May 29, 2021
I reject, with information, the idea that being concerned about Palestinians is somehow anti-Jewish
Some will find this article uncomfortable, but it is my position. I consider myself a humanist in the sense that I believe all people deserve to live in peace. I abhor terrorists but the racism against Jews, Blacks, Islam followers, or whatever group is also abhorrent. Read and get what I am saying.
Let’s be very very clear, there is something called Anti-Semitism. It exists in the real world and has existed for many centuries. Holocaust was the end result of a hatred that had been widespread across Europe and America for years. Some places, like America, we're on the right side during World War II, but that did not mean that Anti-Semitism didn’t reign in the hearts of many Americans. It also doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist today.
Let’s look at some examples of real anti-Semeticism in America today. All we have to do is go back to Charlottesville. Remember the protest where the tiki torch-carrying neo-Nazis marched chanting “the Jews will not replace us”. THAT was anti-Semitic. When the conspiracy rags attack everyone that is not in lockstep with trump and his misbegotten administration and then in the next article talk about the Illuminati and the Jewish plot of world dominance, that is anti-Semitic.
Notice what holds true for the above situations? Both of them are right-wing extremist attitudes exhibited by the “America First” movement that claims to advocate for everybody that is American, but ends up not caring for anybody that is Islamic, Hispanic or asking the United States to actually live into its vaunted projection of itself as being a country that offers freedom and opportunity to all…especially the tired and weary of the world. Trump lied when he said, “there are fine people on both sides”. While I am sure some of the tiki torch-carrying neo-Nazis chanting “the Jews will not replace us” are kind to their mothers and their puppy dogs, there is no sense in which, from a political standpoint, they could be considered “good people”. They advocated for a hateful, racist world view and that is NOT what makes a “good person”.
But something really weird has happened in the United States over the last few years. The racists that hate Jews and their fellow travelers in the so-called America First/trump worshiping brigand have tried to flip the narrative so that humane human beings who have concerns about the abuses dished out against very often poor Palestinians crowded into smaller and smaller spaces while Jewish settlers are sent into Palestinian areas to uproot the Palestinians out of their homes and take over, are called Anti-Semetic while they maintain having some sort of high ground in abusing those same Palestinians.
The narrative has been flipped using subtle and not-so-subtle misinformation. Forbes reports that Fox engaged in some of what I will call “subtle” misleading when some people advocating for BLM expressed concern for the Palestinians and announcing their sympathies were with the Palestinian people. They did not mention Hamas anywhere in their presentation. However, the Fox headline was that BLM had come out in favor of the Hamas violence. After backlash on Twitter, Fox removed the reference to Hamas but until Forbes contact them twice, they never explained what they had removed so people who had read the original story would have had to piece it together without guidance. Meanwhile, some people on the right or former trump administration had already made a big deal of condemning BLM for the statement based on the original reporting. And what is even worse, is that Fox didn’t bother to redo the headlines in some of its publications as shown by the second link at the bottom which, while removing the claim from its article left it as the headline. A good way to keep the false narrative alive, Fox.
Now let’s look at the real BDS movement in terms of who is on board. There are groups of Jewish persons involved, including Miko Peled. Miko is the grandson of one of the signers of the Israeli Constitution and the son of a general in the Israeli army. Miko was also in the armed forces until he had a change of viewpoint and buried his service pin in the dirt. He was vehemently opposed to the invasion of the Golan Heights and Gaza and the expulsion of the Palestinians. Since then, he has been an activist against the Israeli government’s actions in those areas and in favor of BDS. In fact, after the death of his niece in 1997, both he and the girl's mother spoke out saying that the death was due to the Israeli Government’s treatment of the Palestinians and the uprooting of them from their homes that had caused that death during an anti-Israeli attack.
The video is an interview with Miko about his position and what he thought of the last administration's so-called attempt to bring peace, on the backs of the poor Palestinians and their ability to simply live. If you want to investigate Miko more, there are lots of videos there, some are an hour or more, but this one is relatively short at least 5 minutes.
In the second video, there is a statement made that the General was actually moving toward being for an end to the warfare before his death and that is part of how Miko got his ideas, in part as is mentioned in the second video (which is about 30 minutes). It also spells out what he believes the real problem is…ie colonialism which was inherently racist basically saying that “the white man can tell others who should have what”. His own mother was against taking Palestinian homes and refused to move. he gives lots of background.
