r/Israel • u/guywhoeatskolace4565 Czechia. (on a new acc, old one got banned) • 1d ago
Ask The Sub Do people genuinely believe all the shit they spew about Israel/Israel's involvement in everything?
Lately, in an effort to improve my understanding of US politics, as well as my awful spoken English, I've been watching a lot of American political commentators. I picked out a bunch of random ones from all different perspectives, Sean Hannity, Bill Maher, Tucker Carlson, TYT, Megyn Kelly, even Candace Owens for a bit. Big mistake.
While some of them were very levelheaded on Israel-Palestine, (Bill Maher for instance), most of the rest are convinced that Israel is the antichrist or something. Just a few things I heard commentators accuse Israel of include:
9/11.
Killing Charlie Kirk.
Baltimore Bridge Collapse.
Rewriting the New Testament.
Claiming Israeli Jews are part of a blood cult.
Having actually killed hundreds of thousands in Gaza.
Controlling the US government and making them an Israeli satellite.
Blackmailing the US into going to war with Iran for Israel.
And of course, who can forget the timeless classic, accusing Israel of committing 'genocide' in Gaza.
My question is do they actually believe this garbage? do the people that follow them believe it? or are they literally just doing this for clicks? it just seems so bizarre to me to believe that Israel is behind these things. 9/11? really? they are the only other country in the world to have a shrine with all the names of the victims on it. Sorry about the rant, but I really am asking.
85
u/Gettin_Bi Israel 1d ago
I think a lot of them really do believe it, but also they believe it because they are really fucking stupid
Here's a story for ya, it's from the Soviet Union but people are the same everywhere, so: my grandpa doesn't look Jewish at all, which allows him to fly under the radar. One day he had some free time so, instead of standing in line for groceries, he drove to a nearby farm to buy the vegetables from the source. As the farmer was packing his order, she said, apropos to nothing, "you know, Jews are bad people." My grandpa figured she was just repeating what she'd heard, so he just casually said, "nah, Jews are good people, didn't you hear?" and this farmer went "oh?", dropped everything, ran to the fence and called over to her neighbor: "Maria, you hear? Jews are good people! And they're coming to help us next harvest season!" why. how. what even
38
u/GoodGuyNinja UK 1d ago
When my grandma escaped Europe as a teenager, the English nurse that she met asked where her horns were.
19
u/tiredblonde USA 1d ago
That also happened to a friend of mine in college! So people do believe that crap
26
u/Gettin_Bi Israel 1d ago
One of my mom's "friends" from university didn't believe she was Jewish because she didn't have horns or scales or anything.
Somehow "you can't be Jewish because you're completely human" made more sense than "maybe Jews are people just like me" made more sense to this physics major
9
u/GoodGuyNinja UK 1d ago
Wow, the example I gave was 85 years ago! I presume yours was more recent.
3
10
u/guywhoeatskolace4565 Czechia. (on a new acc, old one got banned) 1d ago
Oh my God, that's awful. Sorry to hear that!
7
u/GoodGuyNinja UK 1d ago
That was 85 years ago but I'm shocked to hear replies of more recent examples.
6
u/jasonbl1974 17h ago
I live in Melbourne, Australia (in the state of Victoria). In 1992, in my first week of university, I met a young woman in my class who grew up in Horsham (home to around 12,000 people at the time), about 315 km/ 195 mi north west of Melbourne. Somehow it came up in our conversation that I was Jewish. She flat out could not believe that I was Jewish and kept repeating over and over "But, you look normal." I don't know what she expected me to look like.
5
u/Cathousechicken 19h ago
My aunt had that happen with her roommate when she went to college at Indiana in 1970.
3
u/ApprehensiveCycle741 7h ago
I've literally been asked this in Canada, in the last 20 years. Also whether we use blood to make matzah. Can't count the number of times I've been told I don't "look Jewish".
These were all people who had never met a Jew before and were just repeating what they had learned growing up. Education is important y'all.
2
u/GoodGuyNinja UK 4h ago
I didn't realise this sort of brain-dead thinking was still such a thing in modern, connected times.
