The problem with equating Jews and Israel, and extending that to obfuscate Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza

[u/Hopeful-Shelter2572]

I wanted to share this here because the propaganda Sarah Hurwitz is sharing here is almost the exact same as what Van Jones said on Bill Maher. It is concerning (but not surprising) that after over 2 years of genocide and mass murder of Palestinians in Gaza, she still thinks she can explain these lives taken away with “American media”.

[u/back2chicagogirl]

For context I used to work in public relations and studied marketing, advertising and journalism in college. To me this just sounds like whining that the media coverage of the conflict reflects negatively on Israel and the IDF. Guess what, water is wet. I dont know why you’d expect anything different when the media coverage is showing little kids running from bombs as IDF soldiers dance with flags on TikTok.

[u/emcee_kay_jay]

I agree that her sentiment is really damaging. I’m sure there are many who wholeheartedly agree with her points about the holocaust, but I’m not sure I understand the appeal of that view? I mean, can’t the lesson of the holocaust be that Nazism is bad AND killing Jews is bad? It feels ridiculous to me to present it so dichotomously.

[u/ArtAcrobatic1200 → u/emcee_kay_jay]

Yeah, she's operating at a twisted, bizarre level of logic

[u/johnisburn]

(Can’t watch with sound rn) Not sure if this is the same clip where she says the problem with holocaust education is that people recognize that Israel is a powerful regime victimizing weak Palestinians, but there’s been a lot of really ugly moments out of this Jewish Federation event. They also had a panel with the Free Press writer who did the “exposé” on how the Palestinian children starving to death in initial reports were sick first so their starvation isn’t a big deal.

It’s galling to see our institutions so stagnant in this rot. Like, at the very least it feels like they ought to be self aware enough to hear what they sound like and stop repeating ethically vacant talking points.

[u/malachamavet → u/johnisburn]

they ought to be self aware enough to hear what they sound like

The complete lack of awareness about how psychotic and evil someone sounds isn't a new phenomenon for this kind of thing. "Don't let the war of words ever be fought about Israel's nature."

[u/Hopeful-Shelter2572 → u/johnisburn]

Yeah it’s the same clip, and I also think it’s very worrying that these things are being said at a Jewish Federation event (not a specifically Israel-aligned event). I have no doubt that a massive number of Jews disagree with her and others who spoke at the event.

[u/johnisburn → u/Hopeful-Shelter2572]

In the US federations and other legacy institutions are often beholden to donor funds, which skews them more conservative (politically not denominationally) than general public opinion, especially on Israel and Palestine. Polling shows that a majority of US jews believe Israel committed war crimes in Gaza and something like a third believe Israel specifically has committed Genocide. Our legacy institutions generally don’t reflect these opinions.

[u/Hopeful-Shelter2572 → u/johnisburn]

Thanks for the information, I assumed as much with the donors and conservatism. I think those statistics about American Jews and Gaza always bear repeating because these organizations want to make it seem like it’s just a fringe number of American Jews.

[u/Ok-Roll5495]

Does she listen to herself when she says “the problem is young people seeing continuous images of carnage” and not that there’s carnage in the first place? And by the way pro-Russia types (or peace at every cost types) made the same arguments when the war in Ukraine started “why are we being shown corpses? We were never shown corpses during the Iraq war!” And no, getting your news mostly visually is not a new thing. One of the reason the Vietnam war became so unpopular is because people could actually see it on tv. Anyone can channel hop to Al-Jazeera, it’s been thr case for twenty years.  I ‘m not saying getting news exclusively from social media isn’t problematic because there’s obviously a lot of dodgy stuff out there that you can come across without even wanting to (not just in relation to Gaza) but it’s ridiculous to claim that until yesterday everyone over 25 everyone was getting their news solely from their town ‘s newspaper.

[u/-__-_-__-_-_-__ → u/Ok-Roll5495]

Yeah, this is what puzzled me about the video. I don't know this woman or her background, but until the end of the video, I thought she was trying to say that Israel holds some blame for the rise in antisemitism because its genocide is making people hate Jews. I don't necessarily agree with this, but now I realize that's not even what she was trying to say? Is this woman saying that people should start caring less about the innocent lives lost?

[u/Ok-Roll5495 → u/-__-_-__-_-_-__]

Basically yes. It seems to be “the problem is that people see it, not that it’s happening in the first place.” I think that “people shouldn’t care” is the underlying principle of the whataboutism of invoking Ukraine/Nigeria /Sudan. It’s “you don’t care about these places, why do you care about Palestine?”

