Last year in August 2025, I published my article Jews are NOT Oppressed: The Myth of Systemic Antisemitism. In it, I included an exhaustive list of polling data I gathered from around the internet on the opinion of Jews worldwide towards Israel. Most of the surveys were conducted after the start of the 2023 Gaza genocide. The results showed consistent and overwhelming support for Israel among the global Jewish population, with a rough weighted total average of over 85%.
In this article, I decided to go through newer polling data released since August 2025 to see if things have changed a year after I published my initial findings. Below is a summary of results from surveys I found of American, Canadian, British and Israeli Jews in descending order of recency.
The results show that while favorability toward Israel has declined compared to previous years, it remains in the majority across all countries. A majority of Jews polled also do not even consider Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute a genocide. Most importantly, the question at the core of Zionism—whether Israel should exist as a Jewish state—still commands overwhelming approval.
Israel’s Right to Exist as a Jewish State • US: 72-87% support Israel’s right to exist; 66-83% say denying this is antisemitic.
• UK: 81-82% support its right to exist.
• Canada: 92% support its right to exist.
• Israel: 87% say Zionism is not racist; 85% identify as Zionist; 1% as Anti-Zionist.
Attachment to & Favorability of Israel:
• US: 55-71% have a favorable view or feel emotionally attached to Israel; 63% say supporting Israel is important to their Jewish identity; 70-83% view Israeli people favorably.
• UK: 75% feel emotionally attached.
• Canada: 69% feel emotionally attached. Views on the Gaza War & Genocide
• US: 73% say Israel’s immediate response to Oct. 7 was justified; 42-46% say ongoing operations are justified; 49-78% deny genocide.
• UK: 81% deny genocide.
• Canada: 70% say Israel’s actions are legal/legitimate; 87-90% deny genocide; 64% do not blame Israel for famine.
• Israel: 71-92% rate the IDF highly; 68% want Israel to stay in Gaza; 61% deny famine reports.
Aid & Arms to Israel:
• US: Only 26% support stopping financial and military assistance; 59% support sending more arms.
• Canada: Only 20% support an arms embargo on Israel; 71% support increased aid to Israeli civil society. Antisemitism & Anti-Zionism
• US: 83% say too many critics of Israel use antisemitic tropes; 38-54% view certain anti-Israel actions as antisemitic; 89% say anti-Zionism is linked to antisemitism.
• Canada: 45% say calling Israel "apartheid” is definitely antisemitic; 45% say calling it “genocide” is definitely antisemitic.
• Israel: 78% say anti-Zionism is linked to antisemitism; 68% say boycotts are antisemitic.
Based on the latest polling evidence, little has fundamentally changed. While favorability toward Israel and approval of its conduct have shifted somewhat, overall support for Israel—particularly its status as a “Jewish state”—remains nearly unchanged, with the vast majority of Jews continuing to back the Zionist project, even as they express reservations about its current government.
So one must ask: given the facts presented here—nearly three years into a genocide carried out by the “Jewish state,” by Jews, for Jews, at the expense of non-Jews, with the overwhelming support of Jews worldwide—why does the Western “pro-Palestine” movement spend so much time and energy doing free PR for Jews? Why go so far as to lie on their behalf about what they actually believe? The Western left loves to talk about “centring voices.” Well, this is what they’ve said. So why speak over them?
This sort of approach is a really dangerous way of thinking because it’s literally stereotyping just based on statistical majorities.
I was born and raised in Tennessee, a deep red state that voted for Trump by a nearly 2/3 majority in 2024. However, even in such an environment, one in three Tennesseans is still a significant number of people. There are several cities in the state where the demographics lean in the opposite direction, to say nothing of specific circles. I was reluctant to leave the state because I had several friend groups with actually cool people, many of them queer, and finding such people can be a breath of fresh air, and a reassurance of sanity.
If you were to conduct a similar analysis of Tennesseans you would no doubt conclude that we are “NOT oppressed” because there are strong majorities that support right-wing politics. And if the point of your analysis is just to show broad trends, then sure. My home is an absolute cesspool of reaction, I won’t deny that. But you’d also be ignoring the experiences of minority groups and voices that just happen to be included in that label by accident of birth. I think that if someone were to label me a dumb hick or redneck or whatever based on that, they’d be out of line.
The point isn’t my specific example but that I think just about everyone belongs to some demographic group where the majority in said group has problematic views. When I see a group like the Jewish Voices for Peace going against the majority view, I can connect that to my own experiences being outspoken in the South, and I think it’s worth recognizing and celebrating them.
