#1 ·
implosive said:I honestly wouldn't have even opened this thread if I hadn't come across Norman Finkelstein—a man whose entire family was wiped out in Nazi death camps, yet he stands as one of the fiercest advocates for Palestinian rights. They label him a "self-hating Jew" and basically kicked him out of academia following that heated debate with Alan Dershowitz on Democracy Now! where he called Dershowitz out for plagiarizing his work.
But here is the real crux of the issue: Finkelstein is exposing how the "antisemitism business" is weaponized by the Israeli government to create a convenient alibi for the displacement and killing of civilians in Palestine. This criminality has been recognized by the United Nations, yet the only reason Israel gets away with such barbaric behavior is because the USA allows it—an action that utterly compromises the very significance of the United Nations. It’s absurd! You aren't automatically an antisemite just because you oppose the policies of Israel. It reminds me far too much of the rhetoric we saw during our own war.
That is a bizarre explanation that makes zero sense, IMO.
If you oppose a country because you disagree with its policies, you aren't suddenly an enemy of its people—the state and the citizenry are two entirely different categories!
For instance, if you disagree with the policies of the USA, does that mean you hate all Americans? Of course not. If you *do* hate them because of their government, then there is something fundamentally broken in your logic. And if your logic *is* sound, then you're essentially just a racist in the broadest possible sense of the word.