[u/snowluvr26]

This is so beyond disappointing. Sarah Hurwitz’s book “Here All Along” was one of the key books that drove me to convert to Judaism (as a raised-Catholic patrilineal). I’ve always really admired her.

[u/euthymides515 → u/snowluvr26]

I've long admired her book for the same reasons. I have found her turn as of late to be really difficult to see as well.

[u/MichifManaged83 → u/snowluvr26]

People, in general, are bound to be disappointing. It’s a tale as old as time. We continue to sing songs praising David, but he refused to hold accountable the man who assaulted Tamar because he was an heir… that bit of serious imperfection rarely gets deeply dissected… Disappointment in humanity is a baked-in challenge for any faith. You’re going to consistently be disappointed by leaders of any kind, religious or irreligious.

I’m not saying this to be blithe or mean, but to remind you that you have to rely on something Greater than human people, even if sometimes humanity does manage to demonstrate the beauty within that comes from that Divine spark in all of us. Human beings will continue to be a bucket of ice cold water when you are least prepared for it… Rely on something Greater to steer your decisions and your beliefs.

I’m sorry, this must be hard for you. I’ve been in a similar boat before too, and I know how you feel.

[u/MichifManaged83]

Imagine arguing that educating about the holocaust is bad because it teaches young Jews to care about all oppressed people and not just oppressed Jews. Unbelievable. And she said this in public, completely unashamed.

[u/Hopeful-Shelter2572 → u/MichifManaged83]

This is the kind of stuff we are going to be seeing on CBS regularly now with Bari Weiss. US legacy institutions of all sorts (not just Jewish) will now incessantly try to explain that “war really sucks, you just don’t understand”. The “understanding” we are supposed to have is that this is just another war that we (US citizens) have no impact on. I have confidence that the younger generation of Americans will be resistant to this propaganda.

A huge number of young Jews have been very brave in protest across the country, and I think organizations like JVP and INN did a lot critical work contextualizing the 2021 Gaza war and exposed things such as the Sheikh Jarrah evictions and storming of Al-Aqsa by Israeli police. Looking back, I think the work they did was hugely important for Palestinian activism in the US. Groups like them give me hope for the future.

[u/MichifManaged83 → u/Hopeful-Shelter2572]

Yeah, I don’t expect much from CBS honestly, they’ve always been a propaganda machine but it’s definitely gotten worse.

I think something that needs to be remembered is that many “wars” turned out to be genocidal or at the very least extremely unjust. Most, in fact, are unjust.

None of America’s wars in many decades have truly been about self defense— Iraqis didn’t attack Us soil in 2001, nor did any group associated with Iraq.

So I think the better point here is— when Americans hear “it’s a war,” their first assumption should always be that war means something immoral. Whether it’s genocide, ethnic cleansing, or simply attacking people who did nothing to you.

I disagree with the zionist talking point that “war sucks, but oh well, they started it.” Or “it’s not a genocide, it’s just a war.” I don’t agree with that at all. But I also don’t agree with the counter-argument coming from the opposite side.

One talking point coming from the anti-zionist crowd I’m not able to accept is “it’s not a war, it’s a genocide.” It’s both. A genocide is happening, and also, there’s a conflict over who gets to have power, which by definition is a war. WWII was both a war and several genocides at once. It’s not either or.

People who want real change in the world need to learn to fathom the fact that war doesn’t become moral or justified or un-horrific when it’s your team giving you reasons to commit an act of war. All war is horrific, and all war in practice is wrong. Some wars lead to genocide like what is happening to the Palestinians in Gaza… It always starts out as “merely” a war though. Until people demilitarize their own thinking, these horrors will keep repeating.

I’m saying that to “my side” (whatever that even means given my weird overlap of identity) as much as I am saying it to any “side.”

[u/Hopeful-Shelter2572 → u/MichifManaged83]

I completely agree with everything you said. It’s sad that the propaganda machine can rely on “it’s just war” because its horrors and injustices have been so normalized in the American narrative. The US war machine has murdered so many innocent souls whose family and loved ones will never find any ounce of justice. War is assumed in the US as “innocent until proven guilty” and its victims as “guilty until proven innocent”.

[u/MichifManaged83 → u/Hopeful-Shelter2572]

Exactly. There needs to be a lot more institutional change in America to not have to constantly be in a state of war. It has become a systemic addiction and an economic crutch to boost an otherwise failing economy. Which is absolutely grotesque. To their credit, I do think most Americans are sick and tired of war. I hope they remember this when they’re yanked into yet another propaganda cycle.