The distinction between Jews and Zionists is also important for political reasons. If the problem is people being Zionists, that is something that they can change, and it’s a political project that can be subverted in any number of ways. If the problem is people being Jews, they can’t stop being Jewish. So what solution does that imply? In addition to including people it shouldn’t, talking about Jews rather than Zionists also lets non-Jewish Zionists off the hook, for similarly no reason except accident of birth.
On the other hand, what are the advantages of ditching the distinction? Satisfying some people’s base urges to be more discriminatory and inflammatory? As far as I’m concerned, the sort of person who needs to be disciplined on that point is already dangerous and unreliable, and this sort of “populist” tendency to redirect class analysis to racial bullshit needs to be nipped in the bud immediately and consistently.
My home is an absolute cesspool of reaction, I won’t deny that. But you’d also be ignoring the experiences of minority groups and voices that just happen to be included in that label by accident of birth.
Ok? Who cares? If you’re born in Nazi Germany why try to save the German reputation when most of them are literal Nazis. I’ll be the first to throw my country under the bus instead of trying to defend it if it does bad stuff just because I was born there.
As I’ve explained plenty below it’s also dangerous to keep denying the very strong links between Judaism and Zionism because Zionists are able to use their Jewish institutions like Synagogues to sell stolen Palestinian land and then get defended by “anti-Zionists” who will tell you there is no link between Judaism and Zionism.
Furthermore anti-Zionist Jews have directly massively damaged the Palestine movement by going on witch-hunts against prominent voices such as Jeremy Corbyn and even Palestinians who suffered the gencocide for not adhering to their language standards. Placing their attempt to save the Jewish reputation above the active genocide of Palestinians.
On the other hand, what are the advantages of ditching the distinction?
Calling them Zionists or even Zionist Jews is fine in my bood. The problem is people policing the anti-Israel movement and doing infighting for the reputation of Judaism when someone doesn’t adhere to that distinction.
Here if you want to hear if from a Jew: Yes, All Jews. All Jews must kill Zionism within Judaism
That’s a great article you linked, thanks!
I’ll be the first to throw my country under the bus instead of trying to defend it if it does bad stuff just because I was born there.
I think you’re confused. That’s the position I’m arguing for. I already said that my home state is a reactionary cesspool, in the same way that Israel is. Because the country is so shit, I believe we should denounce it and throw it under the bus by correctly labelling it with the term “Zionist.” You are arguing against that position, and, rather than throwing the country under the bus, are throwing a race under the bus.
As I’ve explained plenty below it’s also dangerous to keep denying the very strong links between Judaism and Zionism because Zionists are able to use their Jewish institutions like Synagogues to sell stolen Palestinian land and then get defended by “anti-Zionists” who will tell you there is no link between Judaism and Zionism.
A chud will see some evil corporation doing pinkwashing and conclude from that they need to hate queer people, this is the same mentality. Zionists use Judaism as a cover, and sometimes they are able to get away with it, and in cases where there’s ambiguity it may be unwise to force the issue from the perspective of optics.
But by equating them, you’re just playing straight into their rhetoric and giving them exactly what they want. Again, for no reason other than wanting to sound edgy.
Furthermore anti-Zionist Jews have directly massively damaged the Palestine movement by going on witch-hunts against prominent voices such as Jeremy Corbyn
When did “anti-Zionist Jews” go on a witch-hunt against Corbyn? Because I distinctly remember Zionists, Jewish and otherwise, conducting said witch-hunt. Corbyn was quite clear on distinguishing his criticism for the Israeli state from Jews in general, so the people who had a problem with that were Zionists almost by definition.
Placing their attempt to save the Jewish reputation
Who on earth said anything about “saving the Jewish reputation?” What I’m concerned about is subverting and coopting a movement by taking it completely off-message from the very clearly correct position of “The state of Israel is bad because it’s doing genocide” into this racial bullshit for, again, no fucking reason except that being in the position of the good guy apparently makes you uncomfortable somehow. And I’m just saying, tough shit, get it together.
It’s so dumb from every perspective. First off it’s just factually inaccurate, but it’s also just horrendous optics, it goes against any ideology we’d want to build a movement around, it legitimizes the rhetoric of both fascists and Zionists, and again, it’s a completely unforced error on your part that serves no actual purpose.
Have you tried reading the article they linked? It’s not dumb.
Is the thesis of that article that I should stop calling out Zionism and instead start spewing racist bullshit?
You keep saying shit I agree with that in no way supports genocide_convenience’s conclusions or contradicts my own. Maybe you should reexamine what they’re actually saying instead of telling me I’m wrong.
I don’t care about who of you two is more right or less wrong. I’m trying to reach a synthesis between two positions that I both understand and who both have some merit, but also miss key contradictions and lead to suboptimal strategies.
