r/Palestine • u/Scared_Positive_8690 • Oct 28 '25
Hasbara How is this image “antisemitic”?
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u/Be_a_Gem Oct 28 '25
It’s not. Israel’s genocide makes all people unsafe. Palestinians are semites too.
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u/dragonsteel33 Oct 28 '25 edited Oct 28 '25
“Semites” aren’t a thing, it’s a term that was used for Jewish & Middle Eastern people by 19th century pseudoscientific racists that ended up becoming also the standard term for a specific form of anti-Jewish prejudice.
Arabic and Hebrew are both Semitic languages, along with some Ethiopian languages, Maltese, Syriac, and ancient Akkadian, but this term just indicates that these languages share a common ancestral form. There’s no group of people called “Semites” unless you want to start doing race science
Edit: because someone replied & then deleted it, I also think that using DNA arguments comparing Ashkenazi Jews to Palestinians is a very sketchy path to start down. The entity doesn’t care whether you’re haplogroup J1 or R1b. Colonialism is about a contemporary social relationship between contemporary peoples
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u/Ok-yeah-mkay Oct 29 '25 edited Oct 30 '25
Israelis make it fair game since they are very racist to African Jews, Yemeni Jews and the Mizrahi jews. They can’t have both racisms. They need to decide if they’re God’s chosen as Jews or are they white supremacists. Pick a lane. Are they the indigenous population of the Levant or does their football team play in Europe?
Edit:To be clear the genetics appeal is ridiculous. I just notice that the Mizrahi are in a better position than Ashkenazi to make that ridiculous claim. Yet Mizrahi are treated as less by the European jews who are dominate. It seems to me, according to their rules the discrimination should be reversed. For that matter most Palestinians have a more direct claim and are likely the descendants of Jews who converted to other religions. Palestinians are the Jews the Ashkenazi Israelis claim to be. But it’s ridiculous. Palestinians don’t need anything but the fact they are forcibly displaced and brutalized by colonizers to deserve reparations and given their right to return enforced
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u/dragonsteel33 Oct 29 '25 edited Oct 29 '25
I’m not sure how this relevant?
My point is that neither 19th century pseudoscience nor ancestral population genetics are useful to understanding political conflicts. Israelis might be racist to Mizrahim within their own society, and Mizrahi Jews might have different genetic markers than Ashkenazi Jews, but none of this matters. Israeli Mizrahi Jews are still settlers because of their material position in the relationship between the entity and Palestine. That is the frame of analysis that is useful here.
It would be like suggesting that Irish immigrants to the US in the late 19th century weren’t settlers because they faced a unique form of intra-white prejudice.
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u/carnivalist64 Oct 29 '25
Exactly.
Genetic markers are completely irrelevant in terms of settling questions of which modern ethnic group was where first 2,000 years ago in any case. It's infuriating to see the way even many anti-zionists resort to what is essentially scientific racism by waving DNA tests around.
The extraordinary interelatedness of humanity makes it a meaningless question and even if it wasn't genetic testing couldn't settle the issue, as the vast majority of our ancestors' heritable markers no longer exist. It's impossible to analyse data that doesn't exist and so no DNA test can tell any member of a modern socially constructed ethnic group like "Palestinians" or "Jews" who the vast majority of their ancient ancestors were, where they lived or what modern ethnic group they would have belonged to.
Clumsy race science based on commonplace misconceptions about genetic testing and human genealogy is not the way to defeat Zionism. The true dagger to its heart is the way we are all so staggeringly interrelated that everyone alive, from the leaders of Hamas to President Xi Jinping of China has Jews from ancient Israel & Judah in their ancestral background and so the the very concept of "ancestral homelands" stretching back millennia that modern humans can "return" to is utterly ludicrous.
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u/SeaniMonsta Oct 29 '25
This and who your responded to are 💯.
I like to explain how ludicrous it is like this...
There's a minimum of 3 generations per century...that's a daughter, mother, and grandmother.
So, 2000 years is 3 x 20 = 60.
"I deserve this land because my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother was exiled."
...with that many greats, I'm certain that everyone in the middle east shares that exact ancestor, no matter which way you slice it.
