It Could Happen Here - Rise in Antisemitism

Episode Date: January 5, 2024

Gare and Mia discuss the troubling rise of antisemitic incidents across the globe.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. CallZone Media. Welcome to It Could Happen Here, the show about the slow end of the world and all the small little things that are kind of pushing us that way. Isn't that exciting? New year, new me. Not really, I'm kind of doing the same stuff. Mostly staring into the abyss and seeing what stares back. Staring at the abyss with me today is Mia Wong. Hello, thank you for joining me.

Oh boy, the abyss is looking real choppy today. Real abyssal, you could say. The waves coming out of it are staring back at you real hard. Yeah, yeah. So we're going to talk today about antisemitism. So I guess content warning in case you don't want to hear a whole bunch of anti-Semitic stuff. I'm not just going to be repeating anti-Semitic things. It's just this is just the topic for the whole episode. So yeah, the past few months, there has been a pretty dramatic rise in anti-Semitism, ranging from physical attacks, vandalism, and lots of rhetoric. Now, there is a few factors that i think make this a little bit tricky

to talk about which is why it's taken me a while to put this together firstly i i want to avoid getting into like oppression olympics here right talking about one bad thing does not negate many other bad things that are happening concurrently having a discussion about a very troubling rise in anti-semitism and a state-backed ethnic cleansing do not need to be mutually exclusive topics of discussion, right? We can say both of these things are actually pretty bad. And today we're going to be talking specifically about antisemitism. And I think, you know, this show has had a history of reporting on anti-fascist movements and attempts to stop fascist entryism and promoting of antisemitism. So this topic is well within our regular wheelhouse,

and there is a decent bit to talk about. Now, the second thing that makes this topic a little bit tricky is that some of the big extremism research groups that typically do the most accessible cataloging of anti-Semitic incidents have proven themselves to be slightly unreliable on this topic for the past four months. And that's not just my opinion. That's also the opinion of current and former ADL employees who have been coming out against director Jonathan Greenblatt's leadership choices, particularly since the October 7th Hamas attack. Now, due to the nature of their job versus my job, ADL analysts have a lot more dedicated time and resources to cataloging alleged anti-Semitic incidents. But under Greenblatt's direction, the whole of their data from the past four months is heavily skewed to include anything expressing

anti-zionism as being included in their data about anti-semitism and even anything deemed too sympathetic to palestinians as being a driver of anti-semitism so that's the kind of situation we have here with you know there's many issues the ADL has had in the past, which we may talk about in the future. But typically, they've done an okay job the past few years, specifically cataloging anti-Semitism during the rise of the alt-right. Their data is often relatively reliable on this topic. Some of their other data and other practices are very open to criticism. But this is kind of one other factor that's going to make this a little bit tricky. Now, as like an example, right, this is, this is, we can, we can talk about these things in

abstract. I'm going to talk about something from Atlanta because this is something I have some experience in. So on the ADL's big map of antisemitic incidents from October 7th to the present, if you zoom into Atlanta, there's two incidents that are right next to each other one is a banner drop done by the goyim defense league which is a group of neo-nazis oh god basically they they made some banners expressing pro-hitler statements alongside slogans like free palestine and they put them up above a really big road in atlanta right so this is pretty standard neo-nazi anti-semitism using kind of anti-zionism as this sort of mask but i mean i mean if you're hitler stuff very thin um yes

exactly that's not really it's not really masked because you also have a Hitler banner. But like, you know, if someone only sees one banner, be like, oh, it's a Palestine banner. But no, it's actually a Nazi banner. So we have this incident logged. which was an interfaith rally in support of Palestine against the ongoing ethnic cleansing that's happening in Gaza with thousands and thousands of people being killed. So we have this banner drop and we have this rally, and both of these things are labeled as an anti-Semitic incident. They're both equal in the eyes of this data, which just isn't true. I was at this rally. I did not hear anything anti-Semitic coming from the speakers. Many of the speakers, if not the majority of the speakers, were Jewish. There were a group of Jewish counter-protesters who showed up, who started many fights, fights which were very quickly de-escalated by the people who were putting on the rally.

