But is still Minister of Education.
Is he still the Minister of Education?
As far as I know, he hasn’t resigned or been removed from office in the last four days since he made those statements. At the same time, as deplorable as his attitudes are, it’s not as though he has the authority to create a government sponsored program to create gay conversion camps. I put his odds of staying in office at about 50/50, about the same as if her were an official of the US, Spain, Greece, or any other Western European nation. If he were an official of a South American nation, Eastern Europe or Asia, I’d put his odds of remaining in office at 100%.
Of course it matters - it's the whole point. We know for certain that people will pretend to be something they're not to advance an opposite agenda, so to have a fair discussion on the subject, evidence of what is really happening would be kinda useful.
Is this a conspiracy theory? Anti-Semitic nutters are really trolls using anti-Semitism to discredit anti-Israel activists?
I’ll tell you the ones I’ve talked to are quite sincere in their anti-Semitism, many of them claiming not to be anti-Semitic while doing it.
Here is another fellow who is also quite sincere in his anti-Semitism. I’m sure if you ask him he will even describe it as anti-Zionism:
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/...ians-worldwide-to-kill-every-jew-on-the-globe
I know that some criticism of Israel is due to antisemitism, but how much?
That’s a good and reasonable question. In order to answer it, you have to be willing to look at it honestly. Which means, among other things, maybe not dismiss every instance where anti-Semitism is called out as an attempt to deflect criticism of Israel.
Ah, history. Yeah, that's important.
Unless you happen to have had your land confiscated in 1948.
Jews also had land confiscated in 1948, land controlled by Arabs was made 100% Jew free. Further, in the years after the war, Jews were expelled from neighboring Arab nations in the time after that war. If you’re not aware of this or think it doesn’t matter, then you’ve got some filters on.
"Not all".
I guess that's fine then.
Don’t put words in my mouth. You speak for yourself and let me speak for myself.
See above regarding evidence.
Fine, but provide evidence of your own claims too.
Claims that calling out anti-Semitism isn’t really used to call out anti-Semitism but to obscure legitimate criticism of Israel seem to me to be an effort to discourage calling out anti-Semitism. To me that seems pretty close to the logical fallacy of poisoning the well, but if you disagree we can certainly discuss coming up with a different term instead and I’ll use that one in the future.
But it’s still BS. Anti-Semitism should be called out wherever it’s found, and I’m not at all concerned if that creates a problem for people who are also critical of Israel.
If I criticise Israel, I get called antisemitic; I stage an anti-protestor protest against clowns trying to stop Israeli players at a tournament and I get called a Jew.
Congratulations. You have experienced anti-Semitism in a way that doesn’t require being Jewish.
To go back onto the topic of Labour and antisemitism, yes, it has been a problem for the left in general, but how much of it, like Omar's comments, have people screeching "antisemtism!" when it actually isn't? [/QUOTE]
Omar’s statements are a great example.
She made some twitter comments that touched on anti-Semitic tropes. They were anti-Semitic.
At the same time, she’s been critical of Israel for a long time, and has made a lot of statements to that effect that (as far as I know) are not anti-Semitic.
Does her anti-Semitic comments mean she hates Jews? Well, not necessarily. It’s very likely she wasn’t aware of these tropes and was just repeating things she had heard without ever thinking to question them.
Does that mean her other criticisms of Israel are invalid? Well, to some people maybe it does. To me and most reasonable people I think her other criticisms should be evaluated independently of these statements, they may be valid or not.
I think, and you may or may not agree, that it should be possible to criticize Israel without relying on anti-Semitic tropes, AND it’s also fair to call out anti-Semitism wherever you see it, even if it’s from someone who is criticizing Israel.