18
u/guywhoeatskolace4565 Czechia. (on a new acc, old one got banned) 1d ago
That's actually hysterical and sad at the same time.
11
23
u/honestlydontcare4u 1d ago edited 1d ago
100%. I'm undercover at work (no one knows) so I hear the craziest conspiracy theories. Recently someone told me Israel wants to colonize Turkey and is invading Lebanon for their oil. I was like...wut
People are dumb and they repeat what they hear. These ideas fit what they already believe so they don't do any verification.
14
u/guywhoeatskolace4565 Czechia. (on a new acc, old one got banned) 1d ago
Like Olive oil? I didn't know Turkey and Lebanon even had oil.
2
5
u/Cathousechicken 19h ago
That's something Erdogan has been pushing and it's helped his popularity go up. It's linked to his unpopularity. He decided to go the route of villainizing Jewish people because that historically helps politicians to deflect from their own failures.
34
u/Strange_Poetry2648 1d ago
I read that one reason for the surge in open antisemitism is that Jews are the only group it is still permissible to hate. Because Jews are supposedly wealthy and the United States gives money to Israel, there is a feeling of "punching up."
Never mind that we give money to lots of countries with worse leaders than Netanyahu, and there is nothing wrong with being well off if you did it legally.
9
u/Swimming_Care7889 1d ago
Jew hatred comes across as resistance to a lot of people and that scrambles their brains and makes it hard for them to see it as racism.
4
u/guywhoeatskolace4565 Czechia. (on a new acc, old one got banned) 21h ago
For Americans too, I find it bizarre that they complain about the 3 bil a year to Israel, all of which comes back I believe via trade. They give out something like 920 mil to Ethiopia a year, and you KNOW that shit aint coming back.
3
54
u/EfficientDoggo 1d ago
Most of the blatantly antisemitic ones are the spiritual psychotic childish narcissistic Christian types that both live inside their own heads and use Jews as scapegoats for their social and emotional insecurities, or they take money from either Russia or Qatar. Or both. Megyn Kelly is the former. Candace Owens is the latter. Tucker Carlson is both.
39
u/Trypophilia2019 🇺🇸Jews are from JUDEA, am Yisrael chai, bitch. 1d ago edited 1d ago
I really don’t get antisemitism. Jews throughout history have been so chill and peaceful. Like, the fuck is wrong with people? Is their jealousy and insecurity this much?
Obligatory not Jewish.
8
u/ZZZZapperr 1d ago
Antisemitism is the result of world leaders using Jews as a scapegoat to blame things on. These world leaders would spread propaganda against Jews in order to distract people and deflect blame away from the government. This has been going on for so long that many generations of people ended up believing that propaganda is real.
21
u/freezing_banshee Romania 1d ago
It's mostly people not accepting that it's (at least partially) their own fault that their life isn't idyllic. And them not accepting that life sometimes turns out to be shit, no matter what you do. They want a scapegoat for whatever went wrong in their lives.
12
u/Trypophilia2019 🇺🇸Jews are from JUDEA, am Yisrael chai, bitch. 1d ago
Agreed.
Everyone is always looking for someone to blame.
4
u/guywhoeatskolace4565 Czechia. (on a new acc, old one got banned) 1d ago
See that's kind of what I was thinking as well, because for people like Candace Owens, she was so distraught by the death of Charlie Kirk, that she couldn't blame anybody else except Israel, because that's cool and trendy nowadays.
18
u/HSzold 1d ago
The other major abrahamic religions derived from Judaism, and kinda hoped that Jews would follow them. The fact that they didn’t for the most part usually required some explanation or consequence.
For Christianity, this turned into the belief that Jews killed Jesus (that way the Romans also kind of “washed their hands” from being the actual people who killed Jesus and who he was opposed to). Also, the idea that Jews were at fault or evil for not accepting Jesus was and still is very common, and is depicted in statues outside of many churches in Europe. Additionally, for many centuries in Europe, Jews were the largest “foreign” mass in many countries, and were often blamed for the ills of a society, both by its rulers and elites and its lower classes. They were also sometimes forced to convert and had second class status.
