In an op-ed for France’s Le Monde, Oscar-winning director Michel Hazanavicius expresses fear over the dramatic change in the way the world perceives Jewish people, as if being Jewish had become something really murky, vaguely suspect, possibly detestable.’

  • This comment has been reported and mentioned a few times. As best as I can tell, the reporter wants to remind people that it can be dangerous to associate individuals with the decisions of their government. As a comparison - should all Americans be considered to be white nationalists while Trump was in power? Reality is often much more complicated. I would remind people on this instance that we should not victim blame, and that there are going to be people who are not in alignment with the structures of power that exist. I don’t know how government works in Israel, but in the US our leaders often are not elected in line with what the populace thinks (when they do decide to vote), but heavily manipulated via Gerrymandering and voter disenfranchisement.

    With all that being said, I think it’s valid to have a strong criticism of a government committing genocide. I think it’s also valid to criticize people who align with a government that commits genocide if they are not actively criticizing their own government over said genocide. I think it’s important to voice our disgust with hate and hate based violence and to be strongly critical of individuals who don’t share these values.

    • That’s wild that people would report a dispassionate explanation of the factors that led to the currently increased levels of antisemitism, written in response to an article asking how we got to currently increased levels of antisemitism.

      My great grandparents fled Poland while it was Germany because they were Jewish. You don’t have to hate Jewish people to see how many dumb and misguided people in the world there are, and how many of them will invariably link the actions of an explicitly Jewish state with the Jewish people.