Meta has said it will expand its hate speech policy to cover more uses of the word “Zionist” when applied to Jews or Israelis on its platform.
We will now remove messages targeting ‘Zionists’ in several areas where our investigation has shown that the term tends to be used to refer to Jews and Israelis, with dehumanising comparisons, calls to harm, or denials of existence," the company said in a press release on Tuesday.
In December, Human Rights Watch said that Meta was guilty of “systemic censorship of Palestine content” during Israel’s war on Gaza.
Conflating Jews and Zionists is obligatory for Mark “Donated $125.000 to Zaka” Zuckerberg.
Also denial of the existence of israel is now forbidden in Germany and on Meta platforms. Free speech btw.
Maybe it’s just me, but calling for the eradication of a country is bad (controversial take, I know)
Yes everyone should recognize Palestine.
I agree, but not a Palestine that occupies 100% of Israel.
Israel is not a country.
If israel wants to exist it can accept a two state solution with Palestine right now.
You do not get to decide whether a colony is a country. The natives do.
Saying israel is a country is similar to saying Crimea is actually Russian.
OK I’m done with this conversation, lmao. Didn’t have to scratch your surface very much for the full-on hate to come out. Interesting how that happens so often with people who profess to simply be anti-zionist.
Recognition of israel comes from Palestinians not from posturing hypocrites.
Thanks for the explanation, person who believes Jews are not native to Israel:
Definitely not a ragingly anti-Semitic opinion there, nope! Edit: same for the downvoters too. You all need to take a step back and re-examine your views. Jews have lived there for 3000 years.
So have Muslims and Christians. Doesn’t give them the right to kill all the other people and take their land. Not to mention everything they do to encourage settler colonialism, like giving settlers a free pass from Europe or the US to come in and take homes from natives in the area. You can find so many examples of random people from Germany or New York who show up and are given a house that belonged to some Palestinian family for generations.
Could you remind me how this turned out in most of America historically? And here by America I mean both North and South America.
Is the US a country? Is Australia a country? I doubt the natives decided they were. Very weird way to define a country, regardless of your thoughts on Israel / Palestine
Zionists are not following Judaism. If you ask some orthodox jewish people living in occupied Palestine they’ll tell you they are in exile and are not allowed to have their country until the arrival of the Messiah, that they are simply living in that land that belongs to whoever it belonged to.
Zionists on the other hand are imperialist colonizers who took the land from its owners. So asking for the land to be returned to its rightful owners is legitimate, and this translates to the end of the existance of the state created on wrongfully seized land.
This should not be conflated with eradicating the people. The people could live there with the local Muslims, Christians and Jews as they did before. Although I know we don’t live in a fairy tale. If the occupying state is dismantled, how can one live peacefully with the people who tortured you, your family and society for decades and made your life hell…
Edit: adding link to interview
That’s a tiny minority sect of Jews in Israel, a majority of Jews in Israel support the existence of Israel, that’s why they’re there.
A majority of Jews in the U.S. and globally also support the existence of Israel.
I’ll edit the link to mention these are orthodox jews who were interviewed.
I didn’t know how few are the Jews who actually heed their religion.
To be noted regarding Pew’s poll is that the number of those who believe that the land was promised to the Jews does not say whether they believe they should be owning it now or it shall only become theirs once the Messiah comes.
South Africa pulled it off. But yes, it basically required dismantling the state completely from what it was. South Africa as it existed before and after apartheid are essentially different states with the same name. They got a new Constitution and everything. They still have a lot of problems with the white population having a majority of the land and money, but there’s nowhere near the violence there was beforehand. Everyone mostly lives in peace together now. It can be done. The same thing happened with the IRA in the UK.
We would need to do the same thing. Dismantle Israel completely down to its roots, build something new in the same place from scratch, a place for both Palestinians and Israelis can live together. Some people would be pissed and there’d be some trouble in the beginning, but most people want to live in peace.
So, per your words, jewish people are zionists who use religion as an excuse to occupy a land that is not theirs (and keep expanding with more settlers every chance they get). Also, isn’t israel supposed to be their god given country? Why would they leave?
No, what I said is that Zionism opposes Judaism. Zionists seemingly are not religious but twist what the religion says to enact their colonial goals.
So, per your words, jewish people are zionists who use religion as an excuse to occupy a land that is not theirs (and keep expanding with more settlers every chance they get). Also, isn’t israel supposed to be their god given country? Why would they leave?
Calling for the eradication of a religious ethnostate that engages in genocide and colonialism is surprisingly a good thing.
Or do you think it was bad the world eradicated Nazi Germany?
That’s an excellent historical analogy — too bad you’ve misunderstood it. Germany was not dissolved after WW2, and its population was not thrown to the wolves. We only replaced their government. I agree that Likud needs to go (ideally to the Hague) but the people here wanting to wipe the country from the map are dangerous lunatics.
The countries of East and West Germany would like a word with you. The state of Nazi Germany very clearly ceased to exist.
The division was because the winners couldn’t coexist, not because Germany inherently needed to be split. The whole thing could have been treated like West Germany.
No, the division was because the winners couldn’t agree on who gets to build a new country where the old one was.
No one was going to leave the Nazi state in power.
Sounds to me like we’re in agreement here? In any case, the Allies didn’t give have Poland annex German territory or whatever. It continued to exist. Lots of people in this thread on the other hand want to delete Israel altogether and give it all to Palestine (which, incidentally, has never been a state at any point in history)
Why would the Allies give German land to a Soviet puppet state of Poland?