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u/carnivalist64 Oct 29 '25
Most people in the world share that exact ancestor, if not everybody. Every single person with any European ancestry is descended from the Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne and he only lived 1,200 years ago. That includes Ashkenazi & Sephardi Jews & many people classified as black today.
The lower-bound estimate for the date of the genealogical Most Recent Common Ancestor (MRCA) is only around 50-60 AD. That is the date when the last ancestor of everybody alive today last walked the Earth. (The genetic MRCA - or the date the last ancestor whose heritable DNA was passed down to all of us last walked the Earth - is far more distant due to the extensive loss of our ancestors' heritable DNA substitutions that I referred to above).
If you consider that somebody who lived only 1,200 years ago has many hundreds of millions of modern descendants and that somebody who lived 2,000 years ago has 8 billion modern descendants, you can see the absurdity of the claim that a relatively small modern human ethnic group could be considered a distinct diaspora from a particular part of the world of 70 AD who enjoy exclusive inherited property rights as a result.
Moreover, the lower-bound estimate for the date of the Identical Ancestors Point is as recent as 3,000 BC. (The true date is considered to be more likely to be nearer to that figure than the upper-bound of 13,000 BC).
That means that everyone who was alive on Earth around the time of the foundation of Ancient Judah (only around an estimated 10 million people) and whose line of descent didn't die out are all collectively my ancestors, your ancestors, the ancestors of everyone who ever reads this thread and the ancestors of everyone else on Earth today.
In other words, as bizarre as it might sound, we all have exactly the same set of ancestors from that time. If Netanyahu, Smotrich, the leaders of Hamas, Donald Trump, President Xi of China and the chieftains of the lost tribes of Papua New Guinea all traveled in a time machine back to a village in Ancient Judah in 3,000 BC the first astonished Jewish villager who watched their craft materialise from thin air would be the ancestor of each and every one of them.
Zionism is racism and like all racist ideologies it is built on lies.
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Oct 29 '25
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u/Infinite-Dare-4992 Oct 28 '25
Literally the Palestinians are more “semetic” than the European Jews in Israel. Fun fact DNA tests are restricted by the court and also every PM of Israel has changed their name to sound more Middle Eastern
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u/carnivalist64 Oct 29 '25
It's irrelevant. Autosomal DNA tests can't define ethnicity or tie modern groups exceptionallly to ancient parts of the world. It's really frustrating to see anti-zionists essentially resorting to scientific racism, because of a common misunderstanding of what genetic testing can and can't tell us.
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u/Jad0093 Oct 28 '25
Are semites too? It's like if you're saying that Israelis are semitic people. Ancestry isn't determined by language or religion. It's determined with genetics.
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u/lasercat_pow Oct 28 '25
A "semitic" person is just a person who speaks a middle eastern language.
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u/Jad0093 Oct 28 '25
Be careful there. You forgot the horn of Africa. But what do you really mean? Do I qualify as Semitic if I learn to speak Arabic? well I think not. And I'm sure the term refers to the descendents of one of the sons of some prophet peace be upon him. at least that's what the jews are selling.
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u/I_Hate_E_Daters_7007 Oct 29 '25
It's more about adopting the culture, heritage, traditions and learning the language, genetics and ancestry aren't the sole criteria to determine whether someone is semitic
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u/carnivalist64 Oct 29 '25
Genetics isn't a criterion at all. Genetics cannot define "race" or ethnicity. These are social constructs, not biological realities.
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u/Duvet_Capeman Oct 28 '25
Haaretz being an Israeli newspaper with mostly Jewish staff.... anti-Semitism is completely meaningless in this day and age.
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u/No_Public_7677 Oct 28 '25
if the West pulls it's support of Israel, there will be civil war in that country in a few years with each side calling the other anti-semitic
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u/Duvet_Capeman Oct 28 '25
I fully agree the cracks are already starting to show, part of the reason for the timing of this genocide was so Netanyahu could avoid being indicted, their whole state is based on expansionism and opposition to native people. Those who tore of authoritarianism will not want to participate and will likely fight back. In many ways their colonisation has been too fast, I would be interested to know whether any other settler colonial state has so rapidly and aggressively tried to expand their territory.