A chud will see some evil corporation doing pinkwashing and conclude from that they need to hate queer people, this is the same mentality. Zionists use Judaism as a cover, and sometimes they are able to get away with it, and in cases where there’s ambiguity it may be unwise to force the issue from the perspective of optics.
This is a good example of what I was talking about in my other comment: ignoring the institutional issue. They aren’t just getting away with it “sometimes”. Most Jewish institutions are overwhelmingly Zionist. Zionists haven’t just temporarily a little “zion washed” “some” Jewish institutions and “sometimes” people fall for it. They have captured almost all of organized Jewish religion and turned it into a weapon for fascism. Almost all the temples, preachers, publications, newspapers and other media, all the donations, inheritance and state funding of Jewish religion belong to the Zionists. It’s all theirs now. How do you expect non-zionist Jews to take their religion back, if you refuse to acknowledge it was stolen from them?
They aren’t just getting away when it “sometimes”. Most Jewish institutions are overwhelmingly Zionist. Zionists haven’t just temporarily a little “zion washed” “some” Jewish institutions and “sometimes” people fall for it
The degree is irrelevant. If a poll came out showing 80% of queer people support Target, it would not in any way justify shifting discourse away from capitalism and towards queer people. Full stop, end of story. Anything else is controversy bait at best, bigotry and stereotyping at worst.
How do you expect non-zionist Jews to take their religion back, if you refuse to acknowledge it was stolen from them?
What, specifically, did I say that led you to the conclusion that I “refuse to acknowledge it was stolen from them?” Yes, it’s fucked up that mainstream Judaism is so supportive of Zionism, no, that still isn’t going to make me consider for one second shifting my focus away from Zionism, which is the core issue.
Zionism is an ideology. You’re being idealist by focusing only on that. The underlying base is the institutions spreading this ideology. Talking only about Zionism and never specifically about christian or Jewish Zionism is one way to sweep two issues under one rug: cultural and material capture of very different institutions with very different ways of reproducing themselves, requiring different strategies from our side. Jewish Zionism is institutionalized as such and so requires critique of specifically Jewish cultural institutions.
In medieval times, you would have had to criticize how specifically the Catholic church as an institution supports feudalism. In our time, you have to criticize how specifically almost all the Jewish institutions support fascism.
Zionism is an ideology. You’re being idealist by focusing only on that.
Zionism is not only an ideology, but also a political system that materially exists, which is what I believe we should be focusing on. That’s like saying capitalism is an ideology and that critiquing it is idealist.
Talking only about Zionism and never specifically about christian or Jewish Zionism
Jesus Christ, again, where did I say anything remotely like this? You keep arguing against positions I don’t hold at all.
In medieval times, you would have had to criticize how specifically the Catholic church as an institution supports feudalism. In our time, you have to criticize how specifically almost all the Jewish institutions support fascism.
I don’t have a problem with that. I have a problem with completely abandoning any political critique in favor of outright racism!
I literally said I completely oppose the genocidal, apartheid state of Israel, but that I don’t have a problem with Jewish people existing, and they responded that I was “supporting Zionism.” This is an obvious attempt to co-opt an actual leftist movement that’s focused on opposing genocide, into reactionary bullshit about Jews being inherently evil.
It’s almost unbelievable to me how anyone running around trying to pass themselves off as a Marxist would fall for this. This is not, as you say in the other comment, “two positions that both have some merit,” this is one position that is correct and another that is completely wrong, and frankly shouldn’t even be tolerated. “Hating people based on their ethnicity” is not a position that has merit, it is not something that you need to find a “synthesis” with, it is something that needs to be rejected, completely and thoroughly.
I swear to God, the only reason for any of this is because you can’t stand the fact that anti-Zionism has gotten so popular and now you don’t get to feel special anymore. The martyr complex is so bad that you’d rather lose doing things the wrong way than to succeed doing it right.
What I’m concerned about is subverting and coopting a movement by taking it completely off-message from the very clearly correct position of “The state of Israel is bad because it’s doing genocide” into this racial bullshit for, again, no fucking reason except that being in the position of the good guy apparently makes you uncomfortable somehow. And I’m just saying, tough shit, get it together.
Cool I’m worried about the Palestinians actually being genocided right now. The fictional threat you’re talking about is going on the backburner. You’re doing the “all lives matter” thing. I recommend reading the article I linked if you still don’t understand it.
Cool, so you’re not concerned about whether the movement to stop the Palestinians from being genocided right now is actually effective or not.
I stg. Fascists are out there cooking up all sorts of inventive ways to sell horrible shit to suburban housewives, playing the propaganda game with shit like “it’s ok to be white” and meanwhile leftists are brainstorming all sorts of ways to take actually good things and dress them up in the most alienating dogshit way possible so that no one wants to be on our side, and we get to be in the super special club, grandstanding all to ourselves while nothing fucking changes.