You know what they did? They gave it back to the people living there, so let’s give Israel back to the people who lived there, that is the majority the Palestinians.
The Israelis can be like White South Africans, stay or fuck off, it’s not important.
What? No it did not. What are you even trying to say?
This is not confusing the two - this is specifically targeting anti-semitism
No this is banning criticism of israel along with it. Using Judaism as a shield for Zionists.
If they wanted to ban antisemitism they would not have included non-antisemitism in there.
You think that dehumanising, calling for harm or denials of Jewish existence aren’t anti-semitism?
Why are you bringing up Judaism?
The article separately mentions Zionism. This has nothing to do with Judaism.
You mentioned Judaism. You think Zionism had nothing to do with Judaism? You think dehumanising anyone - including Zionists is ok?
I’m not fully up to date on the details of these, but I was under the understanding that the whole zionism thing was just a racist conspiracy theory regarding a secret society of Jews controlling whatever.
In that case, isn’t the term inherently antisemitic, or are there also non-Jewish zionist theories?
Where did you read something like that? Originally it was about the creation of a jewish state, nowadays it’s just for israeli nationalism.
As you can tell - basically deduced from context. I’ve never really seen the term zionist outside of xenofobic rants, so that’s all I had to go on.
Zionism is a nationalist movement for the support of a Jewish state. Throughout history different people have had different justifications for the need for a Jewish state, some of them antisemitic. It is worth noting that not all Jews are Zionists and non Jews can be considered Zionists since the desire for a Jewish ethno-state does not require one be a Jew.
As the stated goal is the creation of an ethno-state and thus the exclusion of other groups, racism tends to be implicit for many. Since the creation of an ethno-state likely requires the removal of of the current inhabitants, some pretty despicable actions get justified.
It is important to note that many of the most outspoken anti-Zionists have always been Jews. It’s from these that I have often heard the argument that conflating all Jews with Zionism/the state of Israel puts Jews everywhere at risk of getting blamed/punished for the actions of the state of Israel.
Many extremist Christians support the Zionist movement out of either the desire to remove Jews from their country or because they want all of them to return to Israel so that the rapture/end of the word can be realized. Some extremist Christian groups are literally doomsday cults kinda explaining their lack of care for the future…I mean why worry when the end times are nigh.
The US, and much of the west, show unyielding support for the state of Israel and by extension Zionism for several reasons, chiefly geopolitical in nature (oil). Other reasons include racism towards the other peoples of the region, the antisemitism described above, shame over the Holocaust (the Allies all showed some compliancy with it at least in the beginning…antisemitism has deep roots in western culture), and the fact that confronting the wrong of the colonial project of Israel means confronting their own colonial pasts…and often presents.
Edit to add: Belief that all Jews deserve to be safe and not have to fear hatred in no way requires the establishment of a pure ethno-state, the displacement/killing of whole peoples, or the support of those who push for these. The book “On Palestine” by Chomsky and Ilan Pappe argues for a one state solution with freedom for Jews, Christians, Muslims, and other groups all having the right to self determination. As well as pointing out evidence that much of the two state discourse is explicitly vavout preventing peace in the region. Both Chomsky and Ilan are Jews.
No Zionism is the religion of israel. It does not have anything to do with Judaism. It’s a white surpremacy death cult akin to Nazism.
The best way to describe Zionists is a quote by Ilan Pape:
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/i-am-zionist-how-joe-bidens-lifelong-bond-with-israel-shapes-war-policy-2023-10-21/
That is exactly it. Antisemites figured out a while back that they could say whatever they want about Jews as long as they swap out the word Zionist. This has been a feature of white supremacy for ages. It used to be “people with big noses” or “people who wear hats” or even “bankers,” or “globalists.” The latter two are more similar to the use of “Zionist” because they represent actual groups that people criticize. That gives more cover to the actual antisemites.
This is actually a good thing, because it removes that cover from bigots who want to hijack the movement and hide behind it.
Isn’t it incredibly dangerous to ban “Zionist” only because it’s misused? It can be used to legitimately describe people who have a vested interest in Isreal occupying Palestine. I understand it’s used as a slur, but banning otherwise normal words will make the discourse much more difficult.
Who said anything about banning it? You can read the full statement here. As I said, this is about bigots co-opting the word to say bigoted shit, taking into account the nuance of how a word can be used or misused. Literally no one other than propagandists are talking about Meta “banning” the word.
My apologies, I did not read the article on the assumption Meta would choose the irresponsible option. The article was surprisingly nuanced, and I hope the enforcement of Meta’s policies are equally nuanced.
Yes, let’s hope so!
Denial of Israel as in saying it doesn’t exist, or that it shouldn’t?
Pretending the state of Israel isn’t a form of regional power doesn’t make it go away.
Don’t get me wrong, Israel has shown time and again that it does not deserve that power and must be dismantled. But that doesn’t sound like what the law is talking about.
Maybe I’m being overly pedantic about the language in use
To be clear I’m talking about the government form of one single state and calling it Palestine, Not booting out everyone living there.
Israel could be recognized as a country. In fact Palestinians have presented a two state solution for mutual recognition. If israel accepts it, it will become a country. Even Hamas has said to be open to this
Palestinians have the right to recognize israel as a country as they have stolen their land. We do not have that right. Lucky for israel if they aren’t super Nazis looking to expand their Lebensraum, they can agree to that two state solution right now.