@serge @carolannie As you have pointed out, the relationship between Judaism and Zionism is complex within the Jewish community. Like it or not, given the both the American state and the Israeli state act with power and violence in the world, people in the world will make judgments about those actions and will have to reconcile those judgments with their own understandings of Judaism and human beings they interact with who are Jewish. 1/

@serge @carolannie Many people of good will, precisely because it is important to them that they not be racists, but who nevertheless condemn the actions of the Israeli state, adopt a frame in which there’s a sharp distinction between Judaism and Zionism. Some Jews do the same, while some see the connection between Judaism and Israel as pragmatically or theologically essential. 2/

@serge @carolannie From your perspective, Jewish anti-Zionism means “Jews…support[ing] the murder of other Jews”. There are lots of Jews who don’t see it that way, rightly or wrongly. It is not racist of those Jews, or of non-Jews, to disagree with you about what Zionism or anti-Zionism mean (though outcomes might ultimately prove some views right or wrong). 3/

@serge @carolannie Regardless, a lot of people, rightly or wrongly (I think rightly), condemn the choices the Israeli state is currently making. It’s a good impulse, not a bad impulse, for those people to put daylight between those choices and Jews and Judaism generally. 4/

@serge @carolannie It might be best if people were better at making a distinction between what the Israeli state is currently doing and Zionism as a project, which once and might in future refer to a Jewish state whose government has a very different character than Israel’s current government. 5/

@serge @carolannie But I guess I’d say that’s a very fine parsing to expect of people. People, Jewish and non-, do have a right, even obligation, to form views about this Israeli government and this American government. If it’s hard to critique Israel’s behavior without risk of seeming antisemitic, it’s harder still to do so without seeming anti-Zionist, even if in theory there’s a space for that. /fin