Distinguishing between a state and an ethnicity is not and never will be “doing the all lives matter thing.”
I’m starting to think you’re a Zionist since you really like policing the Palestine movement on tone.
Here’s a 50 minute extended in-depth explanation of how you are hurting the Palestine movement.
You’re allowed to learn from it or I’ll just block you
No, I’m not policing “the Palestinian movement” on tone, I’m policing you on doing your level best to muddy the waters on a black-and-white issue.
If you’re gonna block me for not denouncing an ethnicity, then go right ahead. Just remember that that is the line that you’ve chosen to draw.
I’m completely opposed to the genocidal, apartheid state of Israel, I am not opposed to Jews existing.
If that’s such an odious position to you that you can’t stand hearing my perspective, then you’re clearly lost and likely a couple years out at best from dropping any kind of pretense of being a leftist anyway.
Lol, a BadEmpanda video. Yeah, that checks out, that’s where you picked up the brainworms. Edgy bullshit and controversy bait, I’m familiar enough with him to know that’s what he does. Those sorts of takes are great for social media engagement, bad for actually being true or accomplishing anything.
Understood you’re unwilling to learn anything and you’re here to support genocide and refuse to educate yourself on anything beyond your Liberal-Zionist beliefs which you want to tone-police on.
Blocked.
It’s painful to look at my copy of Maus. Nothing was learned. And Spiegelman is very omissive, like a smarter zionist would be.
i do not think spiegalman is a Zionist. do you know something i don’t? His recent works are about Palestine, and he has been very critical of Israel
I dunno, I recall the interview with Joe Sacco, who was way more outspoken in criticizing Israel. Then no positioning through media. Maybe I’m being unfair and he just doesn’t get the spotlight when his stance is more critical.
It might be worth emphasizing that in USA the vast majority of zionists are christian.
Also worth emphasizing that they’re literally americans, of course they are overwhelmingly reactionary.
Certainly but they can’t colonize Palestine.
why not?
Because they’re not Jewish and Israel is a Jewish ethnostate. This is what happens to Christians there https://lemmy.ml/post/51945225
Israel is only a “Jewish Ethnostate” because it was supported in that sense by the non-Jewish Zionist west, particularly The UK and US, which are dominated by Christian Zionists. The UK and US had no problem colonizing other places without Zionist Jews, including all surrounding colonial states and they could colonize Palestine without them too if they wanted to (but they don’t want to because they are Zionists).
Absolutely not. Israel is a Jewish ethnostate because a very dedicated Jewish Zionist community used significant wealth and influence to market themselves as a useful tool for Western interests for the specific purpose of wanting to create a Jewish ethnostate. Such as the Rotschilds with Balfour.
That’s not to say that they did it all by themselves. They always try to align themselves with others, usually the absolute worst people. The Havaara agreement with Hitler. Selling weapons to Apartheid South Africa, the genocide in Bosnia and every other genocide you can think of. Their current allegiance with Gulf, the USA, blood diamond dictators in Africa etcetera. Similarly their lobby group always tries to align with others. Like Evangelical Christians and even their own non-Zionist Jewish community has been almost completely converted to Zionism over the past century.
You are correct that the USA and other have colonized other places but Palestine was specifically a Zionist Jewish incentive and to this day only Jews can go colonize Palestine.
Your history is not quite accurate here. British political Evangelical Zionism predates Jewish Zionism as major political movement by a couple of generations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church's_Ministry_Among_Jewish_People
Jewish political Zionism was instituted by western, rich, assimlitaed Jews who allied themselves with Christian Zionists beginning in the 1880s and 1890s, not the other way around. The Balfour Declaration bears the name of its virulently antisemtic author who wanted to solve the Jewish Question through deportation of English Jews to Palestine, and passed the declaration over the objection of the only Jewish member of the cabinet. It also aligned nicely with the colonial regime being instituted in the former Ottoman territories where the British and French installed loyal minorities (and often alien) as the rulers of the new states, with Zionist Jews serving that role in Palestine.
The Jewish-supremacist state that has evolved out of that project has certainly done all of the terrible things you say (and then some). And the current laws of the state limit those who can colonize Palestine to those it deems to be “Jews” (which includes most Christian converts and does not include anti-Zionist Jews).
I think where you and I differ is about who is ultimately in control. The idea that the settler colonial project could last a week without total support from the non-Jewish Zionist states is not correct. It only has the power to do what it does to the extent its Sponsor (the Anglo-American Empire in this case) sees supporting it is in the Sponsor’s best interest. The military and political leadership of the US has long said that “if there wasn’t an Israel in the Middle East, we would have to create one” because of the interests of the US, not the Jews. It’s a “permanent air craft carrier” in the Middle East, which must be controlled because of the world’s petroleum-based economy and dollar system.
