This is so stupid, I should probably just walk away, but I think I've been permabanned, so it's worth a try.
The context is a thread titled "Israeli minister says Israel has created and owns the European far right parties". It consists of a screenshot of a tweet auto-translated from french about an Israeli minister talking about building a network of relationships with European far right parties.
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Which mod was PTB: @MysticMushroom1776@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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What sanction was imposed: comments removed (whatever), ban from the community !europe@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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Screenshot of the modlog entry, attached.
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The context of the posts that were originally removed is basically:
- a factual post that OP's title does not follow from the content. The tweet talks about Israel helping build the European far right alliance, not "creating" and "owning" the European far right.
- In response to another user pushing back, I think we got a bit of a misunderstanding with the meaning of the word "conspiracy", with me taking the word literally and arguing that the framing of "conspiracy" is basically an antisemitic trope harkening to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. There is a bit of (I think respectful) back and forth, which I think basically would have been resolved in a couple more turns.
- The mod intervenes and removes my posts without banning me yet. The mod accuses me of "dismissing anti-Zionism as antisemitic conspiracies", "parroting pro-Zionist rhetoric" and "apologia" and "accusations of antisemitism".
- I respond to the mod, underneath and that gets me banned. I don't seem to have access to the post that triggered the ban, it does not appear in the modlog, but after the mod removed a 3 posts with the accusation of trolling, bad faith, zionist apologia and zionist rhetoric, I basically said "you misunderstood me, but I'm not going to "try to play chess with a pigeon", just FYI I was not trolling, I was arguing in good faith and I was trying to say that we don't need employ harmful antisemitic tropes in antizionist rhetoric". I guess the most offensive thing I said was the pigeon-playing-chess, thing.
- That gets me banned as a "bad faith zionist troll", with a nice little final message "Sayonara you worthless Zionist apologist." Power tripping much?
- Why I think that's unfair, and what I would ask as remedy:
Read my freaking posts. I am not doing zionist apologia. I'm not pushing zionist rhetoric. I am not trolling, and I'm engaging in good faith. I'm repeatedly referring to Israel as the "genocidal Israeli apartheid regime".
What I am doing is pointing out that the conspiratorial framing is unnecessary and harmful. I am not conflating antizionism with antisemitism, I quite specifically say so. What I am saying is that "there exist antisemitic ways of doing antizionist politics", which, I don't know man, I think it's ...pretty obvious? My strongest claim is in the longer of my removed comments:
it is possible to do anti-Zionist politics in an anti-Semitic way. Let's not fucking do that. Let's instead do anti-Zionist politics in an anti-fascist way.
This is basic shit, no? In what fucking way is saying "let's do anti-Zionist politics in an anti-fascist way" even remotely "zionist apologia"?! I mean, come on.
In terms of the substance of my disagreement in the discussion that was interrupted, I honestly think that it was a misunderstanding about the word "conspiracy" that would have been resolved in a couple of turns. In my view, the Israeli regime is publicly organizing the European fascists, so there is no "conspiracy", it's literally in the open. The conspiratorial framing only hurts the antizionist attack, because of its antisemitic roots. Before the mod intervened to gut the discussion, I was trying to clarify the language of "conspiracy" with the other user.
To summarize: I think the mod jumped the gun, being triggered by the word "antisemitism". Yes, the Israeli propaganda machine uses the accusation of antisemitism as chaff, but that doesn't mean we need to turn off our own critical thinking. We can freaking do better than give actual pro-Israeli apologists hooks to accuse the antizionist movement of antisemitism.
As a remedy, just lift the ban, for fuck's sake.
EDIT: I'm unsure how the notifications work, but for full transparency, I have just sent the mod this DM, to let zir know that I started this thread:
If it is bad etiquette to send such a heads up via DM, I apologize and take responsibility.
EDIT2: Seems like some trolls and sock puppets have been brigading the thread and posting zionist shit and unacceptable language directed at the mod. I also see the mod locked the original thread due to some of those sock puppets spilling over to there. That's all just shitty and toxic for any kind of nuanced discussion in our communities, as well as any kind of reasonable resolution to this mess. So stupid. I never meant this to spawn a freaking harassment campaign, this is so frustrating. Boo.
You say "pretend" as if I was lying? I do think that in the context of the original thread that was saying that basically Israel "created and owns" European fascist parties, the conspiratorial framing is an anti-Semitic trope. It takes actual historical social and political forces and shoehorns them into a frame that they are inventions in the service of Israel. What actually happened is that European fascism grew organically from endogenous European contradictions, and the Israeli apartheid regime found it natural to ally with it. This was done publicly, therefore a conspiratorial framing is inaccurate and only serves as a hook for old-school antisemitic tropes. My argument is "let's avoid these risky tropes". I am not pretending anything. But for some reason it seems some people are so burned by Zionist propaganda that they have forgotten that antisemism exists in Western political discourse regardless of its shameless weaponization by Israel.
It’s a Zionist trope to pretend everything Israel does is an antisemetic trope.
This is literally a high ranking member of the Israeli government explaining what they are doing, it is not an antisemetic conspiracy it is a stated fact.
Why are you ignoring the person in the video saying these things and trying to frame it as “the right in Europe existed before”? If Netanyahu came out himself and said “We are commiting genocide in Gaza” would your response be to say it’s antisemitic and people were dying in Gaza from old age already?
Did I "pretend everything Israel does is an antisemic trope"? No I did not. I have been calling it a genocidal apartheid regime throughout. So your characterization of my position and your ridiculous counterfactual are just factually ungrounded. You're fighting something that is not my position.
And if you actually watch the goddamn video, the Israeli guy is not saying that Israel created the European far right. He's saying they helped build the network. They connected the dots. But again, that's not a "conspiracy" any more than, say, leaders of European liberal parties coming together at a Liberal International convention, or like Trotskyist groups coordinating at the Reunified Fourth International. Political parties talk to each other. That's not conspiracy, it's freaking politics. And the Israeli minister saying that the regime played a role in coordinating European far right parties is not "admitting a conspiracy", it's bragging about doing international fascist politics.
All I'm fucking saying and somehow people cannot fucking wrap their heads around it, is that in this case (not in "everything Israel does"), using a conspiratorial description ("created and owns") of ordinary international party politics is playing into an old antisemitic trope about Jews pulling strings behind the scenes. There are no strings behind scenes, and Israel does not "own" European fascists. Describe what's actually happening without using fucking cloak and dagger antisemitic tropes.
To explain it like you're freaking five years old: Old timey bad people used to say all Jews are bad people that do conspiracies. Israel that is made up of Jews is doing a very bad thing: it helps fascists. But it does it in the open. Doing stuff in the open is not a conspiracy. So in this case you don't need to sound like old timey bad people accusing the Israeli Jews of doing conspiracies. You can and should be mad at Israel for the very bad things they do without making it sound like old timey bad people.
If I sound annoyed it's because I've made the same argument like 5 times and people still can't get it through their thick skulls. One idiot even called me a Zionist apologist for it and here we are.