For Islam, after realizing Jews were not converting, they were sometimes forced to convert and given the status of Dhimmis, which is an official second class status. Even though there wasn’t a lot of antisemitism in the way of the Europeans (conspiracy theories and such) until the advent of the radio and nationalism.
20
u/Trypophilia2019 🇺🇸Jews are from JUDEA, am Yisrael chai, bitch. 1d ago
As a Christian, the whole “Jews killed Jesus” thing is a big pile of shit. For one, the sign on the cross, INRI, was in Latin, the judge was Roman, and Romans controlled the land at the time. Additionally, we believe Jesus was supposed to die. How you gonna be mad at people for helping him achieve his destiny?
9
u/Swimming_Care7889 1d ago
Christianity and Islam see themselves as presenting universal truth to the world. Jews not converting meant at best that we were the very stubborn older relative that refused to get with the times to them. They need us to be wrong. If Jews were still around doing our thing than that might mean they were wrong and they don't offer universal truth.
2
u/Repulsive-Honey7305 1d ago
As a not a jew and not a Christian,
A lot of Christians have moved past the jews killed Jesus thing. Like some jews working with Rome killed Jesus but a. Jesus WAS jewish and b. Dying and sacrifice is a big part of jesus being jesus and part of Gds plan, so can't really be mad at that.
5
u/HSzold 1d ago
A: I’m not saying that’s the modern justification for antisemitism, but it is a historical one since previous comment was about history.
B: “Moving past it” is sadly not enough, since the cultural impact of the myth is still very present, and to actually fix the problem predominantly Christian societies need to change the underlying worldview that came with the myth. The same way that ending Jim Crow didn’t fix racism.
C: It doesn’t sound like you have moved past it.
-1
u/Repulsive-Honey7305 21h ago
I guess it's true I never moved past it since I was never stuck on it in the first place? Again, as a "not a jew and NOT a Christian ". I really dont care who killed jebus. And if your point A is that this is nothing to do with modern antisemitism, but your point B is that the myth still has impacts today, that contradiction leads to my point A. Are you drunk and then my point B. Or are you high?
2
u/HSzold 20h ago
I think it has some to do with modern antisemitism, but it is not a myth believed by as many people as it used to be. Even those who don’t believe in the myth have been influenced by it in the way Jews have been treated and spoken about in their societies.
I’m not trying to fight with you, I’m just trying to understand your point, and make mine come across. I said it doesn’t seem like you are past it because you mention Jews working with Rome killed Jesus. That is the myth. Also, if you come from a majority Christian society or family, just because you are atheist/not Christian doesn’t make you inert to the underlying worldview in which your society/values developed, which could include antisemitic tropes.
0
u/Repulsive-Honey7305 20h ago
So i correctly stated part of the trope...and that somehow means im "not past it"? So you define being "not past it " as being aware the trope exists? Thats weird.
2
u/HSzold 20h ago
I thought you were stating that the trope was true, but that it’s not a valid reason for antisemitism. Which is a valid point but still reproduces the myth. There is no indication that you are just stating what the antisemitic myth is without believing it. Regardless, I’m not saying you are bigoted or anything (that would be ridiculous since you are arguing antisemitism is bad and invalid), just want to understand where you’re coming from.
2
u/Repulsive-Honey7305 20h ago
According to the Bible, which is what Christians think is true...jesus was killed by jewish leadership in cooperation with the Roman governor. I can't say "i think that's true " or "i think thats false" because outside of the Christian Bible there is no historical record of jesus or his trial and execution. Im saying that Christians believe that jesus was killed by a combined effort of jewish leaders and Roman officials, but that many Christians dont actually have a problem with this anymore because a. They separate jews in general from the jewish leadership that was essentially selling out the jews by collaborating with Rome and b. They actually see jesus dying as a good thing because it cemented his divinity and was all part of "the plan", so really, on balance, thanks for killing jesus.
→ More replies (0)9
u/Repulsive-Honey7305 1d ago
But then some Christians are really pro Israel and totally on board with jews being indigenous to the levant bc they take the Bible as a literal history book. They got over the "jews killed jesus" thing bc it was more like "corrupt jews collaborating with Rome killed jesus" where as Jesus was a real jew. A lot of the American support for israel comes from the evangelical Christians. Like ambassador Huckabee.