I think why I’m harping on it is because the Zionist Jews are the tip of the spear for the project, just like the convicts in Australia, the non-Anglican Protestants (and all of their enslaved Africans) in what became the 13 US colonies, and, most recently, the “migrants” in North Africa being sent into Spanish territory. But focusing on the tip of the spear can make one lose focus of the thrower of the spear, which will happily make a new spear and a new tip once the old one is used up.
British Zionism does predate it but the idea of creating a Jewish ethnostate was just appealing to some Jews which then decided to implement that.
The Balfour declaration was because of large money donations and loans from the Rotschilds to the British. Which gets obvious when you see whom it is addressed to
Similar with Zionist Jews collaboration with the Nazis they saw a chance to collaborate with a party to further their own agenda at the cost of non-Zionist Jews.
But focusing on the tip of the spear can make one lose focus of the thrower of the spear
But this is incorrect. Israel has swapped allegiance between imperialist countries many times and done plenty of realignment. From Britain to France to America to whatever superpower they can align with next. Whenever the US goes down Israel will gladly switch to align more with Russia or any other party willing to collaborate with it. Organizations like AIPAC do not exist to serve imperial interest nor does Israel. Just look at the Iran war for that. The US is destroying itself for Israel.
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Jewish is not an ethnicity. Saying it is is just Zionist propaganda. And “Ethnostate” is a term that I don’t like (“Nation-State” is right there). That’s why, as I said below, the Israeli state will accept Christian converts to Judaism and not people who were born Jews but are anti-Zionist. You can’t convert to a new ethnicity, but you can convert to being Jewish and accepted as an “Israeli” citizen.
Without Christians zionism would still be trying to do genocide and settler colonialism with the excuse of the holocaust and Jewish safety and so on. Without Jews there would be no zionism and it would simply be naked colonialism with no excuses or pretexts, no ability to call opposition racist, etc, which would be hard to sell to the western public in this day and age. Jews are the load bearing column in zionism that enable it.
which would be hard to sell to the western public in this day and age. Jews are the load bearing column in zionism that enable it.
The part that provides the propaganda aspect is more load bearing than the part that provides material support and shittons of weapons?
It’s already a hard sell as is, and the unpopularity of it is not stopping or slowing down the arms shipments or interfering with the colonial project. Finding another justification for colonialism is not nearly as difficult as trying to do colonialism without a clear material advantage against the colonized people.
This does not convince me because they’re ultimately asking AMERICANs, BRITISH and CANADIANs. Of course they’re overwhelmingly zionists, maybe ask jews in other countries that are not literally the belly of the beast lol.
This kind of shit is usually just westerners trying to assuage their own shame that they passively contribute to and benefit from imperialism by finding worse westerners to assign all the blame. As if zionism isn’t widely supported by most western institutions, regardless of whatever superstructural signifiers they coat themselves with.
That or nazbols pretending to care about liberation so they can worm their way into leftist spaces.
It’s exausting trying to deconstruct it once it takes root.
That’s what im saying, you could run the same polls on non-jewish american/canadian/british and you’ll have the same results.
Regularly appalled at how much bad analysis is tolerated here. It’s already a full-time job keeping it out of irl orgs let alone trying to argue with cryptofash on supposedly leftist sites
This one’s especially shocking because setting aside the blatant nazbol nonsense it’s also a like gradeschool-level categorical error. Like “the majority of the air is nitrogen, thus the air is 100% nitrogen, thus nitrogen and air are synonymous and oxygen doesn’t exist”. The semantic play is so transparently disengenuous I can’t understand how many people in this thread and the crosspost are falling for it.
good a reminder as any to log off, I guess. I don’t have the time or energy for this shit
tbf they did ask israelis.
The way i see it, they only polled israelis.
From Canada, we got some fuckin ghouls here lol. I grew up in an Iranian nouveau riche area, and all of them are Pahlavists lmao. The similarly wealthy Koreans didn’t have any immediate political priority, but were suburbanite liberal-centrists (i.e. centrists within the liberal framework). If our diasporas got money, they suck. And occasionally they don’t got money and they suck!
Ask Westerners or Jews anywhere about their approval of Israeli conduct in Ukraine.
The people attempting to make excuses for this or who try and question the motives of the original author are revealing themselves either to be zionist or gullible enough to have fallen for the zionist counter-insurgency against the anti-Israel movement. Personally, if a poll came out on the worldwide opinion of white people on white nationalism and showed an overwhelming support for these things across multiple countries, no one here would be making these kinds of arguments. If 92% of white Canadians were revealed to be neo-nazis, very few non-neo-nazis would shy away from saying something about it. If 87% of white South Africans were found to claim that apartheid isn’t racist and 85% identified themselves as white nationalists, no one here would be trying to defend that or be playing PR defence for them. It’s a double standard that exists only as a PR cudgel for the Zionist project. We don’t need to centre the voice of the oppressor, we must however centre the voice of the very people they are trying to exterminate, which is the overwhelmingly non-Jewish Palestinian population.
