You might have some elements partially aligned to your premise, but no, ask any Jew and they can clearly tell you that antisemitism is hatred of Jews. What has changed is confounding Zionism and and Israel with it. All three are now synonyms for hating Jews.
Make Israel vanish with a snap of the fingers and antisemitism will seek out every Jew on the planet. It's still what it always was. There are just some circles trying to disguise it to get it to wider audiences and that is working for them.
Those in the west, by demeaning, undermining, boycotting, delegitimising Israel, are attacking and weakening the very values that they desperately need to rediscover for their own protection and survival.
Those in the west, by demeaning, undermining, boycotting, delegitimising Israel, are attacking and weakening the very values that they desperately need to rediscover for their own protection and survival.
And there's the Nick Fuentes Crowd: Making it 'chic' to attack Israel, framed as the "controller of the US". It's still just another attack on US freedom and western civilization. It also gives support to Islamism, framing Gaza/Hamas as victims.
The anti-Westernism doesn't negate the antisemitism. They perceive Israel as an elevation of "the impoverished of the most miserable people" (Rashid Reeda) by the West. From their perspective of Israel as a beachhead of the West, if the West had created a colony of bloodthirsty pillaging Vikings, they would have accepted it; and had they seen Jews as bloodthirsty pillaging Vikings, superior in their hierarchy, Israel would have gone down better.
But Israel is hardly purely Western. The same democratic state preserved the Ottoman millet system of delegating marriage and personal status issues to religious authorities (while admittedly leaving a back door in the form of common-law informal relationships).
I think that had Israel explicitly leaned into its non-Western aspects, it might have been better received in the Arab/Muslim world. But Israel's founders were by-and-large trying to escape a decidedly non-Western Judaism for European enlightenment; they could hardly have done so.
I live in Kansas. Here antisemitism is the cultural norm, from people who complain about Israelis because of their big nose, big ears, black hair, accent, foreign language and slightly darkened skin, to the common local homophobes who go off on tangents and argue day and night that Hitler “did nothing wrong.”
Hate is hate. Everyone knows it when they see it. You can butter it up, you can sugarcoat it, you can paint it red, you can call it “politically correct” or “religious tolerance,” it’s a pie that can be sliced many different ways. But at the end of the day, at its core, hate is still hate, and hate is something that I guard against and don’t want anything to do with.
I made it to “Western political order planted in a non-Western region” and then I stopped reading. Most radical antisemites don’t realize that they instinctively hate Jews, and you’re one of those people.
Let me tell you something. There are boat loads full of white girls who, every once in a blue Moon, let their guard down, stop dating black guys and Hispanics, and finally agree to give a white guy a chance. But on the rare occasion that they do this, they always have one condition: that no part of him be from anywhere in Eastern Europe.
That’s called passive antisemitism. Being insanely antisemitic and antislavic, but not realizing it. Now you know. 😉
Very interesting and insightful! But it must be a combination, not either/or. After all, there is a long history of Muslims hating the Jews among them...and the antisemitic groups today include Westerners who specifically call out Jews and are definitely antisemitic (along with Conservatives who, in their minds, are DEFENDING Western Civilization).
You might have some elements partially aligned to your premise, but no, ask any Jew and they can clearly tell you that antisemitism is hatred of Jews. What has changed is confounding Zionism and and Israel with it. All three are now synonyms for hating Jews.
Make Israel vanish with a snap of the fingers and antisemitism will seek out every Jew on the planet. It's still what it always was. There are just some circles trying to disguise it to get it to wider audiences and that is working for them.
Those in the west, by demeaning, undermining, boycotting, delegitimising Israel, are attacking and weakening the very values that they desperately need to rediscover for their own protection and survival.
Those in the west, by demeaning, undermining, boycotting, delegitimising Israel, are attacking and weakening the very values that they desperately need to rediscover for their own protection and survival.
I wonder who are the "they"? Today many of those who attack Israel, Jews and the West are those in the West themselves.
Yes, but it also ends up being antisemitism! Double whammy !
And there's the Nick Fuentes Crowd: Making it 'chic' to attack Israel, framed as the "controller of the US". It's still just another attack on US freedom and western civilization. It also gives support to Islamism, framing Gaza/Hamas as victims.
The anti-Westernism doesn't negate the antisemitism. They perceive Israel as an elevation of "the impoverished of the most miserable people" (Rashid Reeda) by the West. From their perspective of Israel as a beachhead of the West, if the West had created a colony of bloodthirsty pillaging Vikings, they would have accepted it; and had they seen Jews as bloodthirsty pillaging Vikings, superior in their hierarchy, Israel would have gone down better.
But Israel is hardly purely Western. The same democratic state preserved the Ottoman millet system of delegating marriage and personal status issues to religious authorities (while admittedly leaving a back door in the form of common-law informal relationships).
I think that had Israel explicitly leaned into its non-Western aspects, it might have been better received in the Arab/Muslim world. But Israel's founders were by-and-large trying to escape a decidedly non-Western Judaism for European enlightenment; they could hardly have done so.
I live in Kansas. Here antisemitism is the cultural norm, from people who complain about Israelis because of their big nose, big ears, black hair, accent, foreign language and slightly darkened skin, to the common local homophobes who go off on tangents and argue day and night that Hitler “did nothing wrong.”
Hate is hate. Everyone knows it when they see it. You can butter it up, you can sugarcoat it, you can paint it red, you can call it “politically correct” or “religious tolerance,” it’s a pie that can be sliced many different ways. But at the end of the day, at its core, hate is still hate, and hate is something that I guard against and don’t want anything to do with.
I made it to “Western political order planted in a non-Western region” and then I stopped reading. Most radical antisemites don’t realize that they instinctively hate Jews, and you’re one of those people.
Let me tell you something. There are boat loads full of white girls who, every once in a blue Moon, let their guard down, stop dating black guys and Hispanics, and finally agree to give a white guy a chance. But on the rare occasion that they do this, they always have one condition: that no part of him be from anywhere in Eastern Europe.
That’s called passive antisemitism. Being insanely antisemitic and antislavic, but not realizing it. Now you know. 😉
Very interesting and insightful! But it must be a combination, not either/or. After all, there is a long history of Muslims hating the Jews among them...and the antisemitic groups today include Westerners who specifically call out Jews and are definitely antisemitic (along with Conservatives who, in their minds, are DEFENDING Western Civilization).