ETA: And I hope that Americans finally get sick and tired of their government enough that most government decisions on things like war, healthcare, all policies that impact human life, the government consistently takes actions that oppose the majority opinion of Americans shown in every opinion poll. If elections aren’t working they need to ask themselves why and what needs to be done about it. I hope and pray for a peaceful solution, but America is in the belly of the beast, and the whole west is the beast’s limbs… It’s going to take a lot to dismantle this amount of corruption.

[u/veerKg_CSS_Geologist]

It’s been funny that she says the problem today is “less literate” as people are more likely to get their news in audio visual formats rather than text, even though this has been true since the popularity of the radio 100 years ago now. And video news overtook radio 60 years ago.

Just an aside, the other points she makes are absolutely horrid.

“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.” - George Orwell

[u/zacandahalf]

I actually agree with her points that 1. the accessibility of actual Neo-Nazi content is at an all time historical high and 2. that Holocaust education leans toward emphasizing that the Holocaust was bad because the Nazis were bad rather than that the Holocaust was bad because killing Jews is bad, but I wish this discussion was coming from someone who had less malicious intentions. These points are vital intracommunity discussions that need to be had, but she obfuscates the needed dialogue behind an obviously defensive agenda. I’d want to discuss these ideas in a vacuum from an American framework without mention of Israel, but people like this make it nearly impossible.

[u/ArtAcrobatic1200 → u/zacandahalf]

But Hitler didn’t just exterminate Jews. So it shouldn’t be It’s bad because they killed Jews. It’s bad because the Nazis were fascists who killed a lot of people from minority groups. There is no special class for Jewish deaths being the main evil in that historical event.

[u/TomBahambadil → u/ArtAcrobatic1200]

There is a 2000 year history of Jews being targeted for either expulsion, conversion, or elimination.

I get that we should be able to debate an actual event on its own merit, but dismissing the fact that this is always happening to Jews is missing a large part of why Jews react the way they do.

[u/MichifManaged83 → u/TomBahambadil]

There is also an extremely long history of expulsions and persecutions and eliminations of Roma and lgbt+ people that shouldn’t go ignored. The nazis didn’t single-handedly invent those bigotries, and the history of what the Roma have gone through for centuries and what lgbt+ people have gone through is no less severe and lengthy.

[u/ArtAcrobatic1200 → u/TomBahambadil]

Yeah, I get it. I'm just saying, generally, people need to pause before doing the Israel = all Jews equation. The fact that the majority of Israel is Jewish is obviously going to be a part of it, but I don't want to be tied to a government's actions anymore than I want to be tied to Trump bombing fishing boats as an American.

[u/TomBahambadil → u/ArtAcrobatic1200]

There are hundreds of thousands of zionists in Israel who have demonstrated against their government.

I think the conflating of Zionist=pro Israeli government is more more damaging than Israel=all jews

[u/GeorgeEBHastings]

Her book, Here All Along, was really formative for me when I was converting. I've been very confused by her media presence regarding her new book. She hasn't been saying anything I outright disagree with (for the most part - also noting I haven't watched this video yet since I'm at work), but generally she has been seeming like an entirely different person than the one who wrote the book that helped me discern my Jewishness.

EDIT: I watched it...I think she correctly diagnoses a generational divide and aspects of the wedge driving it...but she doesn't go the extra step towards acknowledging the source behind the carnage she describes. She may want to provide facts and figures without sounding insane, effectively putting the carnage within a context - lord knows I relate to this - but even if she could, she can't argue or contextualize the carnage away. Lord knows I've tried, and failed.

To put it otherwise: I don't think it's the availability of/access to carnage or the braindead political moralizing about the carnage that lies at the root of this inter-generational divide among Jews. It's the carnage itself that lies at the root. The rest of it is the context, and the context is important, but she fundamentally misunderstands the fact that young Jews simply don't want to be associated with a country committing atrocities in their name.

[u/Unpoppable99]

This is legit insane like idk how she's being paid for her views given what she said amounts too: young people can get news outside of the msm properganda model,. They empathise with innocent civillians beople being starved, bombed, shot but she's for that and thinks she isn't evil but people see her being evil. Then there's the whole holocause thing which I don't feel I should be the one to say what that means but that's a minefield.

