Ikr! Pretty sure its a reference to the Spanish Inquisition's expulsion of Jewish people in the 1490s.
In other words it's not just super random whataboutism, it's also a dogwhistle to the "chosen people versus antisemitic rest of the world" narrative that Netanyahu et al use to drum up support from their base.
Israel's cries of victimhood were already starting to wear thin when it was focused on the Holocaust. Yes, it was a terrible tragedy, but it's 80 years ago at this point - very, very few people are left that were directly involved and the circumstances have changed significantly since then. But going back over five hundred years to try to find "gotchas" is just sad and counterproductive.
People are suffering right now and being persecuted right now, and it has nothing to do with the Inquisition or the Nazis.
It's even more ironic when you know that the PSOE, the current ruling party in Spain, voted in favor of granting Spanish nationality to the descendants of the Sephardic Jews who were expelled by the Inquisition 5 centuries ago and applied for it.
Israel is making life very dangerous for Jews the rest of the world over, including myself. They want to make it sound like all Jews are Israelis because it helps their cause. Which, of course, suggests that all Jews favor genocide and that emboldens bigots.
And here we go again. Spain isn't persecuting Jews.
On September 11, some Saudis attacked the World Trade Centre. America retaliated by going to war with Afghanistan, found they had nothing of value, and then Rumsfeld said since Iraq has oil, they should go after them instead. The unprovoked attack and illegal war that still, to this day, has had zero repurcussions against Bush, Blair and the rest who started it, and caused individuals from militant faction groups to rise up and attack those nations in the form of terrorist attacks, perpetuating a cycle of hate and loss.
More than twenty years later, uneducated people still fail to see the distinction between individual terrorists and an entire people who follow Islam. Islamophobia is on the rise right now simply because people are protesting the war in Gaza, and still equating those protesters to the terrorism from years prior.
I say all this because I can see how hate, and in your case, antisemitism lingers. Your actions are not that of the IDF, your words are not the same as aggrevators like Ben Gvir and your policies are not the same as Netenyahu's, but because you're Jewish, those things are all the same now in the eyes of many uneducated people.
It was the same with idiots attacking random (elderly!?) Chinese civilians on the street as a result of COVID lockdowns. The blame lies chiefly with the media and its incendiary bias towards all things that don't align with their backward views, and allowing people like Trump to stand on a podium and address millions of people with lies and baseless claims.
What happened to Muslims in America after 9/11 was disgusting and sickening and I felt so terrible for them when it happened and still do, which is why I know that this bigotry is unlikely to be coming from them. They know what it's like.
Remember all the fruitcakes saying a secret cabal of Jews runs the world? Israel is surely pumping them up and their outside influence on our politicians is making it look even worse.
That's definitely true. I've seen those fruitcakes get more emboldened lately in various online discussions.
But not even them. There is bigotry from people who don't even realize it, people who would hate the idea that they were saying something bigoted... but they still will say "Jews" when they mean "Israel" and that is mostly Israel's fault. And it's those people who can be swayed by the fruitcakes because of that. Suddenly Israel isn't the enemy, Jews are. And there are Jews everywhere. And some of them are rich and powerful.
I'll say it once, I'll say it again, Hamas played the whole damn world like fucking puppets with one attack.
I'd be absolutely shocked if the actual leaders that planned the attack are in the strip. Now any Palestenians that might have been against Hamas in the strip are stuck fighting a nuclear power in full "us vs them" mentality, Israel reacted exactly how Israel does any time it has been attacked, which is with overwhelming and vicious force now putting the country doing monstrous actions against civilians going for what looks like a full genocide, your exact point on a rival religion suddenly now giving a lot of voice to the conspiracy theories, it has created an even bigger divide in the US (but then again what doesn't anymore) and Saudi Arabia who was working on deals with Israel has backed all the fucking way off and NATO is sitting there awkwardly trying to decide exactly where on the line it wants to walk seeing as the US can't bring itself to go against Israel while Russia is rather uppity at the moment.
Taking away any conversation on ethics, which is nearly impossible... I just can't believe these leaders are this fucking short sighted.