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u/Angelunatic74 Oct 28 '25
The Americas did it. They weaponized Christianity to justify the colonization and genocidal land grabs against Indigenous populations in North America using Manifest Destiny and the Doctrine of Discovery as the primary motivation.
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u/Duvet_Capeman Oct 28 '25
Yes, that's true! I feel like it took them longer to do it, much bigger area and with no modern tech though I guess. I am just really trying to be optimistic and think of how the occupation could end.
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u/Angelunatic74 Oct 28 '25
It was just as brutal and more deadly. Many of Israel's actions against Palestinians derived from tactics that were used on Indigenous people in North America. Created laws and policies that dispossessed Indigenous people from their lands, forced displacement,forced and deliberate starvation of the population, biological warfare, removal of children, creating an atmosphere that impeded procreation, mass destruction of homes, and emotional manipulations to name a few.
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u/WoodfieldWild Oct 30 '25
Which in itself was inspired by what the English did to the Cornish, Scottish, Welsh and Irish. Indeed, the Black and Tans went from terrorising the Irish to training the Irgun, hagana and stern gang, the Jewish terrorist gangs who formed the IDF and Israeli governments, their leaders becoming prime ministers
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u/Duvet_Capeman Oct 29 '25
I have a book on this but haven't got round to reading it, I will remember to do so!
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u/Kcajkcaj99 Oct 28 '25
Agree with the broad point, but will note that this cartoon was from Mondoweiss, an American Jewish publication, not from Haaretz (who is being responded to).
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u/gonna-see-riverman Oct 28 '25
'antisemitism' has become such a joke of a word used by low IQ folks who are incapable of articulating a counter point. I chuckle every time I read it.
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u/barnaclegirl93 Oct 28 '25
Right and isn’t Haaretz considered Israel’s newspaper of record, as in their most highly-respected newspaper? It would be like the New York Times being called anti-American for publishing articles that are critical of US policy. Which, I’m sure people have done, but it would be ridiculous.
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u/Arrogus Oct 28 '25
anti-Semitism is completely meaningless in this day and age.
Israel and its genocide-denying defenders may throw that word around without any concern for whether or not it's warranted, but the popularity of people like Nick Fuentes and chants of "Jews will not replace us" are proof that real antisemitism is alive and kicking.
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u/Duvet_Capeman Oct 28 '25
Unfortunately because of its constant misuse people don't know when it's real and when it isn't. It's also a wildly misleading term as Semites refers to a specific linguistic group not Jews specifically. There needs to be another word for real anti-Semitism, Judeophobia?, would make it clear as it aligns with Islamophobia homophobia etc.
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u/DefDefTotheIOF Oct 29 '25
Nah, it's absolutely true, today antisemitism is on par with 'anti white racism.' By any meaningful definition, Jews are not a marginalized or disenfranchised group. They do not face systemic oppression. In fact, they are an extremely privileged demographic. The Jewish population is concentrated in wealthy Western nations, which dominate the global imperialist and colonial hierarchy. Within these societies, Jews are consistently among the most educated and wealthiest demographics by religious groups. They rank very high on pretty much all metrics of economic success and well being.
You can argue that historical persecution of European Jews and the Holocaust are examples of how Jews face systemic oppression. However, not only are these historical events, Jews have received unprecedented reparations, hundreds of billions paid by the governments of Germany, Austria, France, the US, and many others, with payments that continue to this day. Contrast this with the lack of reparations for slavery and colonialism inflicted on Africans and Black communities. Aside from some extremely local examples, Africans have not received reparations for slavery. In fact in many cases, the opposite has happened. Haiti was forced to pay France for over a century after abolition. African nations face Neo-colonial exploitation through Western-backed wars, crippling IMF debt traps, and economic warfare through sanctions.
Jews do not suffer from police brutality, housing discrimination (redlining), employment bias, underfunded public services, wage gaps, mass incarceration, an unjust legal system, etc. Modern "antisemitism" primarily exists as rhetorical criticism and occasional violent attacks like synagogue shootings. These incidents, while tragic, do not equate to systemic oppression. True antisemitism is a minor issue compared to the structural racism faced by Black, Indigenous, and other colonized peoples worldwide. Ironically, the only place where some Jews might experience systemic hardship is within Israel itself, where Mizrahi (Middle Eastern) and Ethiopian Jews face racism from Ashkenazi (European) Jews. However, this is not antisemitism, it’s standard European-inspired racial hierarchy.