There was this one woman who was carrying an Israeli flag on this flagpole who kept hitting people with it. So there was a lot of things going on at this rally, but this was not an anti-Semitic rally. And in fact, the Jewish counter-protesters were extremely vitriolic. They were expressing explicit desire for genocide of Palestinians, like very, very gross stuff. It was really disgusting. So both of these incidents, though, are seen as equal, which just show that's just an easy example to kind of show how this data isn't really reliable that the ADL is putting together here. Now, I really don't feel like it's my place to go through the ADL's database and decide what is

and is not anti-Semitism, right? I don't have the time nor the money nor really the authority to be the arbiter of what is and isn't anti-Semitic. Yeah, Garrison turning into the anti-Semitism commissar. Yeah, that's not me.

I have a background in anti-fascist research. I have a background in neo-Nazi driven antisemitism. These are the things I usually specialize in. But still, this is a massive field. Antisemitism is a complicated topic. Rhetoric can be complicated. And having not attended or reviewed every single rally or incident in question, I'm simply not equipped to make informed judgments. So for that reason, this episode, I will focus mostly on physical attacks, threats, and vandalism, as opposed to the much more murky waters of rhetoric, online rhetoric, and, you know, just these, there's been probably thousands of rallies across the United States. I've not been to every one. I've not watched every single speech. I've not heard every single offhand comment. So I'm not going to

deal with those. Instead, I'm going to be focusing on physical, like in like IRL and things that have a very, a very clear result of the action. So this mostly attacks, threats, vandalism. So this mostly attacks, threats, vandalism. Anyway, moving on. I guess actually the one be using them largely is because many of the stats included in these articles are crime stats. And these crime stats are also proving to be heavily unreliable. For example, the Metropolitan Police claimed that there was a 1,350% increase in anti-Semitic hate crimes in London during the first two and a half weeks of October,

with 218 anti-Semitic offenses in London during that time period compared to only 15 in 2022. But included in these stats are incidents like the police in London arresting a man for tearing down some of those hostage posters. That's one of the hate crimes that they include in this. And also, the Met said that, that's the Metropolitan Police, said that chanting from the river to the sea near Jewish people or near Jewish buildings during a protest

would be deemed unlawful. And I think there is a debate to be had whether, if you're just protesting outside of a random Jewish building, that's probably not great, and that could be an indicator of antisemitism. But having that chant be deemed unlawful for just being near other Jewish people. Like I said, at the rally in Atlanta, there was a whole bunch of Jewish counter protesters who came to start fights. So like, you're going to be around Jewish people. If you're a march, you're marching around, or if you're outside in Israeli embassy, that's, that's, in my opinion, very valid target for protest. That would be considered a Jewish building. So all of these stats are heavily, heavily skewed by these, by, by these sorts of reasons for how, how, how the Met is including things as being anti-Semitic hate crimes.

things as being anti-semitic hate crimes yeah and i mean like this like if you just think about what the rationale is there for a second like is is a group of anti-zionist jews chanting from the river to the sea around themselves a hate crime exactly right like this is nonsense like so and also you know what i mean and also like this is the british police like those are the most anti-semitic motherfuckers this side of like the ukrainian neo-nazis or something and like i i do not doubt there was an actual increase of anti-semitic attacks vandalism hate speech that that that is what we're talking about in this episode we will be getting into many incidents but it is difficult to pin down some of what these really big stats actually represent. Because if tearing down one of those silly Hamas wanted posters is being labeled a hate crime on the same level

as drawing a swastika on a synagogue, that data is basically useless. And now I think it's also worth mentioning just very briefly, the Metropolitan Police also recorded a 140% increase in Islamophobic incidents during those first two and a half weeks of October. That's 42 incidents in 2022 compared to 103 incidents in 2023. And while that percentage is lower than the anti-Semitic stat, it also indicates how much more common Islamophobia in London is because the regular amount of reported incidents from last year is so much higher than the regular reported amount of antisemitic incidents like having having 42 incidents per

like two and a half weeks be the normal stat is uh not great and yeah maybe maybe someone should look into why british people are so uh islamophobic um i mean that that there mean, that's a whole episode in and of itself. Islamophobia in the UK is a massive, massive problem. But just as a comparison, I thought I might as well say that. We will get to Hanukkah next, but it has already been 13 minutes of me talking about stats and giving disclaimers. So that means it's time for an ad break. I'm not going to do a silly ad transition.