I legitimately worry Israel being genocidal maniacs will lead to a wave of antisemitism, similarly to how Covid-19 having alleged Chinese origins lead to a lot of Anti-Asian crime in America.
"Will"? It has already been happening for quite a while. I know at least two people who confuse Israel with Judaism, and as a result have become antisemitic. One of them is my grandmother.
Has there been an increase in attacks on random Jews? This is a fascist talking point to shut down protests. The rabi at our state college for that one Hasidic organization (the tunnel controversy one) was spouting this nonsense.
Yes there has. It is not just a fascist talking point. However, I know how this goes. I provide examples and they aren't good enough because there's never enough examples to prove that there are people out there who might possibly use legitimate anti-Israel sentiment to embolden bigots when I give them.
I don't know anyone outside of the political class and a few right wing nutters that supports israel, especially after the images coming out of rafah in the last few days
edit: even my daily heil reading "shoot em in the channel" relative was perturbed
I absolutely support the right of Israel to exist and defend itself against Hamas. I just don't think that this sanctions the bombing of innocent Palestinians in Gaza or to pursue an aggressive settlement policy.
I am in favor of Israel.
I am strongly opposed to Netanyahu. Fuck that guy and his entire government.
It would have been harder to support Ukraine if they went and killed thousands of innocent Russian before being aggressed by Russia. But they didn't.
Most of the west do support the right for Israel to defend itself from such attack, but there is no doubt that Israel went way to far with their riposte. No matter if the Hamas uses the Palestinian as meat shield, Israel made so many "mistakes" and killed so many innocents that it should have asked long ago for the UN to intervene in their place to avoid further unnecessarily killing.
No they really are hateful people, they are just using this as an excuse to kill people they hate, it's not a mistake they're meaning to do this. They were never going to ask the UN to intervene because that would have robbed them of the opportunity to commit mass slaughter.
You're wrong. Palestinians have a right to defend themselves, but they're being oppressed and genocided for decades and no one gives a shit. Israel doesn't have ANY rights.
Israel dismisses any and all criticism, and always complains about medieval history as an ad hominem attack. Turkey complains about Israel
killing Turkish civilians? Israel replies something about Turkey mistreating Armenians. German government complains about mistreatment of Palestinians? Call them modern Nazis. Now Spain gets derided as something from nearly 600 years ago.
The Armenian genocide wasn't that long ago, it happened during my grandmother's lifetime, and the current leader of Turkey still denies it was a genocide. But bringing up the Spanish inquisition in 2024 is wack.
I'm sorry, are you comparing Spain to a religious crusade when you're literally in the middle of genociding an ethnicity and their religion? You're fucking insane Israel.
Yeah and if they start attacking NATO countries it's going to end badly for them. The US will drop support like a hot rock. They really won't like it I'm sure, but they are not going to back Israel over NATO, it's just not happening.
A 26-year-old lecturer in architecture at Birmingham City University, Iskandarani has been stateless for most of her life, possessing only a Lebanese travel document that defines her as a Palestinian refugee.
But after discovering that her Palestinian father had Jewish roots going back to Spain, Iskandarani was able to claim Spanish citizenship thanks to a 2015 law that promised to naturalize anyone whose Jewish ancestors fled the Spanish Inquisition.
“Absurdly our conversion to Islam got us exiled from Jaffa yet again for again being of different religion and ethnicity,” she wrote. “Quite ironic don’t you think being exiled twice for the exact same reason?”
Comparing the current ruling party in Spain with the inquisition is specially ironic, if you know that they voted in favor of granting the descendants of the Sephardic Jews expelled by the Inquisition the Spanish nationality if they applied for it, less than 10 years ago.
If anything, you could argue that this created an Islamophobic or Pro-Jewish double standard, since the descendants of Muslims expelled by the inquisition weren't granted that right.
Here 'harm' is meant in a diplomatic way. They put restrictions on the Spanish consulate. It is strong language, but nobody is talking about physical harm (just as Spain hasn't harmed Israel physically).
From the article:
According to these measures, Israel prohibits the Spanish consulate in Jerusalem from "conducting consular activities or providing consular services to residents of the Palestinian Authority", although it clarified that the measure does not apply to people with Spanish nationality.
