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2 years agoConflating Jews in Israel with Zionists.
Unfortunately, he does it in this very post.
When people talk about “jews” or “israelis” generally as perpetuating the murder of children, they are engaging in the blood libel trope.
Those two statements (with “jews” vs with “israelis”) are in no way the same. The first is antisemitism, the second is objective fact and the policy of the Israeli state. To conflate the two is antisemitic, and also plays into Israeli propaganda that they are the representatives of Jews and Judaism.
I actually agree with you (I’ve also seen him on here for years), but this post just ends up being counterproductive and promoting antisemitism (as discussed) and it really is far beyond tone deaf to do any excusing of Israeli settlers (almost blaming everything on the IDF, Likud, and the USA when this is the nature of the Israeli colonial project), especially given the current context.
I do think this post was emotionally motivated (as you say) and it does contain valid points that are important, but it’s definitely doing more harm than good and undermines those valid points in the later parts. I’m not trying to argue for a condemnation of Nagarjuna here, just to be clear. I’m just bothered by this post. It initially rubbed me the wrong way, and some of the comments in this thread helped me realize why.