Hi, I saw a post on here the other day implying that Russia is pushing/making pro-Palestine propaganda (something along the lines of its surprisingly easy for Tumblr users to fall for Russian propaganda using the pro-Palestine movement as an example). I feel like I've heard this before but nothing concrete, and I'm genuinely curious if you know whether this is happening and to what extent?
These images illustrate how the Soviet Union visually equated Zionism with Nazism and colonialism throughout the 1960s and 70s.
You’ll notice striking similarities between these graphics and the infographics commonly seen on social media today.
This is not coincidence.
Most of the slogans and frameworks used in the “Free Palestine” movement today weren’t created by Gen Z activists. They were engineered by the KGB and Soviet Agitprop (Agitation and Propaganda) departments over 50 years ago.
The Great Pivot
In 1948, the USSR actually supported Israel. But when Israel aligned with the West, the Soviets needed a way to turn the “Global South” against them. They launched a massive ideological campaign to rebrand Zionism (the movement for Jewish self-determination) as a form of “white supremacist colonialism.”
They created a state-sponsored “science” called Zionology. The goal was simple: make Zionism synonymous with the world’s greatest evils (Nazism, Racism, and Imperialism) so that opposing Israel became a “progressive” moral requirement.
“Zionism is Racism” (UN Resolution 3379)
The crowning achievement of this era was the 1975 UN Resolution declaring “Zionism is a form of racism.” This wasn’t a grassroots human rights initiative; it was a Soviet-led diplomatic hit job.
Though the UN revoked it in 1991, the damage was permanent. It gave activists a “scholarly” and “international” license to treat the Jewish state as uniquely illegitimate. When you see modern infographics using these exact terms, you are seeing the tail-end of a 50-year-old Soviet PR campaign.
And yes, Russia is doing this again (along with Iran and Qatar).
Today, Russia (and its modern disinformation machine) uses the Israel-Palestine conflict in the West as a wedge issue. They don’t have to invent new lies. They just amplify existing tensions. By flooding platforms like Tumblr or Twitter with high-emotion content, they force Westerners to pick sides and fight each other.
If Russia can make young Americans believe their government is funding a genocide, it weakens domestic support for all Western foreign policy, including support for Ukraine.
—
It is surprisingly easy to fall for it because this propaganda is designed to look like social justice. It uses the language of liberation to hide its origins in Cold War geopolitics.
When you see a post that frames a 3,000-year-old indigenous connection as settler-colonialism, or equates the Star of David with a Swastika, you’re seeing a Soviet turd that’s been polished for 21st century “progressives.”
Going to add another source that covers specifically Academic "Antizionism" and how that derives from Zombie Soviet bullshit. Feel free to remove/ask me to delete if you don't feel it serves your point.
Hi, I saw a post on here the other day implying that Russia is pushing/making pro-Palestine propaganda (something along the lines of its surprisingly easy for Tumblr users to fall for Russian propaganda using the pro-Palestine movement as an example). I feel like I've heard this before but nothing concrete, and I'm genuinely curious if you know whether this is happening and to what extent?
These images illustrate how the Soviet Union visually equated Zionism with Nazism and colonialism throughout the 1960s and 70s.
You’ll notice striking similarities between these graphics and the infographics commonly seen on social media today.
This is not coincidence.
Most of the slogans and frameworks used in the “Free Palestine” movement today weren’t created by Gen Z activists. They were engineered by the KGB and Soviet Agitprop (Agitation and Propaganda) departments over 50 years ago.
The Great Pivot
In 1948, the USSR actually supported Israel. But when Israel aligned with the West, the Soviets needed a way to turn the “Global South” against them. They launched a massive ideological campaign to rebrand Zionism (the movement for Jewish self-determination) as a form of “white supremacist colonialism.”
They created a state-sponsored “science” called Zionology. The goal was simple: make Zionism synonymous with the world’s greatest evils (Nazism, Racism, and Imperialism) so that opposing Israel became a “progressive” moral requirement.
“Zionism is Racism” (UN Resolution 3379)
The crowning achievement of this era was the 1975 UN Resolution declaring “Zionism is a form of racism.” This wasn’t a grassroots human rights initiative; it was a Soviet-led diplomatic hit job.
Though the UN revoked it in 1991, the damage was permanent. It gave activists a “scholarly” and “international” license to treat the Jewish state as uniquely illegitimate. When you see modern infographics using these exact terms, you are seeing the tail-end of a 50-year-old Soviet PR campaign.
And yes, Russia is doing this again (along with Iran and Qatar).
Today, Russia (and its modern disinformation machine) uses the Israel-Palestine conflict in the West as a wedge issue. They don’t have to invent new lies. They just amplify existing tensions. By flooding platforms like Tumblr or Twitter with high-emotion content, they force Westerners to pick sides and fight each other.
If Russia can make young Americans believe their government is funding a genocide, it weakens domestic support for all Western foreign policy, including support for Ukraine.
—
It is surprisingly easy to fall for it because this propaganda is designed to look like social justice. It uses the language of liberation to hide its origins in Cold War geopolitics.
When you see a post that frames a 3,000-year-old indigenous connection as settler-colonialism, or equates the Star of David with a Swastika, you’re seeing a Soviet turd that’s been polished for 21st century “progressives.”
Going to add another source that covers specifically Academic "Antizionism" and how that derives from Zombie Soviet bullshit. Feel free to remove/ask me to delete if you don't feel it serves your point.