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All right, we are back. Since we just finally escaped the holiday season, let's begin by talking about Hanukkah. holiday season, let's begin by talking about Hanukkah. Public menorahs, often without any extra iconography tying them to the state of Israel, were a frequent target of vandalism and anti-Semitic messaging during the month of December. A far-right member of parliament in Poland used a fire extinguisher to blow out the candles on a menorah in the lobby of parliament. A public menorah in London had its light bulbs smashed with a free palestine sticker placed onto the front and then days later it was found toppled over and left in pieces there's many of these incidents uh i'm just gonna name a few more just because at a certain point it

kind of becomes redundant but i think these things are worth talking about um an 11 foot 350 pound menorah next to lake mary in oakland was cut up and destroyed in mid mid-december with pieces being thrown into the nearby lake a message was graffitied that led we're gonna find you you're on alert it was also reported that there was graffiti left nearby that read free palestine in arabic but I can't confirm that. The picture they have online does not match what free Palestine in Arabic looks like, but I'm not an expert on Arabic, so I just can't confirm that, but that is being reported in local Jewish newspapers.

A menorah sand sculpture commissioned in Palm Beach was destroyed and left defaced with a swastika. Outside a synagogue in a suburb of Washington, D.C., a menorah was toppled over on the eve of Hanukkah, and two menorahs were vandalized and damaged in Brooklyn in early December by masked individuals. So one other similar incident I will talk about, which is kind of interesting, is that there was this pro-Palestine protest at Yale where one of the protesters climbed up onto this massive, I don't know how tall it was, but it was huge. They had to climb up pretty high on this big public menorah and placed a Palestinian flag kind of around one of the little arms on the menorah. But very quickly, within seconds of this happening,

other pro-Palestine protesters, noticing this is kind of disrespectful, asked this person to take it down, like almost immediately. This is a very quick exchange. And this kind of sparked some people talking about, you know, is it okay to put Palestinian flags on menorahs? Is it okay to vandalize menorahs? Which the answer is no. the answer is you shouldn't vandalize a menorah that's generally not great but you know people were were saying uh and specifically pointing towards like pictures of idf soldiers who've been taking territory in gaza who've been putting up menorahs in gaza or like the israeli military doing these photo ops with big menorahs in

different parts of gaza being like hey when there's this active ethnic cleansing going on and soldiers are using this religious iconography and it's being associated directly with this ongoing ethnic genocide, how can you blame people who are going to be treating this symbol with hostility? And I think there's a few problems with this idea. I'm going to quote from this Jewish artist who goes by underscore a nunnery, who I think phrased this really well, quote, Jewish symbols shouldn't be associated with Zionism or ceded to them just because Zionists abuse them. If the menorah were put up by Zionists as some explicitly Zionist display, then putting up a Palestinian flag would be an act of resistance. If it's not, then it's just cementing the Zionist display, then putting up a Palestinian flag would be an act of resistance.

If it's not, then it's just cementing the Zionist conflation and exploitation of Jewish identity. There are more non-Jewish Zionists than there are Jews, unquote. And this gets at a point which I think is really important when you're talking about anti-Zionist activism. Attacking symbols of Jewish culture in the name of anti-Zionism only strength Attacking symbols of Jewish culture in the name of anti-Zionism only strengthens the cause of Zionism by affirming the conflation of Judaism and Zionism, or Judaism and the

State of Israel. This conflation helps Zionists shield their actions by abusing the Jewish identity and making these two things be more, like, intersectional. So, I think that is one a strategic reason for why this is a bad idea and two it's maybe slightly anti-semitic so that is my little holiday section just because i saw a whole bunch of stuff around these

menorahs and i didn't feel good about it yeah like this sucks like please don't do this and i i've seen some people like also using the comparison of like would you would you also criticize um indigenous people in america for for graffitiing or taking down images of like christian iconography and like no because the oppression faced by christians and the oppression faced by Jewish people are two different things. Like these are these are actually historically these are very different things. So, no, these things actually cannot be compared, in my opinion. But now I'm going to talk about some international incidents, because I think we have a tendency to overfocus on America when there's a whole bunch of other stuff happening in the rest of the world. to over-focus on America when there's a whole bunch of other stuff happening in, you know,

the rest of the world. Back in October, a historic synagogue in Tunisia was burned down by a mob of hundreds of people in response to reports that an Israeli airstrike hit a hospital in Gaza. This sucks. I shouldn't have to explain why burning down a historical synagogue is anti-semitic because you don't like something the state of israel did that's just that that just isn't that that just isn't like that's just nazi shit like come on yeah so a month later in november someone posted a video online of themselves pouring fuel and setting fire to the only synagogue in Armenia. The entrance was damaged in the arson attack, but no one was hurt. The only synagogue in Wrocław, Poland, sorry, I probably butchered that, but it is a hard word, but the only synagogue in this town of Poland to survive the Holocaust was defaced with graffiti that read, quote, Israel criminals and murderers, unquote.