How antisemitic of you!!!
In seriousness, as a Palestinian, I see jewish zionists as the top of the caste system in the west, not just in “israel”.
I would say “white jewish zionists” but that’s not even the case since I knew a korean girl adopted by a jewish zionist family reaping the benefits just as much as her white counterparts.
Norm Finklestein even said it himself, there are many benefits to being jewish, and the default assumption in the workplace or in academia is that if you are jewish you are zionist until proven otherwise. You can get jobs out of college much easier, just based on your last name alone, you can’t even call it nepotism because you don’t even need any kind of relationship with someone beforehand for them to give you preferential treatment, how is it not a caste system?
Jewish zionists have many privileges over white people, for example, they can decide at any moment they want to live somewhere else, and they can just move to another country and steal somebody else’s house. It’s a privilege granted to jewish zionists that even white americans don’t have.
If they need to evade the law, they can seek refuge in the illegitimate state, they don’t even need to have money for that kind of privilege! Many middle-to-lower-class, non-exceptional pedophiles from the US have sought refuge in “israel” over the years.
One can’t even criticize the illegitimate state publicly without smear campaigns, bank accounts closing, and frivolous lawsuits. The media also does everything it can do subvert attention away from zionist atrocities.
We still see the media “deliberating” on whether the first hospital bombing in Gaza was a “hamas rocket” or a deliberate attack on civilian infrastructure by the illegitimate state, even after every other hospital was bombed by them. Meanwhile, after the Minab school bombing by the US, the media quickly, within a day, came to the consensus that it was America that conducted the attack.
America’s media apparatus, financial institutions, and academia all give preferential treatment to jewish zionists over white americans, yet nobody wants to point it out over fear of being called an antisemite.
With that being said, it does make me have so much more respect for my anti-zionist jewish comrades, throwing away all the possible benefits they could have received for what is right.
This does not surprise me at all. Serbs have the same attitude regarding their shit that happened not too long ago. Ethnic wars are really something else. People switch off their intelligence and go with the crowd.
Palestinians are surprisingly reasonable towards Jews compared to how extremely unreasonable most Jews are towards them.
Hmm. My impression on Oct 7 was that there was some schadenfreude going on. Which isn’t excuse for anything. More of a sign that diplomacy should be pursued whenever possible.
The one with 3% children killed?
My impression was a resistance force fighting to liberate their homeland and targeting military bases while making distinction between innocents and terrorist occupiers.
@majster @geneva_convenience Remeber of the Gleiwitz incident…
this feels really troubling and i wonder if it’s because they’re ignorant of what colonialism did in the past?
As an antizionist Jew who grew up in the Midwest, I’m fairly confident that its the immense amount of Israeli propaganda being shoved down the faces of young Jews at youth groups, Summer camps, ‘Hebrew’ classrooms.
Thinking back to the BS we were taught when I was young is horrifying. It’s really shameful.
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Yep, sorry my initial reply was from my phone and I was struggling with how much to add. United States > Midwest.
I’m going to answer them without spoiler, in order. And with the HUGE caveat that I do not speak for all Jewish people.
- Do you attend religious events?
- Yes, but I want to clarify that ‘religion’ is not necessarily ‘faith.’ I think this is difficult for many US Christians to get.
- I attend occasional synagogue events (at a very progressive synagogue), holiday events with my friends/family, and charity-style work with local orgs (elder-care, child-care, and nature cleanup)
- Are those synagogue[s] or organization[s] anti-‘Israel’ (not just antizionist)?
- This is a really good question, and unfortunately it depends on the semantics. And even many individuals would define antizionism differently - against the formation/creation and actions of the state of Israel, against the existence of Israel, or against the concept of a Jewish Ethno-state. A combination of those with other perspectives.
- Some organizations in the area are explicitly against Israel’s actions, some are vocal about it, and others are quieter to prevent being silenced. Some orgs try to balance the line with a 2-state-solution style JStreet perspective. Others just parrot the propaganda, and I either stay away from those orgs or try to have discussions with some of the leaders in non-public spaces.
- Are the other participants extremist zionist or liberal zionists?