Even though I understand the First Amendment issues with them, I'm thrilled that there's been laws popping up in local and state legislatures saying that protesters can't be within a certain distance of houses of worship aka synagogues, especially in New York City where Mamdani is crying about that bill being essentially veto proof. Maybe if the Pro-Pals didn't get off on harassing Jews... I'm sorry, "Zionists" at their synagogues, maybe this wouldn't be a thing, now would it? They have nobody but themselves to blame and the schadenfreude of it all brings me so much happiness in these times.
i can’t take anyone seriously who’s mad about this because of the first amendment or whatever. we already have a similar law in place in new york (and in other states/municipalities) that establishes buffer zones at abortion clinics because of the history of targeted harassment and violence against them. and having worked at an abortion clinic for 7 years, i can assure you that the anti-abortion freaks are without a doubt still able to exercise their first amendment rights every. single. fucking. day. it just means that they’re not able to be right up at the building or intimidate/harass anyone (theoretically at least. they still get away with nonsense all the time that shouldn’t be allowed but that’s a whole other thing).
the double standard is just so blatant that it’s insulting.
I am the anon who sent in an ask about if antizionism is always antisemitic, which was quite a while ago.
I wanted to thank you for such a thoughtful response. Because of your response, I have, since then, been reading up on and learning more about antisemitism and its history (its very very long history).
Anyway, I recently finished the book “Why the Jews?” by Dennis Prager and Joseph Telushkin, which has an entire chapter dedicated to antizionist antisemitism. Before this, before your response, I had no idea how much antisemitism was on the left, which is ignorance on my part. Having done much reading and as the left has progressed further and further into antisemitism, I find that so much of what the left is saying in regards to Jews could have been and sometimes is pulled straight from Soviet era antisemitic propaganda.
I’m sure none of this is a surprise to you. I’m rambling though.
I want to say that your responses and care and thoughtfulness matter. They matter so much. Your response to my question prompted me to look deeper, to read more, and to understand something I had been ignorant about previously. So thank you. Thank you doesn’t really feel like enough, but I have no other words than that.
I wanted to know your thoughts on if antizionism could be not antisemitic? Most of what I see touted as antizionism reads antisemitic to me and I was curious to know if antizionism is inherently antisemitic?
You noticed that contemporary antizionist rhetoric seemed like Jew hatred. You did that just by paying attention and thinking critically.
Despite the fact that you’re not Jewish and the issue doesn’t much impact your life, you decided to submit the Ask.
The answer was submitted anonymously, so you weren’t notified when it was answered. This means you cared enough about the topic to come back looking for it.
You took the time to thoughtfully read the very long answer.
You decided to follow up by seeking out more information from multiple sources. You chose to spend time learning more.
Youdecided to look deeper, to read more, and to understand something you had been ignorant about previously. You did that.
Then you came back to close the loop and tell me what you’ve learned.
That was a gift, Anon. It gives me hope that hate can be fought with information and that there are still people who think critically and read broadly.
“Thank you” doesn’t really feel like enough, Anon - but please know this comes from the bottom of my heart: thank you.
So your post about mutilating a child always being wrong even if it’s for religious or cultural purposes, where do we land on circumcision in the “wrong or right” scale?
That only works as a gotcha’ if female genital mutilation and circumcision were the same kind of thing.
Because they are not, you’re not exposing a contradiction, you’re just dishonestly avoiding the difference in severity, intent, and outcome.
The example in the post is female genital mutilation. Let’s be clear what that involves, mkay?
WHO classification of FGM
Type I (Clitoridectomy) Partial or total removal of the clitoris (and sometimes the clitoral hood)
Type II (Excision) Removal of the clitoris and the labia minora (sometimes also labia majora)
Type III (Infibulation) Narrowing of the vaginal opening by cutting and repositioning the labia; may or may not include clitoral removal
Type IV (Other harmful procedures) Includes pricking, piercing, scraping, or cauterization
Types I and II are direct attempts to eliminate sexual function. These cause significant, permanent harm and carries serious medical risk.
Male circumcision does not do that. It does not eliminate sexual function, it does not operate with the same intent, it causes nothing like the same level of harm.
If you flatten those into the same category, that’s carelessness, not consistency.
That said, there’s still a real question underneath your comment.
I’m not enthusiastic about unnecessary cosmetic procedures on children who cannot consent - and that includes circumcision. Moral discomfort, though, exists on a spectrum, not a false binarism of “wrong or right” as you put it in your Ask.
FGM is an easy case. The harm is severe and targeted. Prohibition is justified.
Circumcision is not in that category. You can (and should, IMO) question its ethics without pretending it is equivalent.
(Related: There are aspects of some circumcisions I would absolutely favor banning. Metzitzah b’peh introduces a direct, preventable infection risk to infants and isn’t required by any religious standards. At that point, you’re no longer talking about an abstract cultural practice, but a concrete public health risk to a non-consenting child. That justifies regulation, including prohibition. I think it is a major failure that it isn’t totally banned in the US.)
So the framework doesn’t break.
Not all practices are equal. Some are clearly and severely harmful, and those are the ones that justify intervention.
If you want to argue about where circumcision belongs on that spectrum, that’s a real conversationwe could have - but pretending circumcision is the same mutilation as the excision of the clitoris is either clueless or dishonest.
Today, @edithsweetithh reminded me of the Mark Twain quote: "History doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes."
I don't trust the judgement or competence of the Trump administration. I don't know if this will turn out to have been a good idea -
...but people behaving as if the regime is something other than evil and profoundly dangerous to Iranians and the world are either useful idiots or propagandists.
this is an extremely unserious comparison. Antiwar sentiment here isn't the dumbass "well if America is the bad guy the other guy is the good guy" logic you see in twitter leftists who have missed the point by a mile. The American public has had at least 20 years of experience that leads them to think that regime change via airstrike isn't a very useful approach to geopolitics. "I don't trust the judgement or competence of the Trump administration" neither did I, and they've somehow done worse than I could've predicted. That's a pretty big factor in the protests too. And anyone who thinks the plight of the Iranian people is on their minds or part of their goals, they're the useful idiots here.