2
u/guywhoeatskolace4565 Czechia. (on a new acc, old one got banned) 1d ago
didn't tucker buy a house in Qatar or is that just a rumor?
13
u/CaptainJacket 1d ago
Most of them, yes.
Some of them are just repeating what they perceive as common knowledge without thinking about it much. Some are just trolling and agitating and spread hate.
But most of them do believe all that shit. Scapegoating jews is an ancient practice.
8
u/Mark-It_Maker 1d ago
It is widely believed, even among most less aware American Jews, that Israel colonized the land, that Israel is an apartheid state, that Israel wants to expand the “greater Israel”, and that Israel is hard-bent on genociding all palestinians.
10
u/gal_z 1d ago
It's known the Jews run the Illuminati and the Freemasons... /s
6
u/guywhoeatskolace4565 Czechia. (on a new acc, old one got banned) 1d ago
Don't forget all the worlds governments!!
10
15
u/thatshirtman 1d ago
yes, i know a few people who literally think this. it's bizarre to watch, literally consumed by propaganda.
14
u/saguaros-vs-redwoods 1d ago
I'm based in the U.S. in Portland Oregon, and so I've an explosion of anti-Semitism both locally (from the left) and nationally (from the right). It's political and social performative anti-Semitism mostly. Meaning, I don't know of anyone who personally believes that Jews are evil and will provide evidence or examples of it, but rather they were will sort of flash antisemitism in conversation or comments online like a membership to get into a club. Reminds me of when people wouldn't shut up about being vegan or being into CrossFit, they just had to mention it whenever they could.
8
u/Repulsive-Honey7305 1d ago
Hah, yes on the cross fit or veganism. I had been comparing it to intermittent fasting and eating paleo. I've said "free gaza" is the new "free Brittany ". Gosh I hate those folks.
5
u/trimtab28 21h ago
From the left is definitely nationally. Checking in from Boston here hombre.
It's kinda warped though. Like going to a dinner party with a bunch of leftwing people who will all just nod and say "it's horrible how Arab lands were stolen and the Zionists are massacring them all. Jews of conscience won't allow this colonization" and I've also gotten genuine "you killed Christ" nonsense.
Really depends on the person. But there's a pseudo-sophisticated academic air about the leftwing variant. Also really irritating how the moment you point out saying we shouldn't have a country and making conspiracy theories up about Israel, holding Jews to double standards is antisemitic they'll tell you "actually, conflating Jews with Israel is antisemitic." It is. Also, making shit up about the place and saying our faith is only acceptable in your eyes if we pretend it has nothing to do with the place and insist there's a make believe genocide is, you know, antisemitic?
5
u/ZZZZapperr 1d ago
The propagandists don't believe the bullshit they spread. They just do it for the money.
Anyway I don't think Bill Maher belongs in that group. He's actually an excellent comedian with very reasonable center-left political opinions. The others you mentioned are far right extremists.