So if a Spanish-Palestinian couple wants to sort things out to visit Spain or deal with administrative stuff they can't. Palestinians who have family in Spain and need to deal with their affairs can't now.
While it is not physical harm, it has huge psychological implications and many of which are equally terrible. Imagine a family member dies in Spain and you can't even go to the consulate to arrange for the funeral.
No chance. An open military attack would be the end of Israel. Spain is a EU and NATO member. Article 5 would be called and accepted by most NATO members. If not the alliance would be over immediately.
Lets assume the US noped out (which they would never do if Israel dared to attack Spain). That would be the end of NATO but Israel would have to deal with the EU. Even Spain by itself could cause some serious damage to Israel. And they wouldn't be by themselves.
I'm Portuguese, and my country is the historical rival of Spain. An attack on Spain would be like a direct attack on us and most EU members feel the same.
This, of course, is hypothetical. There's no way Netanyahu would pull such a dumb and unthinkable move.
that is the gist of most right wing/nationalist leaders' speeches. For the better part of the last decade Erdoğan has been doing the same against the EU (and international shadow enemies) to gain votes.
Israel was never the Nazis' victim, Jewish people were. Israel is not equal to Jewish people and this is doing a huge disservice to all the Jewish people around the world fighting against this colonial state.
And yet the people who run Israel are all Jewish. So it's certainly fair to criticize them for committing atrocities like ones that that were done to their people in the past. The Israeli government, not Jews in general.
As a woodworker I am compelled to point out that milled lumber is available in much larger nominal dimensions than 2x4. There's no need to limit yourself.
Can we please stop with this shit? This is why the pro-Palestine side of this conflict keeps being branded as antisemites. Because you can't seem to help yourself but to make arguments where "Israel" and "Jews" are interchangeable terms.
They aren't. Jews were victims of the Holocaust. Israel was not. If you can't tell the difference, leave the activism to the people who can.
"They" in this context clearly means "the government of Israel", which is made up of Jews. It's not "all Jews" it's "these specific people in power who are also Jews". You could use this same bullshit claim to say that criticizing the US government is anti-Christian. No, it's not.
Weird just a few days earlier they said Spain should look to the time of Muslim rule in southern Spain for atrocities against Jews. Which there weren't Jewish people and culture prospered under the Muslim rule and then got pogromed when the Christians took back over. Now they refer to exactly that.
It is weird that Israel is hellbent not only on revisionism for its own history, but other peoples history too. Or rather it is pretty straight forward as Israel is a fascist colonial entity and shares its interest in revisionism with the Nazis and other colonial genociders.
The Catholic kings finish conquering the last bastion of Muslims in Iberia, and immediately next they tell all Muslims and Jews to either convert to Christianity or to flee the peninsula, because they aren't going to like what's planned for them next. A very different ruler in Europe welcomed them, however:
Basically, the Turks managed to help Constantinople regain some of the economic importance it had gained during the centuries of collapse of the Byzantine Empire because they welcomed Jewish artisans that had been kicked out of Iberia.
In all honesty, I don't think Israel has the manpower to completely wipe out Hamas even if they wanted to, unless they kill or expulse all Gazans. Gaza has plenty of places to hide, even moreso nowadays with all the rubble, and they have guaranteed that even the Palestinians who for one reason hated Hamas will now hate the IDF even more.
When Israel declares that they have completely wiped out Hamas in a specific area, then Hamas immediately attacks them back from the zone they had supposedly been wiped out from, it's difficult to explain it with anything other than incapability, because you're setting up a situation where your own population is going to distrust what you tell them.
Netanyahu is incredibly lucky to have the US support him no matter what he does.
There is no "defeating Hamas" at this point. Even if they kill very single current Hamas fighter, the traumatized children whose world they have just destroyed will grow up in squalor and be full of hate . Their choice is to complete the genocide and wipe out Palestinians completely (the only true final solution), or to accept that they'll be fighting the same war in 12-15 years.