Well, you’re right they’re not the same, but both are idiots. These contemporary protestors aren’t just opposing Trump’s actions in Iran. Look closely.
Second, nobody thinks Trump is motivated by concern for the people of Iran.
The people of Iran and everyone else in the world who understands this regime don’t care.
Today, @edithsweetithh reminded me of the Mark Twain quote: “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.”
I don’t trust the judgement or competence of the Trump administration. I don’t know if this will turn out to have been a good idea -
…but people behaving as if the regime is something other than evil and profoundly dangerous to Iranians and the world are either useful idiots or propagandists.
So before I start, this is a genuine question, and if the answer is no then it's a no and I will take my disappointment and respect cultural boundaries. But I'm a Catholic and have felt a calling to wear tzittzit. I've discussed it with my Jewish friends and they said that it would be okay but don't be offended if I get mistaken as Jewish and also buy them from a Jewish owned business. But I also want an unbiased opinion. I tried to look up a Rabbi response but I couldn't find one when I googled my question, no matter how I worded it. Every time it's answered, it's by a Christian and it's very frustrating. The closest thing I found was an old response on a blog of a Jewish man discouraging it and suggested wearing rainbow tassels instead if a Christian REALLY wanted to wear them (rainbow to resemble the covenant G-d made with Noah). But I felt uneasy. So I hope you don't mind me asking you. So... is it allowed? Could I wear them? If no then would wearing non-kosher "tzittzit" be a good alternative or are they too similar? And are the rainbow tassels a good alternative? Again, no desire to be disrespectful to Jewish culture. I'm aware of the cultural significance and that's why I've been so hesitant. I'd just rather be safer than sorry, you know? Please forgive me if this is an ignorant or dumb question and may you have a wonderful timezone. :))
I believe you that you mean no disrespect, Anon - but I don’t think you understand what tzitzit actually are.
Do you know how many strings there are, and how many knots? Do you know why 613 matters? These aren’t trivia questions, the answers are the whole point of the garment. Tzitzit are a physical reminder of a specific covenantal obligation that observant Jewish men are bound to. That’s not incidental to what they are - it’s what they are.
If you look that up and really take it in, I think you’ll see the problem yourself. You’re Catholic. You weren’t going to wear them to fulfill that obligation. Your religious beliefs are not built on 613 mitzvot. They’re built on not just different beliefs, but different frameworks of belief.
“Cultural significance” tries to make this feel like a matter of cultural etiquette, and I’m choosing to believe that’s from ignorance, not dishonesty.
Tzitzit aren’t a cultural practice, they’re a mitzvah - a commandment. They have a specific legal architecture governing how they’re made, tied, and worn, and they exist because of and within a covenantal relationship between G-d and the Jewish people…to which you are not a party.
The research trail you describe also isn’t reassuring. You consulted (non-observant) Jewish friends who said yes, found a blogger who said no, and are now asking an internet stranger who has repeatedly described himself as a secular atheist.
I don’t know what’s in your heart, Anon, but this doesn’t seem like due diligence. It seems more like you’re shopping for permission and were hoping a secular atheist wouldn’t care.
The answer you kept not finding from Jews wasn’t a gap in the literature or you just having difficulty locating it. There are no writings by Jews about non-Jews following such mitzvot because it is neither expected nor appropriate for them to do so. Jewish thought only hopes that non-Jews will follow the Noahide laws and believes that good people of every faith
“Non-kosher tzitzit” have a simpler name: tassels. The commandment isn’t a dress code with a knockoff option. Wear tassels if you like, but please don’t call them tzitzit.
Your Catholic tradition has its own rich embodied prayer practices, including scapulars, rosaries, and hair shirts. The impulse to wear something that anchors you physically to your G-d is worth honoring, if you feel so moved - but not with tzitzit. They’re not yours, and they’re not for you to appropriate.
But I’m a Catholic and have felt a calling to wear tzittzit.
I’m trying to say this in the softest, most gentle way I can: You haven’t felt a calling. If you understood what they are, you’d know that. The hesitance you’re feeling is trying to tell you something important which you’ll understand better if you study the Church’s long, awful history of appropriation and supersessionism.
(@straynoahide, would you be up to recommending some reading as a Catholic of Jewish heritage who knows this history better than Anon? @sole-e-acqua, any reading you’d like to recommend as a Christian?)
If any frum Jews would be willing to share their views here, I’d appreciate it. Nobody in my family has worn tzitzit for at least a couple generations and your observant perspective might differ significantly from mine.
Please be kind and presume Anon is both sincere and asking without any unkind intent.
straynoahide-deactivated2026032
I think you summarized it pretty well.
I'd never weat tzitzit as an expression of hebrew heritage because they're specifically associated with Judaism and its religious ambit.
I believe in freedom of (sartorial) expression, so obviously I don't think it should be illegal, but it's a faux pas in public that will at best confuse and at worst offend a range of people. It's not a decision anybody can give "cultural permission" to because it's kinda a transgression.
I don't see any reason why it'd be an expression of catholic faith but I didn't catch any particular explanation either so if anon wants to clarify? Most people I know Catholic or Jewish would find it an expression of a Messianic identity which is a no-go.