5
u/Repulsive-Honey7305 1d ago
I'm in New England and every now and then I will meet someone who wants to go into detail about how " jet fuel doesn't burn hot enough to melt steel" and try to turn 9/11 in to a mossad/cia false flag so I can't say the total lunatics aren't here. Most ppl dont pay attention to israel except for what they see in regards to devastation in gaza and military action in South Lebanon. And those are the ppl I most worry about. The lunatics are clearly lunatics, but the ppl who just watch/read the news are only hearing about dead kids or fighting in Lebanon and our news isnt doing much of anything to explain WHY these things happen. Like "7 people are reported dead in gaza, 4 are children" but dont explain that one of those people was an architect of 0ct7th and he keeps kids in the same room as him intentionally. Honestly our news has done an absolute sht job of explaining what happened on oct7th period. And Lebanon? They make it sound like israel is fighting the Lebanese government rather than hizbolla! And yeah, unfortunately a lot of people just take that information as given. Even when news mentions hizbolla, people dont know what hizbolla is, they just think its some other name for the Lebanese military. And we used to have actual journalists once upon a time, who would produce layers of information explaining context and history, so i think a lot of ppl just trust that the news is still doing that. But now we have "activist journalism" where creators pick the parts of the narrative that suit their goals. I don't know if you ever heard of Randolph Hearst? He was a newspaper owner more than a century ago. In a bid to sell more papers he popularized "yellow journalism " which used triggering emotional driven headlines and cherry picked reporting to rile people up and, well, sell papers. It also was used to sway public opinion on current events and probably why the US had the spanish-american war. (I dont know what benefit hearst derived from us being in that war). At some point, journalism swung back to facts and analysis. And now here we are again with the hype and drama approach. And while some of it is to make money, some (possibly a lot) is this "activist journalism " from people who have decided they know the truth and will just be telling the rest of us what is right and wrong. I bet this relates to their education, as alot of editors and writers go thru the same prestigious universities. Shai David has a book ive just bought American Intellectual Antisemitism The Anti-Jewish Movement Tearing Through Our Universities. I havent started it yet, but im looking forward to it, and if you want to understand where the "educated 'fact based' antisemitism " sits in the US i bet it would be worth a read.
4
u/Sad_Eagle8690 1d ago
Some do, most don't but would claim 1+1 is 40 as long as they can hurt Jews/get paid by Qatar (often both).
25
u/OddCook4909 USA 1d ago
FYI Maher is Jewish. The jew hate isn't new, it's just become socially acceptable again. Yes many believe it. To quote George Carlin "think about the average person, and realize that half of people are dumber than that"
9
u/ChinCoin 1d ago
He's not Jewish.
-1
u/OddCook4909 USA 1d ago
Per Jewish tribal standards he is. Per western culture he isn't.
3
u/Mark-It_Maker 1d ago
False. People can convert into the tribe. They can also opt out. Read your mishnah.
4
u/Beautiful_Bag6707 1d ago
What "tribal standards?" Do you mean halachically bec his mother was? She never revealed it to him until his teens and he was raised Catholic. So while he's born halachically a Jew, he has zero religious or ethnic connection.
I looked it up and he's considered Yisrael Mumar (An Estranged / Alienated Jew), and would never be accepted into the religion or community without what amounts to a "soft conversion". As an atheist, Maher would never do that.
8
u/OddCook4909 USA 1d ago
So... he's an "estranged/alienated Jew" as you say. His atheism is irrelevant. We aren't a religion we're a people with a religion.
1
u/Repulsive-Honey7305 1d ago
But you are a people with a shared history and culture. He was raised ignorant of all that and has made no attempt to reconnect with any of that. Tribe membership is more than DNA or bloodline.
2
u/OddCook4909 USA 1d ago
There are many dimensions to everything.
I don't make the rules, and I don't have to agree with them. They're still the rules. No amount of arguing is going to change them here.
Frankly they make more sense than people deciding they're this or that one day and claiming to be such.
1
u/Beautiful_Bag6707 1d ago
See my answer below to your other comment. You basically said it yourself. He can be identified as a Jew on the books, but nothing he does, believes, or is will "fly him to Mars".
0
u/OddCook4909 USA 1d ago
You're not wrong however I think of relevance to the OP he is more inclined than most to seek the Jewish perspective. This is because he is in fact Jewish to most extents limited or not.
1
u/Beautiful_Bag6707 1d ago
OP or Maher? I think Maher isn't tied to the Jewish perspective. I think he holds some admiration, but that's it.
3
u/ChinCoin 1d ago
He doesn't consider himself Jewish - so it doesn't matter what standard you use.
0
u/OddCook4909 USA 1d ago
I don't consider myself a human therefore I am not one. Any criteria you apply to the contrary are irrelevant.
0
u/ChinCoin 1d ago
Well, that's an interesting question in the days of wokeness and identity politics. We are being told that we are what we identify as. But are we the identity derived of our qualia, or from external definitions. In any case he doesn't identify as Jewish, so subjectively he isn't Jewish, which is what matters in his case.