that read, quote, Israel criminals and murderers, unquote. And then, I guess earlier that week, a group of teenagers also destroyed a menorah in this same town. In mid-October, Molotov cocktails were thrown at a synagogue in Berlin. After Hanukkah in Belgium, a Jewish cemetery was vandalized with swastikas on gravestones. In late November, a Molotov cocktail was thrown at a Jewish community center in Montreal. Earlier that month, shots were fired at two different Jewish schools in Montreal in three different incidents. And four Holocaust

memorials in Germany were vandalized with a mix of anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist messages. vandalized with a mix of anti-semitic and anti-zionist messages so again like when i was looking at these ones once in germany the actual content of about half of these messages were not anti-semitic but the act of doing this at a at a at a holocaust memorial just isn't like it it it gives me the ick and there's that could be made that this does actually play into anti-Semitic tropes. You're blaming dead Jewish people for the actions of the current state of Israel?

Like, it just... And also, half of these messages left at these Holocaust memorial sites were also just blatantly anti-Semitic, like, very clearly, like, Nazi-style stuff. I don't have time to go over all of the incidents across europe there is a great deal many there's many many many that i've not mentioned these are just a few like i said i'm focusing on like vandalism very very clear-cut stuff people doing arson attacks right it's just very

very basic stuff this stuff in montreal not great montreal canada get your shit together although unfortunately not surprising but still upsetting uh is jews being barred from shops across turkey and there's a whole a whole bunch of very gross government government-sponsored anti-semitism across turkey uh campaigns to prohibit the sale of land to jewish people a lot of a lot of bad stuff in turkey but that's not incredibly surprising yeah i mean it's erdogan like yeah he fucking sucks ass and yes oh yeah erdogan is a man who has personally ordered children to be burned alive with firebombs so you know this is not out of character for him. Yeah. And I guess, uh, finally, uh, this, this one, one other thing about Hanukkah is that, uh,

so last month, right after the end of Hanukkah, bomb threats were sent out to en masse to more than 400 Jewish Jewish centers and synagogues across the United States. This was most likely orchestrated by the same kind of small number of individuals. All of the messages were very similar. orchestrated by the same kind of small number of individuals all of the messages were very similar none of these were incredibly credible but it still sparked a whole bunch of bomb sweeps and concern because when jewish synagogues get bomb threats that's not an empty threat either like this is like there is historical precedent yeah well and and i also like i think the other thing that's important about this too is like this this is you know this is like one of the things is the culmination of everything the

right's been doing for the last like eight years has been the development of like this cadre of people who do bomb threats calling in bomb threats as a tactic yes no there's the concerted effort for bomb threats at hospitals that provide transgender care abortion clinics um there was a string of weirdly organized bomb threats against schools about a year or two ago yeah i think i think robert did an episode on yeah now and now we're here at you know we're at bomb threats against synagogues which is terrifying according to the secure community network a non-profit security organization that tracks threats made against jewish communities bomb threats and swatting incidents basically trying to get a swat team to show up somewhere because you lied about there being like an

ongoing crime or something but bomb threats and swatting incidents targeted against jewish centers saw over a 500 increase in 2023 compared to the previous year, which I have no reason to believe is incorrect. So on that note, I know I don't really think we could have a bomb threat segue to, to ads. I really don't, they don't know. Don't do bombs.

Don't do bomb threats. Typically. This is what I got. Typically. Anyway. Do you know what else is the bomb? These ads. threats, typically. This is what I got right now. Typically. Anyway, do you know what else is debalm? These ads. Okay, fine. I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating.

I don't feel emotions correctly. I am talking to a felon right now, and I cannot decide if I like him or not. Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko. It's a show where I take real phone calls from anonymous strangers all over the world as a fake gecko therapist and try to dig into their brains and learn a little bit about their lives. I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's pretty interesting if you give it a shot. Matter of fact, here's a few more examples of the kinds of calls we get on this show. I live with my boyfriend and I found his piss jar in our apartment.