Outside of the privacy of homes or closed worship places, most hebrew catholics I know are not visibly jewish because most of the expression of hebrew heritage comes as observance of traditions in community rather than particular self-expression values or "personal religion"
So before I start, this is a genuine question, and if the answer is no then it's a no and I will take my disappointment and respect cultural boundaries. But I'm a Catholic and have felt a calling to wear tzittzit. I've discussed it with my Jewish friends and they said that it would be okay but don't be offended if I get mistaken as Jewish and also buy them from a Jewish owned business. But I also want an unbiased opinion. I tried to look up a Rabbi response but I couldn't find one when I googled my question, no matter how I worded it. Every time it's answered, it's by a Christian and it's very frustrating. The closest thing I found was an old response on a blog of a Jewish man discouraging it and suggested wearing rainbow tassels instead if a Christian REALLY wanted to wear them (rainbow to resemble the covenant G-d made with Noah). But I felt uneasy. So I hope you don't mind me asking you. So... is it allowed? Could I wear them? If no then would wearing non-kosher "tzittzit" be a good alternative or are they too similar? And are the rainbow tassels a good alternative? Again, no desire to be disrespectful to Jewish culture. I'm aware of the cultural significance and that's why I've been so hesitant. I'd just rather be safer than sorry, you know? Please forgive me if this is an ignorant or dumb question and may you have a wonderful timezone. :))
I believe you that you mean no disrespect, Anon - but I don’t think you understand what tzitzit actually are.
Do you know how many strings there are, and how many knots? Do you know why 613 matters? These aren’t trivia questions, the answers are the whole point of the garment. Tzitzit are a physical reminder of a specific covenantal obligation that observant Jewish men are bound to. That’s not incidental to what they are - it’s what they are.
If you look that up and really take it in, I think you’ll see the problem yourself. You’re Catholic. You weren’t going to wear them to fulfill that obligation. Your religious beliefs are not built on 613 mitzvot. They’re built on not just different beliefs, but different frameworks of belief.
“Cultural significance” tries to make this feel like a matter of cultural etiquette, and I’m choosing to believe that’s from ignorance, not dishonesty.
Tzitzit aren’t a cultural practice, they’re a mitzvah - a commandment. They have a specific legal architecture governing how they’re made, tied, and worn, and they exist because of and within a covenantal relationship between G-d and the Jewish people…to which you are not a party.
The research trail you describe also isn’t reassuring. You consulted (non-observant) Jewish friends who said yes, found a blogger who said no, and are now asking an internet stranger who has repeatedly described himself as a secular atheist.
I don’t know what’s in your heart, Anon, but this doesn’t seem like due diligence. It seems more like you’re shopping for permission and were hoping a secular atheist wouldn’t care.
The answer you kept not finding from Jews wasn’t a gap in the literature or you just having difficulty locating it. There are no writings by Jews about non-Jews following such mitzvot because it is neither expected nor appropriate for them to do so. Jewish thought only hopes that non-Jews will follow the Noahide laws and believes that good people of every faith
“Non-kosher tzitzit” have a simpler name: tassels. The commandment isn’t a dress code with a knockoff option. Wear tassels if you like, but please don’t call them tzitzit.
Your Catholic tradition has its own rich embodied prayer practices, including scapulars, rosaries, and hair shirts. The impulse to wear something that anchors you physically to your G-d is worth honoring, if you feel so moved - but not with tzitzit. They’re not yours, and they’re not for you to appropriate.
But I’m a Catholic and have felt a calling to wear tzittzit.
I’m trying to say this in the softest, most gentle way I can: You haven’t felt a calling. If you understood what they are, you’d know that. The hesitance you’re feeling is trying to tell you something important which you’ll understand better if you study the Church’s long, awful history of appropriation and supersessionism.
(@straynoahide, would you be up to recommending some reading as a Catholic of Jewish heritage who knows this history better than Anon? @sole-e-acqua, any reading you’d like to recommend as a Christian?)
If any frum Jews would be willing to share their views here, I’d appreciate it. Nobody in my family has worn tzitzit for at least a couple generations and your observant perspective might differ significantly from mine.
Please be kind and presume Anon is both sincere and asking without any unkind intent.
Said was a great stylist, an influential literary critic, and a sloppy, dishonest, hypocritical ideologue engaged in historical revisionism.
Said’s central claim in Orientalism is that Western scholarship about the “East” functioned as a tool of domination, flattening diverse societies into a single, inferior “Other.” There’s definitely insight in that - some Western scholarship absolutely did that, especially in colonial contexts.
But then Said turns around and does exactly the same thing in a mirror.
He collapses centuries of heterogeneous Western thought into a single, continuous project of domination. He treats scholars with wildly different methods, motives, and conclusions as if they’re all engaged in the same intellectual conspiracy, driven solely by power, distortion, and bad faith. It’s not scholarship and it’s not analysis. It reads like he’s grinding an axe forged by an Arab civilizational inferiority complex.
Worse, he routinely misrepresents or selectively quotes sources to fit his hypocritical and dishonest framing. A number of historians and Middle East scholars have documented this in detail. The critique isn’t that he’s “controversial,” but that he plays fast and loose with evidence, cherry picking what suits his thesis and pretending the rest doesn’t exist.
And then there’s the question of agency. In Said’s framework, people in the Middle East often appear more as objects of Western discourse than as actors in their own right. That ends up reproducing intellectual paternalism, even as he dishonestly claims to object to it.
Just to be a nerd about this: I'm going to break the ones on the right down, and show how they're connected to the ones on the left.
This is long.
But if you're questioning some part of the meme above, you can scroll down and learn how these things are similar.
SKINHEADS VS KEFFIYEHS
Skinheads and people wearing keffiyehs are not inherently or necessarily biased against Jews. But as a group, we've seen a disproportionate amount of negativity and even violence against Jews from each one.
SWASTIKAS VS RED TRIANGLES
Swastikas are a symbol of a group that explicitly considers Jews the enemy; accuses them of controlling the international mass media and imperialistic nations with their wealth; starting and profiting from every war; corrupting societies; wanting to occupy the entire world; and having outlined this plan in the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion....