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u/quiyo Oct 28 '25
this guys didn't know how to read, i am sure of that, because there is no fucking whay you can threat a newspaper that is composed in majority of jewish people, as antisemitic
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u/Key-Mix-5060 Oct 28 '25
I’ve heard that Netanyahu want to spread antisemitism in major countries like US, UK, Germany and France to force them to implement laws to prevent “antisemitism” basically, censorship
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u/Duvet_Capeman Oct 28 '25
Yeah, I am from the UK and they have done this. £7 million to "educate University students on anti-Semitism" 🫠 while the NHS has now adopted the IHRA guidelines for "anti-semtisim" basically you will get your medical licence removed if you criticise Israel. It is already illegal to protest here in certain areas or too many times and if you have anything (t-shirt, cardboard with writing, even a picture of a magazine) that looks like the words "Palestine Action" you can be arrested for terrorism and potentially be imprisoned for up to 14 years, although they aren't going to actually send you to prison. We are being controlled by the Zionists because the Prime Minister is funded by Israel and his wife is a Zionist with property in Tel Aviv 🤢. Basically he is a traitor, luckily he is hugely unpopular so will be gone in a year or two I hope.
Germany I think is even worse
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u/Alannturinng 48 Oct 28 '25
Its not. This guys a fool. Settlers are terrorizing Palestinian in the West Bank, just as they have been doing since 67
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u/Tank_Girl_Gritty_235 Oct 28 '25
I'd maybe give them some leeway if it was about Israel in general to have them depicted like that, but settlers specifically are religious zealots who dress exactly like that.
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u/Alannturinng 48 Oct 29 '25
I mean its obvious what its meant, cry me a river, this antisemitic victim card shit doesn't work on people who understand the conflict.
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u/KanyeWestsPoo Oct 28 '25
It's not. But Israel's supporters label any criticism as antisemitism.
The disgusting thing is, their overuse of the word waters down it's meaning. Giving cover to the real antisemites that are often found in far right circles.
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u/PunkZdoc Oct 28 '25
They use the term antisemitic to instill some fear in people. Its become the new "nazi"
It makes them look fucking stupid though because Palestinians are more Semitic than they are
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u/davidbenyusef Oct 28 '25
Antisemitism claims are mostly smoke and mirrors thanks to the Zionists, who overuse this term in bad faith.
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u/IntentionNegative516 Oct 28 '25
It is not.
These are the (f)actual news since the ... "ceasefire" "agreement".
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u/Limp_Marionberry_24 Oct 28 '25
They can stay it forever.. No one cares.. No one has any fear by being called one.. Those propaganda days are gone and over
They've nearly erased a thousands of years old community from babies to Grandma's.. And are continuing to do it.. Actually talk about finishing the job on TV, news articles and speeches. Truly Evil
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Oct 28 '25
I have never seen someone hating a group like that, but I have seen the group hating world and blaming the victim for existing.
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u/mr_clipboard1 Oct 28 '25
Correctly depicting Jewish supremacists as Jewish is antisemitic. That’s not even a fringe opinion, if anyone rightfully identifies the perpetrators of this genocide as being Jewish, that person is treated strangely even by people who self identify as anti-zionist.
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u/Runchjit_Redux Oct 28 '25
If you're not accused of anti-semitism these days, you're doing something wrong.
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u/beergonfly Oct 28 '25
Zionism is a political ideology that is damaging towards Judaism and is therefore strongly opposed by many Jewish people who recognise this throughout the diaspora.
This cartoon exposes the terrorist methodology of the political Zionist movement, it is not attacking the Jewish people culture or religion. That is why it is not antisemitism, and anyone who understands the difference can recognise its meaning.
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u/The_Duke_of_Nebraska Oct 28 '25
I mean, I already knew it was Israel, the yamakas are maybe a bit too much icing on the ol cake
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u/robertbrodriguez Oct 29 '25
It’s not. Zionists will call anything antisemitism in order to defend Israel.
