The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance adopted its working definition of antisemitism in 2016. The definition is, as follows:
“Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”
I was castigated recently by a woman who insisted I was dishonest by not writing equally in favour of Israel, which suffered the Hamas terrorist attacks of October 7th, rather than my (to her) obvious bias towards the Palestinians and their suffering under the military onslaught of Israel.
I made the point that I had condemned those Hamas attacks in a number of posts HERE and HERE, oh, and HERE, but she was not to be mollified. Obviously I was anti-Semitic. I tried reason, only to find she had blocked my email address, preventing any further discussion.
I have no problem with someone who disagrees with my opinions, but I find it intolerable to be blocked from a discussion before it’s truly started, by someone who has simply stuck a label on me and slammed the door in my face.
I’m an atheist. My journey to atheism has been long and difficult. I arrived here through numerous religious and spiritual paths. I now find the whole concept of religion through the ages to be no more than a clever means to control the populace of the time.
That control continues to this day, despite science having revealed the utter falseness of deities, angels, heavenly after-lives, and all the paraphernalia that surrounds them. Every year the Muslim Hajjes takes the lives of numerous pilgrims. 1,300 deaths is the figure stated for this year’s Hajj, with many more suffering acute illness from the intolerable heat. Meanwhile the Saudi government makes a fortune (around US$12 billion) from the Hajj every year.
Christianity is no better. Christians and Muslims have been at one another’s throats since before Pope Urban II started the first crusade against the Muslims in 1095. It continues to this day. Christians have even been fighting among themselves as Protestants and Catholics slugged it out intermittently throughout the Middle Ages.
Jews believe they are the chosen people of their God. Christians believe themselves the chosen people of their God, who happens to be remarkably similar to the God of the Jews. There’s an uneasy and very hypocritical peace that exists between both factions.
55% of Protestant American Christians firmly believe that they’re living in the ‘End Times’, as foretold in the Biblical Book of Revelations. That figure rises to 63% among US Evangelical Christians. They also believe that when their God (Jesus, the Christ) arrives at Armageddon, he will take all the Christian believers to Heaven, but not the Jews unless they are prepared to convert to Christianity! The rest will be left to fend for themselves.
The Jewish religion has a slightly different interpretation (as one would expect). Before Armageddon (or, End of Days, as is the Jewish interpretation) all nations will come to acknowledge the God of Israel as the only true God (problematic for US Protestant Evangelicals). Two characters, Gog and Magog, play important roles before the commencement of the ‘End of Days’. There has to be a war between, on the one hand the evil Gog/Magog, and on the other the Jewish Messiah (probably not Jesus, the Christ) who will defeat them. Apparently, no-one has discovered who Gog and Magog actually are, which I suppose could cause problems for the Jewish Messiah, if he can’t recognize them.
If this were written as fiction, it would be considered too fantastic to be acceptable. According to the churches, it’s not fiction but the sacred word of their God. Down through the ages they’ve brainwashed their congregations, over many generations, into believing it to be truth.
If I appear a little flippant it’s simply because the whole religious concoction is so outrageously fictitious that it beggars belief. Is it not easier just to believe in Santa Claus, a fat guy in a bright red dressing gown who lives somewhere in Lapland and flies around the world once a year on a magic sleigh pulled by reindeer, delivering toys to little children?
To hark back to my label of ‘Anti-Semite’. I’m an atheist, but no-one accuses me of being, “Anti-religious”, or “Anti-Christian”, or even, “Anti-Hindu”. Why accuse me of antisemitism, (which is only a fancy word for ‘Anti-Jewish’) when I have already, on more than one occasion, made clear in my writing that I do not take sides. My concern in any conflict is it’s effects on the innocent, in this case both Palestinians and Israelis. I consider Vladimir Putin to be the most evil of men, but in no way do I hold the Russian people en masse responsible for Putin’s criminality in Ukraine.
I’m no Holocaust denier either. The extermination of people of Jewish origin by Eichmann and his murderers stands as possibly the worst known individual atrocity in human history. They were innocents being cold-bloodedly slaughtered in the most appalling manner.
Atrocities have been an ongoing saga of the human species since we came into existence. Always there are atrocities being perpetrated by humans against other humans in the world. Today: Palestine/Israel; Russia/ Ukraine; the Sudanese civil war; Ethiopia; Central African Republic; DRC… the list goes on and on.
The Holocaust was an abomination, but in terms of human life, if all the present day and recent history atrocities in the world were added together, the figure of six million would possibly pale into insignificance.
Adolf Eichmann was an anti-Semite. He hated the Jewish people and wished to destroy them all. I do not hate anyone, but I despise any individual, Jew, Christian, Muslim, Hindu or Atheist responsible for the brutal and cold-blooded killing, maiming, raping, torturing, of innocent human beings who just want to live their lives in peace and harmony.
Does that make me anti-Semitic? You decide.