I collect my roommate's toenails and fingernails. I have very overbearing parents. Even at the age of 29, they won't let me move out of their house. So if you want an excuse to get out of your own head and see what's going on in someone else's head, search for Therapy Gecko on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's the one with the green guy on it. Hey, I'm Jack Peace Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black Lit, the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. I'm Jack Peace Thomas, and I'm inviting you to join me and a vibrant community

of literary enthusiasts dedicated to protecting and celebrating our stories. Black Lit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audiobooks while commuting or running errands. For those who find themselves seeking solace, wisdom, and refuge between the chapters. From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Together, we'll dissect classics and contemporary works while uncovering the stories of the brilliant writers behind them. Blacklit is here to amplify the voices of Black writers and to bring their words to life. Listen to Blacklit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into how Tex Elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, better offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. This season I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel winning economists to leading journalists in the field and I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse and naming and shaming those responsible.

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and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio i hot radio app apple podcasts wherever else you get your podcasts check out better offline.com all right we are back maybe the worst ad transition we've ever done that's not true that is definitely not true yeah okay okay you're right okay so during this last section i'm gonna talk a little bit more about data aggregation so like i said previously in this episode uh due to the nature of what my job is and the nature of what an adl analyst's job is They just have a lot more time to dedicate towards

specifically logging anti-Semitic incidents. So I did look through their data set and I've made some extrapolations based on some of the findings and some of the open source data that they have regarding specific incidents.

So on that note, the ADL has logged around 1,100 anti-Semitic incidents since October 7th not related to protest rallies. So this is specifically all the incidents that are not related to these big pro-Palestinian interfaith, many Jewish-led rallies. Now, I'm not saying that nothing anti-Semitic has not happened at any of those rallies, but these rallies were logged simply as, quote, anti-Israel rallies, which featured overt anti-Semitism, anti-Zionism, and or expressions of support for terror. So, crammed in the middle

of that explanation is just anti-Zionism. So that is one thing they are just counting as being enough to be logged as an anti-Semitic incident. So again, I'm not going through the over like 1000 rallies that they have logged here just because I don't have the time and I don't feel like it. But yes, just for full transparency, that is the information I'm not going to be looking at. Instead, I'm looking at these 1,100 other incidents not related to these protests. So, these 1,100 harassment and vandalism incidents include things from anti-Zionist slash anti-Israel stickers and graffiti being left at universities and synagogues,

the latter which I believe is in poor taste, but also, you know, swastikas being painted on synagogues, extremely anti-Semitic messages being left at Jewish centers, and street harassment targeting visibly Jewish people, as well as just overt neo-Nazi activity under the banner of Free Palestine. Now, of these over 1,100 incidents, I'd say that a very small minority of them are principled anti-Zionist activism which has been mislabeled. Most of the data in these 1,000 incidents is just blatant anti-Semitism, specifically directed towards just regular Jewish people, people writing kill Jews in bathroom stalls stalls threats being sent to jewish people mentioning hitler or hamas a lot of just extremely gross stuff like there's there's too

many there's too many just like threats that mention the word jews that i i just can't even read them all nor do i want to because it's just gross like there's there is a truly upsetting number which is why i wanted to make this episode in the first place is because i've been seeing this pretty big rise in anti-semitism other people have as well and i felt like this wasn't probably being as talked about as much as it should be among the anti-fascist left because you know everyone's focusing on this ethnic cleansing that's happening because that is very bad but, there's this other massive problem that if you care about fascist entryism, if you care about anti-Semitic behavior and actions being either allowed to happen in leftist spaces or just happening in general, like a lot of this stuff is being done by fascists who

are not going to a pro-Palestine rally because they believe in anti-imperialism. But there's just a lot of this stuff happening, which is why I think it is needing to be talked about. Now, there are a number of instances that are logged in these 1,100 incidents here, such as, you know, I'm just going to pull from actual examples, but also this is kind of generalizing because this was also reflecting a small trend. Things like pro-Palestine phrases being yelled at random Jewish people on the street, having anti-Zionist stickers being poorly placed in different locations, like at a Jewish cemetery, vandalizing non-political Jewish-owned businesses with anti-Zionist phrases, even breaking the windows of random Jewish-owned businesses with no ties to