(The most: Black people. The third-most: Gay men. If you include the hate crimes against all groups in the LGBTQIA+ community, the total is larger, but still third.)
Worse: there are 7.55 times as many Black people in the U.S. as Jews. But there are about twice as many hate crimes against Black people as Jews. Which means that in terms of hate crimes per person, Jews win first prize?
If you're not Jewish, you're probably going, "But you can't trust the ADL!" And I have to tell you: these statistics are from the FBI, actually.
But this is a good moment to think about where your distrust of the ADL comes from. Was the source solid? Did you fact-check what it was saying?
If a different marginalized group said, "We've tracked the actions that harm us," and people outside that group said, "No they don't, you're just bad people who are trying to chill free speech," what would you think? Would you have the same reaction to that group as to the ADL?
Anyway, here's a fun tweet from Elon Musk:
ALT
Please note: that is an actual link preview from the actual link to his tweet. That is not a photoshopped fake tweet. The man literally said this, and I didn't see the Musk-hating progressive community even blink.
I've seen lots of "Jews are white" people also say that a secret cabal of Jews controls the media, the government, and/or the world. Sometimes they think the Israeli government is that secret cabal of Jews. Sometimes they think AIPAC is. Sometimes they just call it "Zionists."
Followed by a video in which a Jewish creator explains, "Some Jews are white, like me, but our whiteness is conditional, and that's why it's different…. we are [considered] white when it's convenient [for actual white people]. We are [considered] white when our whiteness boosts the numbers of white people in order to oppress people of color. We are white. until. we're fucking. NOT.
"And when we're not, we're almost hated in a different way because we can 'fool you' with our whiteness. We can assimilate. Which is why the man whose name starts with H put stars on our jackets. so we wouldn't trick anybody."
Which begs the question: if Jews are so obviously white, why did Jews from Morocco through Afghanistan need to wear special badges, belts, or even strings of bells, to make sure they weren't accidentally treated as equals there either?)
Back to the bullet points.
The argument I have seen made over and over, across social media platforms, is that Israel was founded by and is mostly made up of Ashkenazi Jews. I.e. Jews who immigrated from Europe. Who are, therefore, white people.
Literally: they came from Europe, therefore they're white.
This short gives a good overview of what's wrong with that theory. But basically, moving to an area with less sunlight will in fact make your descendants lighter-skinned. So will intermarriage and - though this video doesn't address it - rape.
Blood quantum emerged as a way to measure 'Indian-ness' through a construct of race. So that over time, Indians would literally breed themselves out and rid the federal government of their legal duties to uphold treaty obligations.
This is the inverse of the equally racist "one drop rule."
The one drop rule measured the amount of 'black blood' that black people had in society. And that ensured that every person who had at least one drop would be considered black and would be covered under these discriminatory laws and, even in the earlier days, enslaved.
Basically, if you have a way to exploit a group, you define them using "one drop." If you don't, then you just want to eliminate them. So you use "blood quantum"/DNA to argue them out of existence.
People will claim that research shows Ashkenazi Jews only have European DNA (false) and that's why DNA tests are illegal in Israel (false): because (((they))) don't want you to know they don't belong there!
There are 4,000+ years of continuous archeological and historical records showing that the Jewish people originated in Israel and are the only group that has continuously been there.
But we don't learn about the history of West Asia (the Middle East) in Western schools. So we default to our racist assumptions about the people there, and ignore and speak over all of them.
HOLOCAUST DENIAL VS HOLOCAUST INVERSION
Holocaust Inversion is a much easier one to explain.
Inversion is when you take a traumatizing experience of oppression that a group has experienced, and claim that actually, that group is the one committing that oppression on another.
White replacement/white genocide theories are a good example of that.
Like when white conservative groups, who are only here because their forebears violently replaced the existing populations (in some cases via actual genocide), claim that they're being deliberately "replaced" by indigenous people immigrating from farther south. And that the intention is somehow to commit genocide against them.
Inversion conveniently waters down what actually happened.
It relieves people of the perceived guilt from what their ancestors did, while awarding themselves the moral weight of it.
It's so, so juicy, you guys. It's such a good move. Who wouldn't want to turn, for example, the deliberate attempt to demonize all Jews, in order to gain the power to take over the world, while wiping them off the earth, and the mass enslavement of Jews along the way, into a war that has killed about as many Gazans as have been born during that time?
It simultaneously removes "you literally tried to kill all of us less than a century ago, don't talk to us about genocide" as an argument, and (ironically) gives you that healthy moral glow you feel from passionately arguing against the Holocaust.
Plus, it makes arguments against it sound like they're the ones minimizing it. It's very difficult to argue against exaggerations of the death toll, for instance, without sounding callous and uncaring of those who have been killed.
Ultimately, Holocaust inversion does the same thing as Holocaust denial.
Or to increase the number of non-Jews who were killed. To argue that it was not specifically an attempt to kill every Jew on earth. To argue that Jews weren't targeted at all.
By contrast, people commonly say, "what Israel is doing in Gaza is exactly like the Holocaust."
This is the equivalent of saying that the Nazi Party spent almost two years bombing a 140 square mile area where 15% of the Jews on earth lived. And attacking it through ground invasions. And that they let humanitarian aid in.
It's actually a brilliant way to erase both the Holocaust and October 7.
Because the assumption, and implication, is that Israel attacked Gaza in order to wipe Palestinians off the face of the earth. Or at least to drive them out of Gaza and grab the land.
Land where Israel had already destroyed all its settlements in 2005, when it pulled out of Gaza and turned it fully over to Palestinian rule. Land where all synagogues have been destroyed. I don't know why Israel would wait 20 years and then try to take the entire thing back. So far, nobody I've asked has been able to give me a reason for thinking that.
