We reject antisemitism in all its forms, including when it masquerades as criticism of Zionism or Israel’s policies. We also recognise that, as journalist Peter Beinart wrote in 2019, “Anti-Zionism is not inherently antisemitic—and claiming it is uses Jewish suffering to erase Palestinian experience.”
They called Israel an apartheid state (which Amnesty international also did at some point) and had an octopus stuffed animal (which is an antisemitic dogwhistle).
I don’t think that they knew about the dogwhistle but then again I don’t know why to but a random stuff animal there in the first place.
German media often says “antisemitic and anti-Israel” as if they were the same. Is that the case in other western media as well or is it a German thing due to our history?
Oh I didn’t know about the octopus. That is weird, I’ll look into it thanks.
And at this point, it would be difficult to not classify israel as an apartheid state.
Conflating antisemitic and anti-Israel is not just a German thing, but I think it’s very rare to hear “anti-Israel” in the English-speaking news I read. I only ever hear pro israel pro Palestine, which may imply you are anti one or the other, but the discrete term anti-Israel almost never comes up is that I read anyway. Anti-civilian death anti terrorism, anti the specific acts rather than anti a whole country.
I hear “anti-Zionist” incorrectly conflated with antisemitic more often in the news I come across, anti-zionism is accused of rejecting the establishment of an Israeli state, but anti-zionism also refers to rejecting the continuous illegal israeli occupation of Palestine, so can be seen as a racist dog whistle or a protest against imperialism based on who’s saying it and who’s interpreting it.
The west is so majority-supportive of Israel as a military ally and the Holocaust is so historically recent and rightly popularly vilified that most people take the Israeli side or look at a conflict solely from their perspective regardless of what the news is.