I know this to be true, but I have a hard time explaining it beyond that ignoring racism against a whole people IS racist. I think it’s a pity it even has to be explained because racism is all bad and needs to be rid of. Why acknowledge racism against one race, but then ignore racism against another?
Especially when people bring up the current worldwide attention on racism against Palestenians and Jewish people?
Who are you saying this to, and why? I would feel extremely uncomfortable telling a racialized person that I understand their struggle, but that they need to consider this other struggle that I, the enlightened interlocutor, have connected for them.
I think most racialized people understand racism intuitively. It’s not something to be explained but experienced. That doesn’t stop reactionary thought; no group is perfect or saintly. But like, the solution to that isn’t for someone to explain it to them.
Zionists, many of who are white with no Jewish faith. I feel uncomfortable not knowing what to say to them and I’d like to stand up for Palestenians.
In that case, there is no need to demonstrate their hypocrisy or to try bridging from any other type of racism. Just say it how it is: Zionism is racist both in theory and in its historical movement because it relies on the belief in Jewish supremacy, in general but particularly over Arabs. The fact that it is racist is not at all contingent, it doesn’t depend on context of Jewish persecution. It is just racist.
Just my 2c. I don’t feel the need to acknowledge Zionists as victims in order to say that they are racist. Hope this isn’t coming across too blunt, I’m a bit tired.
That’s a long and thorny issue. Zionists usually weaponize antisemitism for their own political ends. This has been done at its inception where false flags bombings of Jewish places in Arab countries were done by Zionists to force migration to Israel. Israel casts itself as always in the danger of being eliminated so its entire existence rests on this idea of perpetual victimhood that is used for political gains. This is the whole “right to exist”, “right to defend itself” talking point. Zionist interest groups have worked for years to show the Jewish tragedy of the Holocaust as the exceptional tragedy, as THE tragedy. Usually even refusing to include other minorities who were exterminated in the Holocaust museums, like the Gypsies. This is not Holocaust denial but the idea that there’s a difference between the human tragedy as such and its political use later on by some groups. A great way to understand this is to check Norman Finkelstein’s The Holocaust Industry. So the idea of the racism and victimhood of Jewish people being primary above any other form of consideration and any other form of racism is baked into western culture through years of indoctrination. This ignores also the complex situation of Israelis mistreating Holocaust survivors, seeing them as weak. Israelis stealing the reparation money that they took from Swiss banks that were meant for victims. I hope I’m not being misunderstood, English is not my first language. But the idea is that antisemitism still exists and needs to be fought against. But there’s an insidious way in which zonism both elevate it to be equated with tragedy as such, and how it actually needs it to survive. Zionism will never exist without antisemitism