This isn't the funniest bit so far, the funniest bit is that Netanyahu's is now meeting with Spain's far-right, the party that attracts real antisemites. Of course, they are truly anti-semitic, as in hating anything recognizably brown enough and not just colozioniolists changing names from Mileikowsky to Netanyahu, so I'm sure they would love a repeat of the Haavara Agreement anyway with a leader they clearly share a lot of values with.
In Spain antisemitism is rampant left and right, that's why the government (Socialist Party) has done this. Make no mistake, this is not solidarity or justice or shit, just a smoke screen so their voters forget about the cost of living, housing, unemployment.. and all the hard-to-solve pressing issues they don't want to do anything about.
But ... they do want you to think about it. Spanish politicians talk about that stuff all the time and some party platforms run on it. Spanish Congress is literally voting on housing laws as you comment and there's heated debate between coalition members on unemployment measures as well. Are you sure they are the ones throwing smoke screens or could the source be closer to home?
that's right moron, bring up something from hundreds of years ago so as to remove any doubt you weren't really living here in the real world, now, with the rest of us, as we try to stop our murderous governments from carrying out agendas nobody actually wants except sociopaths and murderous cowards like you
Very normal and rational reaction to Bibi's hateful drivel. I prescribe you nothing, come back to my office when you're in the all caps, three exclamation marks stage.
Israel is the last country one would think that would do things like this to other people, considering their history. Its like they want to create validation for bad things people have said about them. Though i hope its same situation as in russia, regular people dont want to do those things but are so apathetic and fear their leaders so much they dont dare to rise up. Though in this situation they are likely also so well misled and manipulated they think they are doing the "right thing". Eitherway, current israeli leadership should just go, like previous german leadership. I really dont want to think majority of their country supports this.
This shit will likely be one of the catalysts for the next world war, at least it feels that way.
Israel is the last country one would think that would do things like this to other people, considering their history.
Jewish people maybe, but Israel is another story. They've been doing exactly this their entire history. From the Nakba of '48 to the invasion of Lebanon in 2018, the Israelis have a long and consistent record of picking fights with their neighbors and using centuries-old atrocities to justify their modern day brutality.
From sterilizing Ethiopian Jews to toppling the Nasser government over the Suez Crisis to conducting continent-wide arms deals for dictators stretching from South Africa to Central Asia, these are bad dudes and always have been.
current israeli leadership should just go, like previous german leadership
Funny thing about the previous German Leadership...
The study, known as the Rosenberg project, examined previously classified documents to gain insight into the era between 1950 and 1973. Researchers found that some 77 percent of senior officials in the Justice Ministry had once identified as Nazis, a portion higher than during the Third Reich, the period between 1933 and 1945 when Adolf Hitler controlled Germany, and much higher than researchers expected.
The group included Nazi-era prosecutor Eduard Dreher, a man who sought the death penalty for petty criminals, and Max Merten, who played a role in deporting Jews from Greece.
While US authorities sought justice by putting 16 lawyers and jurists who played a role in the Nazi regime on trial in 1947, Germany tried one lone prosecutor after establishing the West German Federal Republic in 1949.
Many of those working for the ministry in the post-war years came from backgrounds as lawyers or judges in Nazi Germany, and came to the department to provide legal advice as West Germany rebuilt itself. By coming together and closing ranks, the network of former Nazis not only protected one another from legal prosecution but also bound together to create the nation’s laws.
By coming together and closing ranks, the network of former Nazis not only protected one another from legal prosecution but also bound together to create the nation’s laws.
Unfortunately, many, many Israelis, even if not the majority, rabidly support what is happening. I can't remember the exact numbers from the last poll about it, but there is a reason bibi is doing this to maintain power. It absolutely works for a significant portion of his constituency.
Dude speaks as if Israel and Palestine have spent the past 5 decades being The Near Eastern equivalent of Sweden and Denmark, rather than locked in a neverending vendetta that makes beefing between The Crips and The Bloods seem like playground scraping, by comparison
Screwing over Spanish residents or funds at Israel, I think. Also, the Spanish right wing is about to become radically zionist, even though they didn't care about Israel a couple years ago.
Worst case? Covert Israeli influence to propel the far-right into power in Spain. A return to Franco-era fascism. Not terribly likely but it's hard to imagine worse.