Israeli here…
I can’t tell you how frustrated I am from this from all directions. The inability to identify different things that are related but not one and the same. Yes, there are valid criticisms of the Israeli government, as with any government, but only some of these criticisms are actually anti-semitic. Not all are, and not all aren’t.
A podcast I listened to explained pretty well how to tell the difference between a valid criticism of Israel and an anti-semitic one:
If someone criticizes a particular action or policy of Israel on the same basis and reasoning that they would criticize any other country in Israel’s shoes, that’s normal. But if someone criticizes Israel’s very existence, or holds Israel to an unattainable higher standard than any other country in history, that’s anti-semitic.
Israel is a nation state for the Jewish nation, and to say that Israel does not have a right to exist is the same as saying that the Jewish nation is not allowed their own nation state. In other words, all nations can have nation states - except Jews. This is transparently anti-semitic. It’s also the exact meaning behind “from the river to the sea” - that leaves no room for the Jewish nation state.
The same reasoning applies when holding Israel to a higher standard: all states are allowed to defend themselves against existential threats to them, and all states are allowed to hold national interests - except Israel the Jewish state. That one is not allowed to have national interests, and it must restrain itself impeccably when fighting against terrorists with human shields. Again, this singles out the nation state for the Jewish people as the only one with less rights, and so is anti-semitic.
But that’s not all criticisms of Israel - far from it! And what frustrates me even more than anti-semitic protests of “from the river to the sea” over the world, is when legitimate criticisms of Israel are disregarded over here by the government and some of the media, grouped together with the less legitimate statements and called out as anti-semitic. IMHO that’s a fool-proof recipe to isolate us from the rest of the western world even more than we already are!
Heck, we know our government deserves criticism. The first half of 2023 had massive protests here aimed squarely at the government.
P.S. for any Hebrew speakers out there, the podcast is this fantastic one and I definitely didn’t do it justice: https://www.bac.org.il/podcasts/?seriesID=9 and I think it was episode 80.
Honestly I’m more or less in the same boat - we just happened to have been born in different countries. You’re stuck with yours, I’m stuck with mine. (It’s possible to emigrate but it’s not in most people’s top 10 options)
I’m not religious in the slightest and I barely see myself as part of the Jewish nation - but I do, just barely. It is unfortunately true that anti-semitism is alive and well, and will be for the foreseeable future. Even if I don’t view myself as Jewish, some anti-semites will, and we all know where that could lead. So Israel is the only country in the world where we can know for a fact that the government (police) will protect us from anti-semitism, not to mention won’t take part in it.
Judaism is both a religion and an ethnicity. Even if you discount any validity for the religion - which I wholeheartedly do - the ethnicity still remains, and that’s the “Jewish nation” that I mentioned. Not the religion. Speaking of “different things that are related but not one and the same”…
As for the claims of an ‘apartheid state’ - I don’t have a clear answer, because like everything else about this conflict, it’s complicated. What I can tell you is that Arab citizens of Israel study in the same universities as Jewish students, in the same classrooms. I’ve learned from both Jewish and Arab professors - and maybe other ethnicities that I haven’t noticed. There’s no place that I’ve ever seen with a “no arabs allowed” sign. They get more freedoms and a better quality of life than anywhere else in the middle east. In the written law at the very least, they have equal rights.
That’s not to say it’s all sunshine and roses - of course there’s inequalities, of course there’s injustice. But show me a country that doesn’t have issues like that for a minority population. My vote always goes to a party that strive to reduce these inequalities.
Forgive me for going on the offensive, but since you’re American… How exactly is your govenment making up for the atrocities committed to the native Americans? A very quick search says it’s not all sunshine and roses either… Maybe USA is an apartheid state too?
I don’t want to end on that provocative note, but I’ve run out of thoughts… sorry.