Try and think of other groups of people and the “legitimate” statements that can be said to them in a hateful way.
You may genuinely believe that it’s wrong to blow up planes, but going up to a random Muslim in the airport and telling them “please don’t blow yourself up” is Islamophobic.
Either the person you're telling your opinion about Palestine agrees with you or not. Expressing an opinion about some situation publicly is not hate. And who you're telling your opinion to is irrelevant.
You're not telling them to not attack Palestine by shouting "Free Palestine", or anything similar, only that you believe that Palestine should be free, so your comparison is not valid, because it does not contain any hidden assumptions.
They might as well agree with you. They can correctly respond by shouting Free Palestine back at you.
I don’t think that you are engaging sincerely at this point, so I will no longer engage with you after this.
You can change the example to one that “expresses opinion” and it would still be just as offensive. Besides, “Free Palestine” is imperative.
I’ll just leave with some facts:
The lived experience of Jews outside of Israel is that this is being shouted at them specifically in response to them being recognized as Jewish, often with hate in the eyes of the shouters, often by people who don’t give a shit about Palestinians but just love to hate Jews.
It’s being shouted at little girls on the way to school, and spray painted on synagogues and Jewish shops.
It does nothing to help Palestinians. It just makes Jews feel less safe outside of Israel.
I’m Jewish and living in North America. I have no ability to affect Israeli policy, nor is my heritage an endorsement of it. If someone was yelling at me about Palestine because I am Jewish, I would be pretty offended, even though I probably agree with them.
It’s the same as running up to a Muslim and screaming “stop terrorism”. Or running up to a black person and yelling “stop gang violence”.
The action of yelling at a random person because they belong to an ethnic group that is the dominant party that is doing a bad thing in a different part of the world means you are inherently judging them for their race/ethnicity. It is a pretty good definition of racism.
If you are yelling free Palestine at everyone, fine. If you are targeting your message at people because of their race, that’s just racism. The targeting is the issue, not the message.
> That's certainly not true in many European countries
This suprised me. I’ve hunted for polling and can find plenty showing a plummeting opinion on Israel, but little on internal polling about a Palestinian state.
Something can be a “virtuous” statement while still being an expression of hatred.
Someone shouting “free Palestine” at random Jews in Europe, for example, is just being an antisemite.
Why? This makes no logical sense.
re the second response: Original commenter did not specify exlusivity to jews. So that's my assumption.
Try and think of other groups of people and the “legitimate” statements that can be said to them in a hateful way.
You may genuinely believe that it’s wrong to blow up planes, but going up to a random Muslim in the airport and telling them “please don’t blow yourself up” is Islamophobic.
Do you agree with that?
Either the person you're telling your opinion about Palestine agrees with you or not. Expressing an opinion about some situation publicly is not hate. And who you're telling your opinion to is irrelevant.
You're not telling them to not attack Palestine by shouting "Free Palestine", or anything similar, only that you believe that Palestine should be free, so your comparison is not valid, because it does not contain any hidden assumptions.
They might as well agree with you. They can correctly respond by shouting Free Palestine back at you.
I don’t think that you are engaging sincerely at this point, so I will no longer engage with you after this.
You can change the example to one that “expresses opinion” and it would still be just as offensive. Besides, “Free Palestine” is imperative.
I’ll just leave with some facts:
The lived experience of Jews outside of Israel is that this is being shouted at them specifically in response to them being recognized as Jewish, often with hate in the eyes of the shouters, often by people who don’t give a shit about Palestinians but just love to hate Jews.
It’s being shouted at little girls on the way to school, and spray painted on synagogues and Jewish shops.
It does nothing to help Palestinians. It just makes Jews feel less safe outside of Israel.
Correct. Expressing your opinion about Palestine to the general public is not hate.
Directing the expression of that opinion at random Jewish people, in a targeted manner is hate.
I’m Jewish and living in North America. I have no ability to affect Israeli policy, nor is my heritage an endorsement of it. If someone was yelling at me about Palestine because I am Jewish, I would be pretty offended, even though I probably agree with them.
It’s the same as running up to a Muslim and screaming “stop terrorism”. Or running up to a black person and yelling “stop gang violence”.
The action of yelling at a random person because they belong to an ethnic group that is the dominant party that is doing a bad thing in a different part of the world means you are inherently judging them for their race/ethnicity. It is a pretty good definition of racism.
If you are yelling free Palestine at everyone, fine. If you are targeting your message at people because of their race, that’s just racism. The targeting is the issue, not the message.
> “Free Palestine” isn’t exactly fringe. In fact, outside America and Israel, I’d bet it’s the default stance
That's certainly not true in many European countries
> That's certainly not true in many European countries
This suprised me. I’ve hunted for polling and can find plenty showing a plummeting opinion on Israel, but little on internal polling about a Palestinian state.