And the people who do not fall under that definition have their land taken away from them, they are ghettoized and treated as second class citizens? Because you’re right, that is fucked up. It wouldn’t be anti-Christianity for me to criticize them, either.

And anyone who doesn’t practice that religion, language or ethnicity is denied equal rights?

I don’t believe in ethnonationalism. So I don’t believe America should be defined by race, religion, ethnicity, etc. I don’t believe in that for any nation. So “as much as any people” I disagree with.

I want to add something. I understand your fear. I understand why to say that what Israel is doing is wrong would feel like you are risking so much, because then antisemitism will swoop in and people will use your admittance that Israel is doing bad things as a chance to attack Jews and do what they have done for…

And the farmers on the east coast of the Mediterranean should be held responsible for the atrocities committed by Germany and the rest of the world? They should pay for a crime they did not commit? Their lives, their homes, their land, their livelihoods, their families are worth less than the life of Israelis? The…

As I said, vegetarianism was an exaggerated example to make a rhetorical point. As I said, anti-Israeli sentiment can be and often is antisemitic, as often is Evangelical and European support of Israel because folks are always looking for reasons to hate Jewish people, which, as I said, is abhorrent. As I said I am…

Thank you.

Thank you. 

Absurd. I’m sorry for you that you’ve been indoctrinated to think that way. Both Israeli and Palestinian lives are being lost because people like you can’t think critically, compassionately and with the value for ALL human life as  your starting point. 

Thank you.

I am very against antisemitism. I do a lot of social justice work, resistance work, interfaith work, and that staunchly includes fighting antisemitism. I hope everyone else agrees and I think they do. What I’m not so sure about in this thread is that we all agree Palestinian human rights are as important as Israelis…

I don’t agree that everyone here has leaned pretty hard into a criticism of Israel. I think everyone here’s default has been to come down on my argument that anti-zionism is not antisemitism without even bothering to qualify that with even very limited acknowledgement of Israel’s crimes. And I don’t think even one…

Ah yes, and isn’t it our job to do better? To not let the rhetoric of the bigot drive the terms of the conversation? By using the terms of the bigot would we not, in some ways, be helping to validate their constructs? Our minds think in symbols, language is symbols. So in addition to arguing against their points, we…

Yes, I push back on that, too. I lived and worked in France so there you’d find me doing the same thing to the one-sided anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian rhetoric. I’m just challenging us all to dig into the nuances of what we say and think, especially the author of this article who is getting paid to make better word…

Right now I’m way more hyped up about Saudi Arabian money than I am about Pakistan (Fuck Silicon Valley, Uber and anyone else who takes their blood money). But a huge swath of Americans also don’t go out of their way to defend Pakistan, so you are not making the point you think you are making. But overall yes, I’m…

I think the reason I lean hard the way I do in the U.S. is because of Americans’ extreme biases towards Israel. But when I am arguing in France, for instance, I go the other way because they tend the other way. But I tried to articulate that Antisemitism is a real problem and that anti-zionist arguments can and are…

It must be a typo. I’m attempting to write antisemitism (one anti). It is auto correcting weird.

I agree. But if you’ve done so much work, as have I, then I would have thought you’d agree with my original point that conflating anti-semitism and anti-zionism is a rhetorical slight of hand that is often used to shut down criticism of Israel. And if the author’s point was that Walker’s particular anti-zionism is…

I think for real peace, Jerusalem would have to get some kind of vatican treatment, but other than that, I agree. israel exists, and that land is its peoples home. I would never advocate eye for an eye. I just want everyone to have equal rights and for the violence to stop.

I would oppose a Palestine that defined itself as a Muslim country. And I oppose zionism as an ideology that operates in the country’s internal politics at the exclusion of its non-Jewish citizens. But I’m not naive, so if we had a two-state solution in which both countries recognized the equal rights of all its…