• @[email protected]
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    17 months ago

    I get that he sides with Israel too strongly. I get that he is giving them too much support. I get that he needs to come out more forcefully to oppose their actions. None of this changes that he did not say any protest of Israel is antisemitic here. He was asked if he opposes antisemitic protests, and he responded in the affirmative. It’s a no brainer, simple to answer question. There is no logical way to spin this into him saying that any protest of Israel is antisemitic. It just makes zero sense.

    Especially if we consider the next part of that statement where he says he also condemns people who don’t understand what’s going on in Palestine.

    I get how you “reasoned” yourself there, it’s not that I’m confused by that, but you’re doing mental gymnastics and making massive jumps in order to justify this confirming what you already believe to be true, rather than approaching this the other way and asking yourself “what can I really get from this?”

    It’s not projecting to point out he doesn’t say something verbatim, but it is projection to assume his intended meaning was the ‘most sane’ one.

    I didn’t say his “intended meaning” was “the most sane.” I said his response to the question was the only sane one. Of course, you are going to have people who, no matter what he says, spin it into him trying to paint all protesters as antisemitic. But if he had tried to be “nuanced” about a question as to whether or not he opposes antisemitism, he runs the risk of being mistaken about something (like you are here when claiming there was no antisemitism there) and sounding like he is defending antisemitic protesters.

    Again, total no-brainer. Whether he actually believes it or not is inconsequential, in fact. Politically speaking, there was no other good answer to that question. Without, of course, going into some super long-winded explanation that, again, especially if done off-the-cuff, runs many, many risks.

    • archomrade [he/him]
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      27 months ago

      “I condemn antisemitism in all forms - but it is important to acknowledge that valid criticism of Israel is not antisemitic”

      There you go.

      Instead you get “i condemn people who don’t understand what’s going on with the Palestinians” which could mean fucking anything, including people who don’t understand what is going on with the Palestinians that justifies the response by Israel, which has been his position the whole fucking time.