- Again, I hate to be all WhAt Do YoU mEaN bY…, but if we’re saying a liberal zionist is someone who is generally liberal / progressive on things except Israel, that’s like 65% of the Jewish zionists here. If you’re saying a liberal zionist is someone who only kinda supports Israel, that may also overlap with the previous 65% by a lot. There aren’t a lot of extremist zionists if that means blindly supporting Israel with everything, believing Israel’s right to exist supersedes everything else. But the few who are tend to be the rare Jewish republican / Trumper. The remaining quarter or so are progressives who are either anti-Israel / anti-zionist or didn’t have strong thoughts on it until Oct 7 and now likely lean towards the Palestinian cause.
- Are some of them ex-idf members there?
- I don’t know any former IDF anymore. There used to be a push to bring them around to spread propaganda.
- I went to a Combatants for Peace event last year, which had some former militants. It’s an organization that certainly has its own issues, but ultimately has a goal of building community and caring for each other, regardless of identity.
I’ll end with one last thing:
- For the MOST part, young Jews growing up in my area (under 40ish) are far more progressive on Israel than the older generations. Giving hope to a community of Jewish people who understand the atrocities that our people endured (often our grandparents, including mine) should not be acted upon any people, for any reason. That The Holocaust didn’t have the only way to cause a genocide; and that Israel’s (and US’s) actions in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Jordan is also a genocide and should be stopped.
Dang that’s a wall of text, sorry. **Also, edited some formatting because bulleted lists are tough
Thanks for sharing your perspective. I appreciate the thoughtful answer. I can only hope that sensible people will continue to resist attempts to conflate Judaism with Zionism. All attempts to do so play directly into the hands of neonazis.
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- Do you attend religious events?
we are ultimately talking about americans, canadians and british. of course they have favorable views of colonialism and the such.
I think it’s mainly indoctrination
@Malyca @eldavi
Four decades ago, a New York Jewish historian wrote this:
https://web.archive.org/web/20171228212521/https://www.wrmea.org/1985-may-27/the-fate-of-author-of-fate.html
What Jewish communities truly think today, we may never know. The Zionist establishment has too much of a chokehold.How can the Jewish diaspora be liberated from their Zionist oppressors?
#Zionism #Israel #genocide
i guess it’s further proof that the upcoming age verification laws are going work when it comes to preventing young people from learning about the next gaza situation.
why does the Western “pro-Palestine” movement spend so much time and energy doing free PR for Jews?
Because, by the numbers you yourself quoted, there are 10-20% of Jews who are not Zionists. If, in future, there is a reaction to Zionism, it should not result in antijewish attacks on all Jews.
In the present “antisemitism” is used as a stick to hit people with who oppose genocide. Real Palestinians are really being genocided and people speak with more worry about antisemitism than the Palestinians literally undergoing a genocide because of said “antisemitism”.
For a more in-depth explanation: Fight Jewish Exceptionalism
This is true. But is there any advantage to criticising all Jews, compared to criticising Zionism?
My country was once part of the British Empire. Was the problem the existence of British people, or the ideology of colonial supremacy? We still have the grandchildren of British officers around, and they’re people, just like everyone else. What matters is creating a democratic system, with equality for all people. Then even those who have racist views will be forced to live alongside others.
This is true. But is there any advantage to criticising all Jews, compared to criticising Zionism?
Actually (sadly) yes there is. Because people attribute so much value to antisemitism above other forms of discrimination and even genocide of Palestinians, it is disproportionally effective in stifling criticism of Israel. And the only real quick solution is to take that weapon away because people are currently being genocided with it. Which sucks for anti-Zionist Jews but they aren’t the people currently being genocided.
For example Zohran Mamdani condemns people who protested against land sales of Palestinians, because Jews were selling the stolen land in a Synagogue. A Zionist Synagogue.
Hasan Piker recently did basically the same thing. https://lemmy.ml/post/51867022
If you really want to get in-depth on this I recommend The Ugly Exigencies of Genocide - Steve Salaita.
At the surface level, that’s just fallacious. Feminism is used as a stick to hit Muslims. Your reasoning structure (as explained by you from further down the thread) dictates “taking that weapon away” because of western imperialist crimes in Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc. There is no logic in this. Just because someone disingenuously turns something into a stick does not mean that the thing was a stick to begin with. If I start using PC keyboards as paddleboards, that doesn’t mean that PC keyboards are paddleboards.
At the deeper level, it’s worse. It’s buying into the dishonest weaponization of antisemitism that zionists perform. That’s just accepting the basic structure of zionism as unavoidable. Same as with the feminist example, a program of “taking away the feminism weapon” just buys into the structure of Huntingtonian war of civilizations, and reinforces it as its dialectical counter-tension. Conflating Jews with Israel is Zionism at its most basic “zionishness”. How can you even begin to imagine building any kind of antizionism on zionism itself? It’s just as silly as trying to base antiracist politics on racist stereotypes about black people being more physical than intelligent: “proper antiracist praxis is to deemphasize intellectualism because black people aren’t intellectual” and “proper antizionist praxis is to deemphasize antisemitism because the majority of Jews are supporting zionism”; this is just madness and folly.
