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ER's avatar

You're retarded, Drew.

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S. Kotzsu's avatar

There's a million miles between opposing Israeli and antisemitism.

You can oppose Israeli propaganda, Israeli expansionist policy in the Middle East, Israeli bombing of hospitals and schools , Israeli domicide in Gaza, Israeli domicide in the West Bank, Israeli domicide in Jerusalem, Israeli forcing intentional population displacement in Gaza, Israeli preventing international aid from reaching Gaza while their own aid operations kill up to 50 people a day who are seeking aid, Israeli assassination of political leaders, and so on, without being antisemitic. Generally, Israel does a lot of malicious bullshit that is worthy of condemnation.

I think it's a bit over the top to think, literally, Israeli influence in the US is causing US leaders to do what they don't want to do. If we think that's the hyperbolic take of the movie, then that's worth criticizing. In reality, the US likes having Israel as a client state. For some, Israel is the attack dog in the region who they order to blow people up with deniability (Joe Biden's take). Christian Evangelicals are part of a religious apocalyptic death cult that believe Israelis need to rebuild the Temple to hasten the end of the world in their wackadoodle eschatology (Glenn Beck's, Mike Huckabee's, Ted Cruz's take). The genuine antisemites want Israel around so they have a place to exile Jewish folks to from other countries (see: John Hagee, Anders Behring Breivik, or even Arthur Balfour of the famous Balfour declaration fame). So, the US is not being puppetted about on strings, let's be clear. US Leaders support Israel very willingly because Israel is a useful client state in the realpolitik and Machiavellian machinations of a variety of competing interests.

But it's also true that there is a massive and very successful public relations effort on part of the Israeli government to keep the American public on side, to keep the missile and bombs flowing. That isn't an antisemitic conspiracy, that is literally how Netanyahu cut his teeth in American politics, was going to the media to stump for Israel in the US for decades before returning to Israel to get into politics directly. That no one can criticize Israel without it being seen as "antisemitism" is proof of how successful this is. Judaism is not Israel, and Israel is not Judaism.

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