Exactly. Well said. Netanyahu is also to blame for leveraging antisemitism as a defense against criticism of Israel. It muddys the waters and confuses actual messages condemning antisemitism. Many incorrectly read Biden’s condemnations of antisemitism as being critical of anti-Israel protest, for example. It now requires the listener to first determine the speaker’s understanding of antisemitism, and filter it through perceived agenda to determine their actual intent, leading to a subjective message and dilution of a two millennia plight of the Jewish people. It’s despicable.

Thank you for commenting. Your perspective is invaluable.

3. It is true that evangelical Christians believe that Israel has to exist for Jesus to return. This is the part they don't say out loud: Every Jew in the world has to be exiled to Israel for this to happen.

I grew up fairly fundamentalist and just wanna point out that while some evangelicals believe this it's far from universal. (The every Jew in the world being there part, not the Israel having to exist part)

And then tweeted this a few days ago:

Antisemitism is wrong, but I will not be voting for the Antisemitism Awareness Act of 2023 (H.R. 6090) today that could convict Christians of antisemitism for believing the Gospel that Jesus was handed over to Herod to be crucified by the Jews

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/05/02/mtg-votes-against-antisemitism-awareness-act-antisemitic-trope/73539622007/

The act itself is bullshit, but that's just sick.

What? Should it be the other way around? “Restoration of Israel”, “Rebuilding of the Third Temple” are Christian professors leading to the second coming of Jesus. That’s the reasons why religious right supports Israel.

Parentheses thing?

You mean vampire Kirby?

<( •,_,•<)

Or do you mean vampire slayer Kirby?

<===|—<( •_•<)

Now that's not true. Zionism, as originally envisioned by Theodore Herzl, was about getting Jews the fuck out of Europe before there was a genocide, which he saw coming after the Dreyfus affair. He said he thought defeating antisemitism in Europe would never happen. Yes, the place that Herzl, and others, envisioned was "The Holy Land," where Israel is now, and that was always a bad idea, but it was originally an attempt to avoid the genocide that eventually happened.

Now, to Herzl's credit, he tried very hard to negotiate a settlement with the Ottomans for a legal land transfer of Palestine to create a Jewish state. The Sultan turned him down, but he never intended to seize the land through military conquest.

Herzl also wanted a secular state and was not a religious Jew. In fact, he was an Atheist. He and his wife even refused to circumcise their son. He just wanted to save his ethnicity from being killed off in Europe... and then, about 50 years after he died, that's exactly what the Nazis tried to do.

Zionism today certainly promotes antisemitism, but the original idea, where it was a peaceful land transfer and a secular state designed to avert a coming genocide, was the opposite of antisemitism.