israel or the idf and leaving anti-zionist phrases or pro-palestine phrases graffitied next to these broken windows now while the content of what's being actually said in these incidents may not be like anti-semitic in nature by itself right like just just having very basic anti-scientist phrases being graffitied that may not be anti-semitic itself like that that combination of words this this sort of activity though plays into a classic anti-semitic kind of trope as if every like random jewish person is somehow in part responsible for the actions of israel and it also conflates jewish identity with zionism which is the problem that we were talking about before when we started this episode right uh when i was talking about

this stuff with hanukkah just a few hours ago as of time of recording uh uh the corvallis anti-fascist branch i guess uh yeah yeah i think i think they're a member of torch put out this thread about how the gdl the goim defense league we talked about them previously in this episode they're a big group of organized neo-nazis that spread a lot of anti-semitic stuff how they hijacked a uh a city council meeting to spread anti-Semitic stuff during a discussion about a ceasefire resolution. And I think they kind of ended their thread by talking about how it is extremely important to call out the conflation of the Jewish people with the genocidal actions of the state of Israel and assertions that the media is controlled by Jews or that regular Jews have some kind of say in everything that's happening, right? It gets at this kind of like cabal-ish notion.

Now, back to kind of the data that I was talking about, these sorts of incidents are vastly, talking about, these sorts of incidents are vastly, vastly outweighed by the number of just overt Jew hatred, invoking of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, calling for the death of Jews and swastikas. But I still think it's extremely important to mention because the targeting of random Jewish people and businesses itself, that is a form of anti-Semitism. And this activity helps to reinforce the abuse of the Jewish identity by inextricably linking it to Zionism, which only strengthens the Zionist ideology. So that's my little mini rant about the way we've been seeing some of these things play out. Now, many of these over a thousand incidents logged use anti-zionism as a sort of cover for just spreading anti-semitism

particularly from known white supremacist and neo-nazi groups the gdl is a good example there's also groups like white lives matter and a number of others that i could name that when you're looking through the adl's data on these a so incidents, a large, large amount of them are done by the Goyim Defense League, the GDL. And this is a strategic thing for them, right? They're seeing the kind of moment that people are in culturally, the way people are talking about Israel. And if they can find a way to squeeze in their neo-Nazi talking points kind of under this very, very thin Palestine kind of veneer, that's great for them. If they can get people to start almost mindlessly repeating their style of talking points,

that's great for them, right? It makes sense why they're putting so much time and dedication to this, because they're trying to use this moment and abuse the thousands of people who might be more susceptible to this right now to spread their ideology and to do entryism. This is a part of what their tactic is. So while it's true that many of these incidents do come from explicitly Nazi groups. There's also just a really upsettingly and shockingly large number of them that come from students, students from middle school to college who are ostensibly anti-Israel, but are going about it via targeting random Jewish people and spreading anti-Semitism, whether that's intended or not. But a lot of the talking points are just anti-Semitic talking points.

Now, I can't, I'm not in the heads of anybody. I'm not talking to the 12-year-old in some middle school in Colorado who's leaving anti-Semitic messages in a bathroom stall. But the effect is kind of the same. And just the sheer number of specifically like like like middle school junior high high school incidents that are logged among this thousand was just incredibly uh incredibly distressing yeah and i mean i think i think a lot of what's going on here is that like the u.s is a culturally christian society right like it has like of the developed countries the u.s is a culturally christian society right like it has like of the developed countries

the u.s is like one of the most christian and american christianity and this is true of like in different ways of like just basically all of the major christian denominations are enormously anti-semitic like and they're anti-semitic in very different in different and weird ways like i mean i spent some time recently for something else like reading about like this argument between like the evangelicals who are like we need to we need to have uh all the jews go back to israel so that we can uh bring about the second coming and they were going to fight with the the hardline like right-wing lutherans and the hard hardline right-wing lutherans are like what the fuck do you mean like no like the the holy lamb belongs to us not the jews what the fuck are you guys

doing right it's like this is the baseline of american society right it's unbelievably anti-semitic in ways that you know are are just sort of passed down through like like culture are culturally received and absorbed in ways that people don't like see or understand or think about because it's just it's it's the wall it's the water that america that you know you swim in in american culture in this sort of like like this hegemonic christian society and that means that like even people with like at least in their heads good intentions get caught up in this shit and it it's fucking bad and there's also at the same time a very concerted effort to slide in the anti-jewish extremism anti-semitic rhetoric to to to slide that in sometimes covertly sometimes not uh into into lots of mainstream

