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As soon as you blame the genocide on culture rather than authoritarianism, you have definitely stepped over the line from political speech to hate speech.
Suddenly the punchline feels uncomfortable!
Can you also see how people who aren’t hateful bigots would interpret the joke? Can’t think of an analogy (although “pardon my French” for swearing and “it’s just sparkling ___” come to mind).
I do see how the joke could be meant to be hateful. Really hope it wasn’t, and just a “you don’t understand [generic language you don’t speak but we do]” joke.
The original line is "It's an Albany expression"
On the topic of hate speech, when it's thinly veiled and/or coded (which it so often is), it's sort of like direct communication between the bigot and the minority. How bystanders interpret and feel about a targeted message to a group they don't belong to is hardly relevant.
As a Jew, I feel no connection to the events in the middle east, yet I'm constantly made to feel responsible. At the very least, everyone expects me to loudly disavow a situation I don't understand. All I really know is that I don't feel safe in my city anymore.
People are dumb. A Jew in NYC or Berlin has no to little influence on Israeli politics, and has no more responsibility nor imperative than all the rest of us for what’s happening right now
There exists an extremely vocal subgroup in the Jewish community that aggressively supports Israel and wants to call its every criticism discrimination of the whole Jewish population. Either this subgroup needs to be drowned out, as you find yourself having to do by constantly disavowing them, or forced out to show they do not represent the group. Otherwise those loud voices are winning, and it may be a small sub-sect but they are responsible by purposefully continually attempting to conflate those with interests in Israel, some of them even living in NYC and Berlin, dreaming of genocide with the Jewish Diaspora worldwide to evade criticism of copying techniques from the literal Nazi Party’s phase one of the Final Solution. Bibi might not say exterminate Palestinians publicly but Hitler never said to exterminate Jews either, it just sorta happened under his watch (seriously, find a source where Hitler directly ordered it and I will buy dinner). Him and his cohorts are the ones running around screaming they are Jewish and they are acting just and morally in their promised endless quest for blood, a regular Jewish person enjoying serenity becomes invisible in the backdrop. To someone barely paying attention (aka almost everyone) the crowd of Jewish people starts looking hateful and down right reprehensible to even acknowledge, all thanks to a few hateful people and the silence of others. It shouldn’t be anyone’s cross to bear, but to people who view silence a violence, not “cancelling” / disavowing them at every turn is essentially being complicit in genocide because you are “choosing” to allow this subversive group to exist within your larger group (Jewish people worldwide) and “choosing” to continue using the same identifiers as them (Religion).
OP has made it clear this was a deliberate choice since apparently the original punch line names a place, yet they still changed it to "Hebrew" instead of "Israel".
None of these dog whistles are accidental, they are designed with plausible deniability in mind (if only OP could help themselves ad keep their mouth shut, that is, instead of admitting the quiet part out loud)Big reach.
There's a lot of casual antisemitism going around now.
This sort of thing goes back a long ways. In the early 20th century they separated Jews into categories. "It's ok to hate Cosmopolitan Jews, that's not the same as hating all Jews" say the people that hate all Jews. But then slowly they start dropping the "Cosmopolitan" qualifier.
Antisemitism in the 21st century is following the same patterns as antisemitism in early 20th. Instead of Cosmopolitian Jews, it's now Zionist Jews. But you can see the same basic strategy at work.
People are looking the other way when there's violence towards Jews. A Synagogue is attacked, a Jewish business is burned down. But it's awkward to denounce those actions isn't it? Because you're sympathetic towards the people doing those actions. You disagree with the violent acts but since you hate the Zionist Jews, you feel more like "well the people that did those things were just misguided." Rather than denouncing it as you would if it were another group being attacked in similar ways.
Raise the heat slowly enough then the frog doesn't notice and jump out of the pot.
Eventually it gets to a point where you feel complicit. The water's boiling and you can't get out.
Sure you don't want to hop out of the pot yet?
At one point a meme was spread saying "it's ok to criticize Israel." Don't know the origin of that meme, but it's similarity to the white supremacist meme "it's ok to be white" from decades ago is interesting. No matter, we do know that the white supremacist types did a find and replace on their conspiracy theories replacing "the Jews" with "Israel" and those conspiracies gained traction.
Want out of that pot?
There was an explosion at a Hospital in Gaza. Many assumed Israel was responsible. These people accused Israel of genocide. Turns out the explosion at that hospital was a Hamas rocket, likely missed. But who knows? But definitely not an Israeli missile. But the accusation of genocide was already made. Nobody on the internet can admit they're wrong, so that narrative gained traction.
At Palestinian protests there are people cosplaying as Hamas. People that went into villages and massacred Jews are being idolized. Nobody questions it. It's considered normal to dress up as someone that murders Jews.
The water in that pot starting to feel warm yet?
And now we're at a point where the masks are starting to come off and we're seeing straight up antisemitism become more prevalent and dominating discussion on social media. People repeating propaganda from a group that wants to murder Jews like it's no big thing.
So people have to make a choice. Do you want to keep going along with the crowd that's becoming more and more antisemitic by the day? Or do want to be a smart frog and hop out of that pot while you're still able to?
At one point a meme was spread saying “it’s ok to criticize Israel.” Don’t know the origin of that meme, but it’s similarity to the white supremacist meme “it’s ok to be white” from decades ago is interesting.
jfc
Why wouldn't it be ok to criticize Israel?
Are you worried about the puppet masters that control the world? That's an interesting implication, isn't it?
Or are you worried someone might call you out for being antisemitic for confusing your criticism of Israel with criticism of Jews. Why ever would someone do that, It's not like you're claiming all Hebrews don't care about genocide... oh wait that's exactly what you did, isn't it, OP?
"It's ok to criticze Israel" has created a permission structure to be antisemitic which you're exploiting.
Why wouldn’t it be ok to criticize Israel?
Because Israel puts a great deal of effort to conflate opposition to Israel with antisemitism.
So you're going with the Jewish puppet masters are gonna make you look bad?
It may surprise you to learn that I'm neither Israeli nor a Jew. Just read enough history to see the similarities between what's being normalized now and things like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion being normalized in the past. You're following the exact same patterns from a century ago.
So you’re going with the Jewish puppet masters are gonna make you look bad?
... no?
The fuck?
Sorry for acknowledging that an ethnostate has a propaganda arm?
It may surprise you to learn that I’m neither Israeli nor a Jew.
Why would that surprise me?
Good old dog whistles, eh? We all know what you're saying but when called out, it's always "whatever do you mean?"
Same tactics the MAGAs use.
Do you acknowledge that Hamas and Iran have propaganda arms or do you think it's only Jews that do propaganda?
Good old dog whistles, eh? We all know what you’re saying but when called out, it’s always “whatever do you mean?”
You're chasing a ghost, and I'm thinking intentionally at this point.
Do you acknowledge that Hamas and Iran have propaganda arms or do you think it’s only Jews that do propaganda?
Of fucking course Hamas and Iran have propaganda arms.
I can't hop out of any pot. There is nowhere on Earth that will adequately protect me. The best I can do is live in the United States where I can legally protect myself. I don't know if I will ever feel safe again but I do know for sure that I'm never leaving my home without a handgun as long as I live. I was assaulted in public by a stranger recently, totally unprovoked, and that really solidified that my safety is 100% my responsibility... I feel so fucking alienated. The only connection I feel is to my ancestors who were forced into hiding, their ancestors who were forced into hiding, and so on... I guess it's my turn to carry on the tradition now
That's horrible. There should be resources you can find for help. Please make an effort to seek them out, you shouldn't have to be alone with this.
It's doesn't have to be you against the world.