It erases the fact that Hamas invaded Israel and mutilated, tortured, and burned its way across an area larger than the Gaza Strip itself, in just one day.
Doesn't matter what it's called, it's been doing the same shit the whole time. Including empire-building invasions.
And part of the way it scapegoated and mass-murdered Jews was by creating some of the worst, most powerful antisemitic propaganda the world has ever seen, and actively spreading it around the world.
The Nazi Party had the same playbook. Land, propaganda, murder, profit.
And it drew HEAVILY from the Russian playbook. It even integrated the Protocols of the Elders of Zion into its massive propaganda machine.
It was especially heartened by the fact that nobody lifted a finger against Russia for killing and cleansing a total of probably 500,000 Jews.
The main difference is: because the Nazi Party was willing to do the killing itself, and to industrialize it, it was able to kill 2 out of every 3 Jews in all of Europe. 90%+ of the Jews in the countries it occupied. Along with all the Jews who were just killed by civilians who believed in the cause.
It's especially awful that people claim Israel was founded by "white European colonizer Jews," when "white European colonizers" spent so much time and effort trying to wipe the Jews out during that time.
It's also just plain annoying that people misinterpret early Zionist writings as meaning, "we're powerful colonizers!" when, for the first 40 years of the Zionist movement, that was literally the Ottoman Empire.
I asked someone recently how she could claim those Jews were colonizing a literal empire. The response was that they were obviously colonizers, because they came from Europe.
Please send help.
RIGHT WING VS LEFT WING
This is purely a matter of what other issues you support, and - sometimes - how you frame your arguments.
I literally can't tell the difference on Twitter anymore.
Like, ok:
ALT
She's responding to French president Emmanuel Macron saying France stands with Lebanon. "Exterminating the population" is Holocaust inversion. I'm going to guess that this is a leftist, based on the "all of humanity" wording, but I literally don't know. Let's find out!
Her header says, "The whole world is my temple, love is my sanctuary, the universe is my homeland." She's white and blonde as heck, which maybe explains why she feels like the entire universe is her homeland.
Her retweets are for USAID, against everyone in the Epstein files, against attacking Iran. She has one saying, "they lied to you about what a terrorist looks like," with a photo of some white dude I'm guessing is Pete Hesgeth or somebody. And another claiming that they lied to you about who bombed all the countries in West Asia - that it was not Iran, it was all "false flag operations" by the US and Israel.
(hilariously, one of the tweets claims that this was "revealed" by someone named "Krystal Ball." propagandists have realized they don't have to try anymore)
(Followed by a tweet claiming that "If we don't stop Israel in time, it will do to the entire world what it has already done to the Palestinians." Again, buying right into the standard-issue propaganda that comes from both Russia and the Nazis.)
Plus, it's in response to a politically conservative rabbi rejoicing that literal Nazis Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Joe Kent are no longer working in government.
Aaaaand.... I'm wrong.
His Twitter page implies that he's a Christian Nationalist. His most recent retweet is from a contest to win three guns. And he follows that by retweeting something claiming that your enemy if you're a Republican or Democrat is not the other party, it's Satanists. This one really clinches it:
ALT
oof.
Okay, last item!
OPEN BIGOTRY/RACE POLLUTERS VS ELIMINATIONISM/ZIONIST INQUISITION
This is very "potayto, potahto."
But only if both potatoes are green and poisonous.
I assume we all understand that openly being a bigot is bad. And that believing a group is "polluting" your race is also bad. So let's look at "eliminationism."
The most obvious example is the frequent claim that Israel is "Occupied Palestine"/"a failed state" that should be eliminated.
Some people who say this seem to think it's possible to just order a country's government to disband and hand the reins over to the neighboring government.
This would be especially complicated in the current situation, when Israelis are explicitly not allowed in almost any West Bank cities and it's a capital offense to sell land in Palestine to Israelis.
But also, that's just... literally not a thing. The way you get that would be by Palestine invading and conquering Israel. That's what you're talking about. And honestly, the government of Palestine doesn't seem to want that land or its people. That's a lot to dump on it all of a sudden.
Others who say this are clear that they mean someone should indeed invade and kill all the Zionists, by which they mean everyone in Israel. (Including about half the Jews on earth.)
Personally, I think that there should be a once-a-millennium limit on killing half the Jews on earth. (/s)
oh crap they're just gonna say they're taking this one early fuck shit fuck (/gen)
Literally, though, you cannot just sit there and call for the destruction of a country. You know that's calling for genocide.
Pervasive right-wing extremist themes on radio, television, and some online news sources (often as a modern-day replacement for hard-copy newspapers and newsletters).... support an increasingly passionate and virulent message in public discourse.
This message encourages persons who feel uneasy or displaced in society to expiate their grievances not through the political process, but through murder.
That paper points out that Americans tend to think our country is immune to such things - and that our history of lynching, among other things, disproves that.
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, there were thousands of lynchings. This was a direct reaction to the end of slavery. That's why (and when) the KKK and other white supremacist groups started.
Being a Jew in a predominantly Christian town could be fatal. However, courts recognized that if the defendant was a black man the likelihood of race-based hostility grew significantly.
....When a more or less silent majority discounts eliminationist rhetoric as "merely" symbolic, the message can manifest as action. Cultural symbols gain power by articulating aspects of a group narrative.
People generally talk about this as a right-wing, even fascist phenomenon.
But like.
ALT
This is a false binary. But it's a very fucking popular false binary.
Because let's be real: we're all very fucking angry about how shitty capitalism is. And especially American capitalism. And especially its impact on the American healthcare system. And it's fun to fantasize angrily that this one dude killing one healthcare CEO is going to get us universal coverage. Instead of having zero impact on the system.