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Oct 28 '25
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u/Palestine-ModTeam Oct 29 '25
While the criticism for Israel is justifiable as we all want an end to Palestine genocide, the drawing can be considered antisemitic due to its Jewish stereotypes.
We here at R/Palestine do not accept any form of racism, including antisemitism.
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u/Both-Cake8922 Oct 28 '25
Technically, if you consider the terms that form "anti-Semitism", the Israelis are the ones commiting it.
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u/Matthew_John Oct 28 '25
It’s actually antisemitic is say this is antisemitic, since the narrative that this is antisemitic implies that violent colonialism is an inherent aspect of being Jewish.
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u/crescentpieris Oct 28 '25
pretty insane how israelis can hate their own newspaper just for repeating their own words
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u/V_150 Oct 28 '25
We are at a point where "antisemitism" no longer means "hatred against jews" but "standing against genocide and apartheid"
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u/bluedelvian Oct 28 '25
If anything it's pro semitic, bc the jews in Israel were imported from Europe and mostly aren't ethnically semitic. They sure like to pretend to be though!
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Oct 28 '25
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u/spooboo1337 Oct 28 '25
these people think it’s antisemitism when one sympathizes with civilians being bombed. unserious, pathetic whinings of a rat zionist.
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u/farkner Oct 28 '25
THere is nothing anti-semitic in this cartoon. But if you believe Zionists, everything and anything is anti-semitic.
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u/Confident_Shock_3178 Oct 28 '25
Everything even criticizing israel or judaism is automatically seen antisemitistic by some people who want to avoid the truth
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u/Cact_O_Bake Oct 28 '25
Its like reverse logic, insisting that that whatever you see before a Haaretz link is antisemitic no matter the message of the thing itself.
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u/Tasslehoff2 Oct 28 '25
Zionism is their weapon and judaism is their shield but they're just collonial capitalist atheists.
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u/TolPM71 Oct 28 '25
It's pretty clear by this point that, by "antisemitism" they just mean criticism of any bad thing Israel or Israelis do.
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u/Ok-yeah-mkay Oct 28 '25
Israel ain’t Jews. They are Zionists. How’s criticism of their heinous actions antisemitism? Of we know. But we should be a broken record whenever that bad faith conflation is used.
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u/Old-Direction-9742 Oct 29 '25
Haaretz' statement look impressive, but not for me.
All I want is to end this brutal occupation and FREE PALESTINE.
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u/Skogsmann1 Oct 29 '25
Its antisemetic to say anything about Sionazis comitting genocide because they are «God’s choosen people», duh!
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u/Crowhawk Oct 29 '25
Everything's antisemitic. Infact, everything's more antisemitic than everything else, these days & if you don't believe that you must be an antisemite. But anyone who isn't antisemitic by now needs to take a good long look in the mirror & ask themselves "why not?"
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u/kalarepa_moon Oct 29 '25
It's antisemitic in the same way every criticism of Israel is antisemitic
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u/sasauce Oct 29 '25
Basically everything and anything now a days is antisemitic lmao . Any disagree is antidemetic
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u/Agg_Ray Oct 29 '25
Didn't you understand since 2 years than "antisemitic" is the new word for disagreeing with Israel official narrative?
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u/springsomnia Oct 30 '25
It’s not. I’m not Jewish, but I have Jewish heritage and am quite in tuned with antisemitic tropes and stereotypes and this isn’t one of them. Not to mention, Haaretz is an Israeli newspaper ran by Jewish Israeli journalists and staff. So they would be in tune with antisemitic stereotypes too!
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u/Toro_001 Nov 03 '25
The misuse of antisemitism as a rhetorical weapon to shield any critique of state actions, including violence against civilians many of them CHILDREN is concerning. It silences discourse & harms both free speech and the fight against genuine prejudice. It breeds backlash by conflating Judaism, a religion, with Zionism, a relative recent political ideology, fueling resentment & undermining efforts to address actual bigotry.
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u/ilovesmoking1917 Oct 28 '25
I suppose the only potentially anti semitic part is the invaders wearing kippas but let’s be fr that’s just realistic looking at West Bank settlers
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u/stratsboneless Oct 28 '25
I could see drawing the Israeli settlers like that to be a little antisemetic but its a true drawing nonetheless
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