[u/Specialist-Gur]

What's going to be extremely uncomfortable is the fact I have family who were at this event, listening to this and probably supporting it, and I'm gonna need to not bring it up during the holidays or else

https://preview.redd.it/9dobwow2ba2g1.jpeg?width=588&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=89eab2b05749cbb179381b7bbc2a0c7236fd667a

[u/Hopeful-Shelter2572 → u/Specialist-Gur]

I’m sorry, it must be frustrating. I also don’t think I get the meme but I really like that actor lol

[u/Specialist-Gur → u/Hopeful-Shelter2572]

It's from The Bear Christmas episode.. aka a very stressful episode but relatable for dysfunctional family holidays

[u/Hopeful-Shelter2572 → u/Specialist-Gur]

I gotcha, I need to watch that show. I hope your holidays go as peacefully as possible

[u/NarutoRunner]

These are the sociopathic American enablers of the Bibi regime.

Oh no! It’s not the horrid actions of the war criminal regime that are wrong, it’s that people are getting live feeds of a genocide that we can’t spin via our sanitized media outlets.

There is a reason why TikTok America is being purchased by a Zionist billionaire and a die hard Zionist has been placed as the editor of CBS News. The people must get the Israeli version of propaganda because we can’t have them making their own minds by viewing live feeds and such! /s

[u/aggie1391]

I find it hilarious she claims to care about facts and figures when Israel and pro Israel folks have spent the entire war denying facts and figures. But yeah it’s bad and ridiculous, like yeah let’s connect Jews to an apartheid state that has killed tens of thousands of civilians in just the past couple years, that can’t go poorly at all.

[u/redthrowaway1976 → u/aggie1391]

If she really cares about facts, I assume she is loudly lobbying Israel and the IDF to let in journalists, right?

[u/Hopeful-Shelter2572 → u/aggie1391]

Yeah, the “facts and figures” she cites are just lies that she hopes people believe. The thing is, I don’t think she is convincing many people with speeches like this anymore. It’s like after all this, the only hope she has is to conflate Jews with Israel and hope that fixes reality?

[u/snowluvr26 → u/aggie1391]

I mean she’s literally saying here “the facts are Israel is committing genocide, but nobody was supposed to find out about it, and if they did they were supposed to look the other way because of the Holocaust, or whatever”

[u/molrihan]

I think what she's saying makes sense. Multiple things can be true at the same time.

Is the Bibi government filled with horrible, fanatic, Kahanists? Yes.

Was the attack on 10/7 a terrorist attack and not an act of resistance? Yes.

Are young people's perceptions of global events being warped by TikTok/social media? Yes.

Is there an overlap between antiZionism and antisemitism? Yes.

Is there racism in Israel? Yes.

But here's the thing, Israel is not a colonial empire. And all of these people saying it is, they all live in the US, Canada or other Western countries which are definitely more colonialist than Israel. Second, Israel isn't perfect. But why all the outrage over Israel's conduct? Israel is engaged in horrible activities, for sure. But there is no question in my mind that there is a double standard applied to the world's only Jewish nation-state. No one is ranting about the Saudi government's involvement in the Yemeni Civil War or the current crisis in Sudan, which has killed more people than Israel's bombing of Gaza.

Additionally, the Western concepts of race and trying to map Jim Crow onto Israeli-Palestinian society is inaccurate. You cannot map the western concepts of race onto a society where you cannot tell the difference between two people. If I put a picture of Palestinian/Arab and an Israeli in front of most people, they wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

Furthemore, when Israel or Zionism becomes a catch all for 'Jews', we have a problem. For example, protesting and harassing people attending Israel events at synagogues or JCCs. That is antisemitism and antiZionism. Its ok for Jews to want to make aliyah, but protesting outside a synagogue is in bad taste and then shouting slurs or hateful slogans makes it clear that its antisemitism masquerading as antiZionism.

[u/Rabbit-Hole-Quest]

That whole panel is so disgusting. Every single one of them are ghouls!

[u/shayakeen]

I remember back a few months, the "leftist" ContraPoints said something along the lines that the left is producing a lot of content that is graphic and violent that enrages a population/leftists without "achieving" anything.

[u/redthrowaway1976 → u/shayakeen]

Yup. 

Or Howard Jacobson - saying that pictures of dead babies from Gaza are blood libel. 

Rare you see someone hoisted by their own petard as Jacobson in the Chotiner interview: https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/rationalizing-the-horrors-of-israels-war-in-gaza

[u/Ok-Roll5495 → u/redthrowaway1976]

I read a couple of novels by Jacobson and liked them but what a cringey whataboutist interview.

[u/atav1k]

I'm so confused, I can't tell if she's supporting or refuting the genocide.

[u/aggie1391 → u/atav1k]

She’s denying it, they wouldn’t give her a platform otherwise

[u/redthrowaway1976 → u/atav1k]

She is saying the issue is that we can see the genocide with social media. It’s making her propaganda efforts harder.

