah it should not be destroyed, we can’t expulse israelis from the land. Countries can peacefully unite though , it is not antisemitic to believe in a one state solution with Israelis and Palestinians live together. But if you think zionists had the right to ethnically cleansing Palestinians in 48 you are the lowest of the lowest scum and and you would be yourself a zionazi
Destroying Israel through politics is the same as destroying it outright!
When one group encompasses all of the country which is “the land of the jews”, then - regardless of outliers - this is a very strong semantic binding.
If you have a subgroup consisting of 95% of all available individuals of a group, you cannot make the remaining 5% the defining population.
If the article was about Iran, would you be as critical of the headline and saying it’s islamaphobia?
There is by far no such strong binding between Islam and the Iranian populace that i would be able to make that claim. There are many Islamic countries, and while many of them are lagging behind in acknowledging and protecting human rights, they are a very heterogenous group. The headline would then focus on the country of “whatever islamic country”, and not towards “Muslims in general”. There is only ONE jewish country that also claims to be the home and cradle of all jews.
So when you read Israel, you read “Jews in general”. That’s verbatim for “any critic towards Israel is antisemitism”. It’s zionist propoganda, it forces everyone to walk on eggshells around them.
Israel isn’t anything more than an apartheid country and the cradle of genocide. They don’t represent the global Jewish community. A highly likely accusation when it has nothing to do with their nations main faith isn’t antisemitism. No one except you is saying this is a “Jewish conspiracy”.
No, i read “Jews in Israel”, who is about 98% congruent with “Zionists in Israel”. They are the only relevant group when looking at it on a global scale, and meddling in other countries internal politics deserves only the global view.
It is not the land of jews , no group of people can claim eternal right to a region because humanity started in a single location then human was regularly moving from places to places. It is the land of the citizens that lives in a region, Israelis has the right to Israel including Muslims Israelis , Palestinians has the right to Palestine . It is with the bullshit of the land of jews that Israel never ceased to steal more land and ethnically cleansing Palestinians.
I agree! But that sadly doesn’t change how the Zionist twisted history and the minds of a large majority of Jews. Palestinians deserve their own state, just like the Kurds deserve their own state. Both are getting fucked over by stronger powers - Zionists on the one side, Turks on the other. There are a lot of people out there (Roma/Sinti in Europe, or natives in the US and Australia, or groups like the Uighurs in China) that deserve their own spot, but the established powers would rather cut off their right hand than give them an inch.
And the same principle is applied internally - the Zionists start with propagandizing the jewish population, and the minority that does not accept the program are ostracized and brutalized as a lesson to anyone who would dare to defy them.
That is what i mean with “you cannot cleanly separate Zionism/Judaism/Jews from one another”. Zionism propagandizes Jews to believe in Zionism, and they are all bound by the same religion that is weaponized against the populace to make sure they support the Zionists. Anyone who doesn’t go with the program gets fucked over until they cannot put up resistance anymore. Ergo: Whatever the Zionists say Judaism and being a Jew is, is reality for the vast majority of Jews.