Fantasizing that you can achieve major social change by just going out and killing people, and that doing that wouldn't fuck you up, makes people feel powerful. Which makes us happy.
It's fun to imagine taking your rage out on the people in power.
But it's kind of scary to see people cheering on the murder of someone they abstractly hate, when you've seen time and again that they also abstractly hate you.
An NYC group tried to incite a second Crown Heights riot in 2025, spreading the same old lies that started the first one. but this time, targeting the "jewish supremacist zios" who "martyred" the kid who died to a car accident.
"The research found that student groups have explicitly called for violence against Jews, with some justifying the terrorist attack at Bondi Beach in December, which killed 15 people and injured 40. Nearly half, 49 per cent, of students had heard slogans or chants glorifying Hamas, Hezbollah or other proscribed groups on campus, while 47 per cent have witnessed justification of the October 7 attacks."
As moderate voices remain silent or ineffective in the face of such events, extremist messages move from the fringe toward the center of public discourse.
ALT
By imbuing the message with religiosity, extremist positions and actions convert into "[h]oly wars and just causes [that] invite warriors to view battle as sacred drama."
“There are 4,000+ years of continuous archeological and historical records showing that the Jewish people originated in Israel and are the only group that has continuously been there.”
^^^^Why is this so hard for people to grasp.
Great read. I had NO idea how the Crown Heights incident went down - for years I’m sorry to say that I had also thought the Hatzalah ambulance abandoned that child.
Also wanted to add, regarding Jews and privilege -
It’s a lot more complex, but in a nutshell - a lot of Jewish success comes from multiple factors. While a small percentage of Jews who are light-skinned and not-visibly-Jewish like myself do have some privilege and advantages in the west when visibly out in the open, we do NOT benefit from white privilege.
We’re a tiny group with overlapping culture of emphasis of education despite diaspora. We were not allowed to have property in many countries in many time periods. PLUS we were often exiled out of places and lost whatever property we had. So education was all we had. Knowledge could not be taken.
We were not allowed “real” jobs. Medicine (especially in Europe) back in the day was basically considered what crystal healing is today, so it was a job that a lot of Jews were allowed to do and they did what they could to survive.
Dealing with money and jewelry was also considered materialistic and lowly, so we were allowed to do that too. And again, we thrived. Hence the Jewish banker stereotype.
We were not allowed medicine sometimes - New York City hospitals had often banned both Jewish doctors AND patients - so we founded our own, Mount Sinai Hospital.
We were not allowed to make our own stories. So we founded Hollywood, we helped found Broadway. Again we thrived because we learned that our work and education was our bread and butter. But… that became “Jews control media, Jews control Hollywood” etc.
It doesn’t mean we’re better than anyone, nor do we think we’re better than anyone.
Very rarely throughout history was there ever a case of Jews owning slaves, Jews never invaded any country and stole their resources (contrary to the “Nakbah” narrative - we never kicked out Arabs from our own land, they left on their own. The descendants of those Arabs who stayed are largely still residing in Israel as equal citizens.)
So our success was NOT from stealing or pillaging or taking advantage. It was fully made and earned.
The usual case is white privileged people taking advantage over POC, enslaving them, hoarding generational wealth, etc.
Jews don’t fit neatly into either stereotype, so this leads to wild and widespread discriminatory assumptions about Jews.
We didn’t steal but we also didn’t need saving.
Very rarely will anyone come to save us. That’s why Nazi Germany was able to kill so many of us (1/3rd of our entire global population). Hitler was only stopped because he was stepping on other countries’ toes, not because anyone cared that much about Jews. There’s literally more uproar from the west currently about Palestinian casualties than there ever were for Jewish casualties in WWII.
That’s why we believe in protecting ourselves. That’s why the IDF exists (that and 80 years of terrorism). That’s why modern Israel is a thriving country today despite starting off with poverty and poor resources, and many traumatized survivors from Europe or forcibly removed immigrants from Arab countries.
(And lastly, impoverished Jews do still exist, racism within and outside ofJudaism does exist, as with any group. Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.)
The "Jews are white" crowd loves to pretend that Israel is a white country. It's not. A lot of its citizens are descendants of refugees kicked out of North Africa and the Middle East. They're dark skinned. Physically, these are people whose foundation shade is solidly in the middle, not people who would use "Alabaster" or "Fair". There are also all the Jews who aren't from Europe—Beta Israel (Ethiopian), Ugandan, Kaifeng (Chinese), Cochin (Indian), et cetera. A lot of us settled in Europe, but not all of us. Skin tones in Israel are extremely varied and you'll see that a lot.
And since people love to make this a white vs brown issue, Palestinians also run the gammut! Ahed Tamimi, who is a fairly well known Palestinian activist, is blonde and blue eyed. She's whiter than I am! Does that make her not Palestinian? Of course not! Palestinians also have variety and their skin tone doesn't have anything to do with their race or oppression or indigenity. Just like Jewish Israeli skin tones have nothing to do with Jewish oppression or indigenity.
And the instruction to “kill” the “self” is of course a reference to ego dissolution - the shedding of the illusory self that precedes genuine awakening.
Namaste, Anon - May White Tara’s grace find you too! 🪷
Are you familiar with Edward Said's work? If so, I would love to read your thoughts on it.
Said was a great stylist, an influential literary critic, and a sloppy, dishonest, hypocritical ideologue engaged in historical revisionism.
Said’s central claim in Orientalism is that Western scholarship about the “East” functioned as a tool of domination, flattening diverse societies into a single, inferior “Other.” There’s definitely insight in that - some Western scholarship absolutely did that, especially in colonial contexts.
But then Said turns around and does exactly the same thing in a mirror.