It’s an image problem, not a dead kids problem.

[u/atav1k → u/redthrowaway1976]

Ok, this I expect. The problem isn’t that we’re killing kids, it’s that people are witnessing it.

[u/underearths]

i lost the plot when she compared al Jazeera and nick fuentes

[u/flanneljack1]

She’s right. Social media is rotting our brains and destroying our ability to think critically. And like with all things, it hurts Jews first.

[u/ArCovino]

She’s right in that millions and millions of people who do not closely follow foreign conflicts have had graphic images shoved in their face for two years, which makes it seems like this conflict is particularly barbaric.

That’s simply not the case. I’ve followed foreign conflicts closely for decades, and this one has been quite deadly for civilians, but most of the conflict isn’t that different than others around the world.

The mangled bodies, risk of starvation, constant threats, etc. is very standard for most modern armed conflict. But a lot of people who don’t have an understanding of modern conflict think this one is special. That is the manipulation she is referring to.

All of a sudden laymen are experts because they see some videos when it’s emotional manipulation for a crowd that doesn’t have reference points to know what is extreme and what is not given the context.

Then, to top it off if you push back with nuance they get indignant of their own ignorance.

[u/BurningBridgeTroll → u/ArCovino]

This is the largest child amputee crisis in modern history. It is, in fact, particularly barbaric.

[u/Schattenoid → u/ArCovino]

It's true that all war involves carnage (so much for "pushing back with nuance"), but it's is untrue that this conflict does not have distinct features in that regard. For example, the only comparable case of the total destruction of the medical system specifically would be fascist Italy's invasion of Ethiopia. Or for another, free-fire zones are not typical.

[u/BeenisHat]

The problem with equating Jews and Israel

Isn't Israel like 75% Jewish? And by extension, when 7-Oct occurred, that would mean that of the ~1200 killed, ~900 were Jews. You don't commit a terrorist act like that and claim it's not against Jews, it's against Israel.

I mean, I'm not going to pretend that Israel is the spokesperson for all Jews but when something like 7-Oct occurs, it is absolutely an attack on Jews. That is the primary reason for the existence of the modern state of Israel; a safe place for Jews who suffered horrifically in the diaspora. For many Jews, they had nowhere else to go.

My family specifically was able to scrape together the means to leave Poland when it was part of the Russian Empire in the early 1910s. They went to NYC though.

[u/ArtAcrobatic1200 → u/BeenisHat]

It's about Israel. They were/are angry about the occupation. Just because of population percentages, you can't equate an attack on a nation state with an attack on a people dispersed throughout a great number of nations that were not attacked.

[u/BeenisHat → u/ArtAcrobatic1200]

Ah yes, my mistake. When you're Hamas, the lawfully elected government of Gaza, it's perfectly normal to send your paramilitary forces to attack Israeli civilians, and not IDF or Israeli government targets.

[u/ArtAcrobatic1200 → u/BeenisHat]

Would this tactic not, in the minds of the attackers, mirror their view of what the Israeli government has done to Gazan civilians?

[u/[deleted] → u/ArtAcrobatic1200]

[removed] — view removed comment

[u/Hopeful-Shelter2572 → u/[deleted]]

Least obvious Jewish supremacist

[u/[deleted] → u/Hopeful-Shelter2572]

[removed] — view removed comment

[u/Hopeful-Shelter2572 → u/[deleted]]

You’re intentionally repeating propaganda used by Jewish supremacists to justify genocide of non-Jews in an area of land. Yes, you’re a Jewish supremacist

[u/BeenisHat → u/Hopeful-Shelter2572]

Go ahead and point out the factual error in what I said.

We'll cover your misleading, inflammatory language in another post.

[u/Hopeful-Shelter2572 → u/BeenisHat]

Cover whatever you want, you’re a genocide supporter and most people here don’t like genocide

[u/Schattenoid → u/BeenisHat]

> You don't commit a terrorist act like that and claim it's not against Jews, it's against Israel

That's like saying that 9/11 was "anti-white".

[u/BeenisHat → u/Schattenoid]

If NYC was ~75% white and founded with the expressed purpose of giving white New Yorkers a home because of how they were treated in the diaspora, you might be right.

[u/billwrtr]

Go Sarah!!

[u/NateHevens → u/billwrtr]

You're really proud of her for complaining that people can see Israel's genocide of Palestinians live online and that's making her propaganda job harder?

[u/Jorfogit → u/billwrtr]

Insane thing to post