Your arguments are deeply deeply misguided. But the proof is in the pudding. Like I asked elsewhere in the thread: what is the ask here, what are the specific kinds of tasks you are envisioning antizionists to undertake?
I’m always confused about the “so what” of articles like this. What is the actual political program that follows from these findings? The article’s conclusion talks about the “Western left” changing its approach to “centering voices”. Okay. So what does that mean practically for the left? Are they arguing for decentering Jewish anti-Zionist voices as “non representative”? Like, what’s the actual ask here, what’s the program?
The substack author has an AdrianZenz-ish obsession with jews, all his articles are about jews.
I haven’t read all of them so can’t make a conclusion but i am leaning towards high level antisemitism here that comes from the “realist” worldview.
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Also a lot of “Antizionist Jews” arent even Jewish at all and are just atheists.
Okay, but probably not all of them. So some people do exist who are Jewish, are anti-zionist and choose not to mention the former, when talking about the latter. You just don’t hear about them.
Also I’ve met atheist in pro-palestine camp who mention their Jewish parents not out of Zionism, but as a tactical choice to block libs from calling the whole camp anti-semitic. It might be the wrong tactic, I don’t know, but it was well motivated.
An Interesting fact is that some ex-Jews who become Atheists find it incredibly annoying that other Jews still say they (the atheist) are still Jewish. As if there is some innate thing which makes you permanently part of the religion.
There’s not. Judaism is a faith. There isn’t some magical Jew DNA. People can even convert to it with a lot of effort (if they’re not Palestinian at least).
I consider myself Jewish not out of any pride towards my people but the complete opposite, I am a Jew and deeply ashamed to be so. I grew up Jewish, surrounded almost entirely by Jews, with Jewish culture, to believe that I can simply separate myself from its influence is absurd.
For me Judaism is chains for which I will never truly escape, it shaped the way I think from the earliest age and no amount of conscious action can change that. So I do the only logical thing, I don’t hide that I’m Jewish but even as an antizionist myself I do not deserve forgiveness or pity.
The blood of the innocent will forever stain my people and in this crime I am not innocent, I am guilty as a bystander and a witness. Nothing I could possibly do will ever relieve me of the guilt nor should it, I can simply do the best I can from this point on.
What other community has this? Ex-Christians or Ex-Muslims don’t still call themselves Christians and Muslims
Ironically, it’s a type of religious belief to think there is something binding people to Judaism besides its faith. The doctrine of bloodline Judaism even originates from people following the faith.
Which is fine, if you want to believe that you’re allowed to do so. In practice it mostly just sounds like you want to keep being part of a community despite not following the religious practices anymore.
I’m just saying that if you don’t want to be Jewish anymore then that’s a perfectly acceptable position as well.
Ex-mormon is a pretty big community along with ex-JH. The difference is that Judaism is a lot smaller and more connected, most Christians and Muslims don’t support one single nation state.
As for the last point the way I see it I have been conditioned from birth to view the world a certain way, no matter what labels I use on myself that doesn’t change. Of course it would be an acceptable position but not one I will take.
Certainly but you don’t see them calling themselves Mormons. If anything they disproportionally demonize Mormons and talk as if Mormons are the devil incarnate.
the way I see it I have been conditioned from birth to view the world a certain way
Once again you’re completely free to believe this if you want I’m just saying that there are no physical attributes making a person Jewish. It’s all mental, and the origin of this belief is fully traced back to Judaism as a religious faith.
The way I see it ex communities usually form around particularly traumatic or extreme religious movements, you don’t see ex reform or conservative Jews calling themselves ex Jew and for a reason. Also to this day sadly I am still having religion shoved down my throat and forced upon me so I can’t actually leave.
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An example article of my previous claim also for context
I Want To Stop Being Jewish – Why Is There No Exit Strategy?
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Those people (presuming they are not cryptoZionist or liberal zionists) will understand exactly what I’m saying. Or at the very least will not be offended by it because they see the same data that OP posted.
Yes, I completely agree.
I think this is also Zionist to say that some person with “Jew DNA” (as Geneva Convenience points out absurdity of this) gets any more power to make such a determination if being pro Palestinian Liberation is “antisemitic” lol. I guess maybe in some limited tactical situation where safety is on the line but making this their identity is Zionist and actively suppressing Palestinians.
Yes, I think you’re right again. In some limited situation it might be temporarily a good tactic, but in the end, unjust privilege should be rejected instead of reinforced, even if the intentions are good.
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