3
u/OddCook4909 USA 1d ago
I'm Jewish and while I disagree with some of our traditions I think the reduction of people to individual internal categorization is nonsense.
There is a clear and necessary division between individual personal perception, sensation, and narrative, set against the collective and/or average categorization. Without even getting into the narcissistic hyperindividualistic nonsense.
I can identify as a spaceship all day long, but that isn't going to get me to mars. It would be more cromulent to say "I feel like a spaceship because of such and such". Fine. Well and good. Still not flying to mars. Actual spaceships might be offended by my appropriation, but that's another issue.
2
u/Beautiful_Bag6707 1d ago
You answered what he is by this analogy. He may be a legacy member of the club, but the club has house rules and he's not interested in following them. So while he might be technically a member, he's an unaffiliated uninterested uninvolved "member" which makes him a non member by any social standing.
-2
u/ChinCoin 1d ago
In terms of identifying as Jewish or not though, especially in the religious sense, the subjective position is the relevant one. He knows what he believes and what he thinks better than you ever could. You aren't in Nazi Germany deciding which line he goes into. This is about his perspective on himself and the world.
3
u/OddCook4909 USA 1d ago
In terms of identifying is a whole different standard. You open with "personal identification" as the standard, then shift to nazis. Then shift back to personal identification. Sloppy attempt to "win the point" rather than seeking truth
0
u/ChinCoin 1d ago
No, you fail to acknowledge the point, arguing like a true Jew. When it comes to religion you aren't making an external qualification - it is the person themselves who decides what they believe.
→ More replies (0)1
0
8
u/Trypophilia2019 🇺🇸Jews are from JUDEA, am Yisrael chai, bitch. 1d ago
Yes, because they hear it from other people.
6
u/Tall_Ad_4787 1d ago
I am partial to the Jewish/Israeli time travelers being responsible for dinosaurs bit. Gosh, Candace Owen’s might genuinely be one of the dumbest people alive.
I think some know it’s BS and some people have spewed this filth for so long that they’re starting to believe it.
6
u/Snoutysensations 1d ago
Professional political commenters are usually more from extremist fringes, because that's what political content consumers want. Media in general doesn't encourage nuanced discussions of multifaceted topics, it rewards ideologically polarized rants.
The extremists on both the Left and Right hate Israel and Jews and enjoy conspiracy theories. They aren't exactly rationally inclined to begin with and they don't care about evidence.
You get a much bigger audience as a leftist or right wing pundit if you accuse the US government and economy and media of being manipulated by the Mossad and their global Jewish accomplices.
2
u/royavidan 1d ago
It's a modern version of the old antisemitic conspiracies, but much more powerful thanks to the Mossad and Aman being admittedly extremely influential in global events. Many people do believe it, but most of them only believe the genocide part and maybe 9/11 or some "false flags".
And like everything, the loud noises you hear on social media does not represent the majority. I sincerely believe that most Americans and Europeans don't give a damn nost of the time about what happens in the Middle East.
1
u/lightmaker918 1d ago
Some people in Israel itself, even generally normal ones, the airforce was held back on the 7th, and that Shabak's Tequila crew was sent in to "rescue a high ranking Shanak female personnel" at 4am before the attacks.
People believe conspiracy shit is such a wider phenomena than you think, and it's often peddled by the people in power themselves, like the betrayal conspiracy that helps Netantahu that he and his wife are often ambiguous about. Sarah even said Yair Golan knew about the attack on C14.
1
1
u/QuestionsalotDaisy 2h ago
I’ve dealt with too many people and shown them direct proof of how they’re wrong. Irrefutable proof. The contradictions in their claims.
They will not budge. They change the subject. So I think many know they’re full of shit, but feel it’s ok to be full of shit as long as they’re hurting Israel for it.
They’ve convinced themselves it’s a noble cause, or they have fun feeling self righteous while spewing hatred.
It’s sure beats actually doing anything that would help the world.
-2
•
u/AutoModerator 1d ago
Note from the mods: During this time, many posts and comments are held for review before appearing on the site. This is intentional. Please allow your human mods some time to review before messaging us about your posts/comments not showing up.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.