discourse and exchanges and social media specifically tiktok has been really has been really bad at this which is where a lot of young people spend probably the majority of their day if they're going to be looking at their phone and it's it's i i said i didn't want to get into like social media rhetoric but also just like as someone who spent a lot of time on 4chan and 8chan, looking specifically at Nazis, the way Twitter currently works is like, it is just 4chan, 8chan level stuff

pretty commonly. If I look at the quote tweets of almost any tweet made by a Jewish person, there is just some of the most atrocious, unmoderated anti-semitism that i've seen on a platform like like twitter like this is this is really like 8chan level stuff i think uh and this is this is intentional to slide this stuff in to make it look normalized

the adl uh reported a nearly 1000 increase in the daily average of violent messages mentioning Jews and Israel in white supremacist and right-wing extremist channels on Telegram in the days following the October 7th massacre. So this is something that is specifically being done in far-right spaces. I'm going to quote again from this Corvallis Against Fascism. The struggle for the liberation of Palestine is one of the most pressing of our time. It's imperative that we shut down anti-Semitic attempts to co-opt that struggle immediately. Which, if you care about the liberation of Palestine and Palestinian people, this is something you also need to be concerned about. Because these two things are linked. There's 27 assaults have been reported. this is something you also need to be concerned about because these two things are linked. There was,

there's a 27 assaults have been reported around eight of these assaults are stemming from fights, which broke out at protest rallies. I'm not going to get into those ones as much because that can be tricky because I've seen Zionists start fights like right next to me before, and then claim a victim hood. Like, no, you were the one

that started that you swung a flagpole at these people and then they de-escalated very quickly and i'm sure there's incidents of the reverse happening but a majority of these assaults that have been reported are very clear-cut anti-semitic attacks targeted against jewish people some of which are quite frightening to read about there's been a large number of vehicle attacks there was this one one incident of someone breaking into a jewish family's home and assaulting people inside their own home then also there's been a number of incidents of just assaulting people as they leave synagogues i've seen very zion seen Zionists start fights with people right next to me before.

That is kind of what I had to say about this rise in anti-Semitism, because I saw this being a major problem that was being not talked about as much as it should be, because it is higher than what we've seen in years. Not to even mention the rise

in Islamophobia, which is also mention the rise in Islamophobia, which is also a massive rise in Islamophobia has been happening the past four months, including resulting in murders, right? Just in the four weeks after October 7th, the Council on American Islamic Relations logged an unprecedented number of Islamophobic incidents. The research and advocacy director Corey Saylor said in a statement, quote, both Islamophobia and anti-Arab racism are out of control in ways we have not seen in almost 10 years. The 1,283 complaints we have received over the past month represent a 216% increase in requests for help and reports of bias. The Islamophobic and anti-Palestinian rhetoric

that have been used to justify both violence against palestinians in gaza and silent supporters of palestinian human rights here in america have contributed to this unprecedented surge in bigotry it's just been bad the past four months yeah it's just things have been bad there's been murders there's been assaults it's it's it's it assaults. It's horrible. And I think both of these things are things that need to be interrogated more. The Islamophobic incidents as well as anti-Semitic incidents. So that's what I wanted to talk about as I have been slowly logging more synagogue attacks, more death threats, all of these sorts of stuff.

So yeah, that's kind of all I have to say today. Yeah, it's real bad. I don't know. I mean... It's bad out there. I mean, if you care about the struggle of the liberation of Palestine and the people in Palestine,

you need to... if you see anything that plays into these sorts of anti-Semitic tropes that we've talked about, blaming just random Jewish people for what's going on, attacking random Jewish-owned businesses without any ties to the IDF, without any ties to the state of Israel, just all of this stuff, it needs to be called out because this actually, this sort of thing only strengthens the ideology of, of Zionism. So if, if you call yourself an anti-Zionist,

it is your imperative duty to be on the watch for this sort of thing and stop it. If you see it, that's, that's kind of the, the thesis at the end of this. Alright. Well,

without further ado, I think we will end this episode. Stay safe out there, everybody. Hopefully, this new year won't be complete chaos for all of us. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

You can find sources for It Could Happen Here updated monthly at coolzonemedia.com. Thanks for listening. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into tech's elite and how they've turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech brought to you by an industry veteran with nothing to lose. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your

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