From a hotel in Kyoto to a sandwich joint in Edinburgh, the world is becoming hostile toward Israelis who are learning that a vacation won’t shield them from the Gaza war.
During the nine months of war the Israeli tourist experience abroad has been marked by fears of antisemitism and efforts to avoid pro-Palestinian demonstrations.
According to reports by Israeli media and posts online, some of those worries have recently turned real for a number of Israeli tourists.Anecdotal incidents at touristic locations around the world are making it clear that even though there is no official policy of excluding Israelis, that is sometimes the situation on the ground.
An especially bumpy week began on June 17 at the Material Hotel in Kyoto, Japan, when an Israeli named Alex was informed that his reservation had been canceled due to the allegations of Israeli war crimes in Gaza. The Material told Alex that it was “not able to accept reservations from persons we believe might have ties to the Israeli army,” as reported by Israeli website Ynet.
The story made the rounds on social media, produced a stern protest letter from Israel’s ambassador in Tokyo, and led to a rebuke by the Kyoto municipality that the hotel had breached Japanese business law and must ensure that such a transgression won’t happen again.
Jews around the word are less safe because of Israel when they were promised the opposite. Their faith has been used as a cover for a land grab and they put your holy symbol on a flag they go to war, and worse, under. It’s no wonder so many Jews at least in the US are critical of Israel. It probably feels a lot like being a regular Muslim watching groups commit violence with their religious iconography and warped interpretations used to create ‘justification’.
Anecdotally, I’ve never met any Jewish people in the US who didn’t have strongly negative opinions of the government/state of Israel.
Some people aren’t okay with their holy texts being warped into a cudgel and used to beat down the innocent.
It depends on your particular social circle but 80-85% of Jews are supportive of Israel. Most oppose Netanyahu.
I think there’s a lot of nuance here, because “supporting Israel” can mean a lot of different things. Generally agreeing with the idea of being allies with a primarily Jewish state and wanting a good well-being for them is very different from endorsing Israel’s genocide against Gaza, but both could be considered as “supporting Israel”.
Some people aren’t okay with their holy texts being warped into a cudgel and used to beat down the innocent.
Damn, if that isn’t a spot-on description of how I feel about my faith right now.
My parents don’t understand why I stopped going to church, amd when I try to explain why, they say that they’re different when they’re really not.
I notice similar things as well, in that my personal expirences with them, comapred to average US population, US Jews seem to be far more informed on whats happening and far more likely to have at least harsh critisizm for Isreal. Part of why I really hate people conflating the two in order to spread hate.
There’s a lot of people in this world who get what they want when other people can’t separate the two in their minds.
There’s a very logical filter at play here: if you didn’t think seeking beef with Arabs and participating in a colonialist project in the 50s/60s/70s was a good idea, you would have stayed in the US, and otherwise, you would have moved to Israel. This made it so that Jews in the US lean liberal and Jews in Israel lean ethno-nationalistic, in very broad terms.
Plenty of Jews in the West are from ex-USSR though.
Yeah, I mentioned it as a factor, not as an all-determining fact that explains the whole of Israeli demographics.
A lot like being German in 1949.
The Star of David is not a Jewish holy symbol, having that would be sacrilege anyway, similar to idolatry. It’s not even the Star of David, to be honest.
At some point Jewish secularists in Europe wanted some symbol for the Jewish identity. They picked one very commonly used in the Middle East, by all peoples and religions.
By the way, crescent is not a Muslim holy symbol, too, and with the same implication of idolatry. Though they have in practice accepted it, just like Jews. It’s the symbol of Constantinople, which Ottomans used in line with their pretense to be heirs of Rome (I mean, if Germans can do that, why not them).
Many of the Jews around the world have a very idealized idea of Israel and simply can’t believe it’s bad. See, when you are a member of a demonized (even today) minority, but somewhere is a strong and successful state of your nation that has restored its presence in its cradle 2000 years after being partially wiped out, partially expelled from there, you tend to be irrational.
Also separation of religion and nation is a Western thing, Jewish religion is about a nation, and, by the way, Muslim religion too states that all Muslims are one nation.
EDIT: OK, why the downvotes here? Everything here is factual. And if that’s the paragraph about 2000 years triggering people - that’s a right, yes. The state of Israel sucks, but not the general idea. Same as Sebastia, Malatia, Sis, Sasun, Mush, Van are Armenian till the end of days in my book.
At least the Germans had the Holy Roman Empire. The Ottomans knocked over the Byzantines who actually were the old Eastern Roman Empire. The Ottomans had about as much claim to one of the crowns of Rome as the Netherlands has to the HRE crown.
They took over the Roman Empire. They had a pretty good claim.
Nah it but the time they knocked off Constantinople the Roman Empire was gone. Heck even the later Byzantines got side eye for claiming it.
No, they didn’t get any side eyes. Only maybe from western Europeans who considered themselves that. Even calling them Byzantines is anachronistic, they were called Romans.
Greeks literally mainly called themselves Romans since then till Kingdom of Greece became a thing, and they kinda still do.
Interesting. I never knew that. I still don’t think the Ottomans get to be the Romans any more than modern Italy or Germany but I’ll concede they conquered people who considered themselves Roman still.
Being Armenian, I don’t think they in any way get to be Roman, even less than Russians, but it’s a fact that they called themselves that officially.
Italy speaks Romance languages, except for the parts of its population which speak Greek and Albanian, so of course. And both Italy and Germany are (historically during formation of those nations) Christian.
“warped interpretations”
Cut it out with this antisemitism bullshit. Nobody cares that you’re Jewish. People care about genocide no matter what invisible sky being you prefer.
So banning innocent people who might even agree with them is totally fair? Just because they’re from Israel or because of their religion?
They are banned for possible connections to a country and an organization (IDF) that have been confirmed to perform war crimes.
If you willfully target children no matter your skin colour, creed, religion or whatever arbitrary set of parameters you are a criminal.
Israelis are now discovering the price of being associated with war criminals.
Sorry but that’s a load of BS. I guess Americans should be banned everywhere because we are possibly connected to our country whose government has funded a shit ton of war operations? By that logic, almost nobody would be welcome in anybody else’s country.
A lot of Israelis are forced to fight in the IDF. They have mandatory service. A large amount, if not a majority, of Israelis have participated in the occupation and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people.
So you penalize people who are “forced” to do something that they may not want to?
That’s not what they said
Not a shock. The war has changed a lot.
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https://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/unbound/bookauth/zionism/america.htm
It is an atlantic article but it’s from the 90s and an excerpt from a book. America was already Zion, but Jews integrated too much for the hyperconservatives.
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That sounds like a unconstitutional restriction on the freedom of speech and religion corporations enjoy.
Who am I kidding, of course they aren’t consistent.
Whoever said history repeats itself was spot on
What are you referring to? This about the war in Gaza.
Truth is that many don’t care that they get called anti semitic because one small subset of a religion over applies the term entirely out of context. They made it a meaningless slur on anyone who is against genocide.
Something tells me that when they say anti semitic, they mean against Jewish interests. Of course they also believe Israel is a big component of said interests.
The Israeli government sucks, but it’s not fair to punish its traveling citizens for that.
They all serve in the IDF. They have all been actively involved in war crimes. There are no innocent Israeli adults.