He collapses centuries of heterogeneous Western thought into a single, continuous project of domination. He treats scholars with wildly different methods, motives, and conclusions as if they’re all engaged in the same intellectual conspiracy, driven solely by power, distortion, and bad faith. It’s not scholarship and it’s not analysis. It reads like he’s grinding an axe forged by an Arab civilizational inferiority complex.
Worse, he routinely misrepresents or selectively quotes sources to fit his hypocritical and dishonest framing. A number of historians and Middle East scholars have documented this in detail. The critique isn’t that he’s “controversial,” but that he plays fast and loose with evidence, cherry picking what suits his thesis and pretending the rest doesn’t exist.
And then there’s the question of agency. In Said’s framework, people in the Middle East often appear more as objects of Western discourse than as actors in their own right. That ends up reproducing intellectual paternalism, even as he dishonestly claims to object to it.
In Arabic: يهودي (yahūdī) In Farsi: یهودی (yahudi) In Turkish: Yahudi
All mean the same thing: people from Judea.
A people whose name reflects their territorial origin. The same ancient people with an undeniable tie to the land.
It’s identical in Latin: Iudaei, and of course, in Hebrew: יהודי (Yehudi).
The distinction between “Jew" and “Judean” in other languages emerged in the diaspora, where Jews were stripped of their territorial identity and reduced, in the eyes of others, to followers of a religion.
This linguistic disconnect fuels Western “settler-colonial” vs “indigenous” narrative.
Yet our enemies’ own languages preserve the undeniable truth their propaganda ignores:
Let me translate the answer of that Ask into English:
“Here’s a bunch of semi-related facts, stretched interpretations, and political takes, presented with maximal specificity so it sounds authoritative.”
The history is basically okay, but Islamic rule and residual cultural influence on the Iberian peninsula are not the same thing, some of the claims about lasting cultural influence are questionable at best…and then it ends with a bunch of niche pet opinions pretending to be political analysis.
Mostly, it’s dumb and masturbatory.
I understand how seeing people engage in intellectual masturbation could cause you discomfort.
Why am I hearing stupid shit that Israel blackmailed the US to start the Iran War because of the Epstein Files?
People are stupid and lazy. A simple explanation which suits their existing opinions and biases is much more satisfying to embrace than complexity or nuance.
Regime officials are using Epstein as a wedge and promoting this sort of lie both publicly and on social media.
Ali Larijani, the recently-deceased former head of the Basij paramilitary responsible for violently oppressing Iranians, wrote, in English, on Twitter, just a few days ago:
“I’ve heard that the remaining members of Epstein’s network have devised a conspiracy to create an incident similar to 9/11 and blame Iran for it. Iran fundamentally opposes such terrorist schemes and has no war with the American people.”
The Epstein files are genuinely murky and unresolved, which makes them a versatile conspiracy substrate. Because real details remain unclear (who his clients were, who protected him, what leverage he had, etc) people can project almost anything onto the mystery. A conspiracy theory is much more adhesive when it attaches to something that actually is partially obscure and actually did involve powerful people behaving badly. It’s not pure fabrication from nothing, but an extrapolation from a real scandal with real unanswered questions, which gives it more psychological traction and makes it harder to dismiss wholesale.
…is there any truth about US being pressured by Israel to launch the war against Iran?
Based on publicly-available information, no.
There’s no question that Israeli leaders have seen this regime ruling 90 million Iranians building its national identity partially on genociding Israelis…and regarded that regime as a threat. They’re the reason the Houthis, Hamas, and Hezbollah were able to attack Israel. When Israel so quickly owned Iranian skies in the 12-day war last year, this likely helped embolden Israel to use it’s abilities to further degrade the regime’s ability to threaten Israel. I’ve said before: Israel is a regional power seeking to degrade a regional threat and destabilizer, butthat’s not what’s driving the Trump administration.
The Trump administration is driven by a larger national security strategy which Trump has been clear on for a very long time: China is the threat, China is an aspiring world hegemon, and Trump thinks the US should flex its still vastly-superior military muscle to obstruct China from that goal.
How many times have we seen, across decades and administrations, US administrations stop Israel in its tracks? When the US tells the Israelis to stop a military action, they stop. The tail is not wagging the dog. One of the two parties is the world’s reigning superpower, the other is a regional power smaller than New Jersey. To suggest Israel is capable of pressuring the US is absurd.
Among other things, he’s a former Breitbart columnist, a recipient of financial campaign support from Steve Wynn amd Peter Thiel, and a pal of Tucker Carlson’s.
Unsurprisingly, he lies a lot.
He claims Israel drew the US into the invasion of Iraq, which is ridiculous. The architects of that war were Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz. They’d been advocating for regime change in Iraq since 1998.
In his resignation letter, he blames Israel for the death of his wife, Shannon Smith: “…lost my beloved wife Shannon in a war manufactured by Israel.”
In reality, Shannon Smith died in January of 2019, in Syria. ISIS claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing which took her life. The mission against ISIS in Syria was not manufactured by Israel, but the product of the Syrian Civil War and the rise of Islamist extremism. Israel had nothing to do with it.
In his letter, he wrote “There is zero evidence that Iran was trying to build a nuclear weapon, Netanyahu is warmongering.”
Ali Motahari, former Deputy Speaker of the Iranian ‘Parliament said explicitly: “…when we started our nuclear activities, our goal was to make the bomb, but we failed to keep it a secret.”
He resigns…and is booked on Tucker Carlson within an hour. As soon as the Carlson interview drops, there’s a boom of posts showing the exact same clip and the same commentary:
That’s not organic. That’s coordinated.
So either this former head of intelligence has no intelligence, or he lies more often than you void your bladder.