israel’s actions ARE causing a rise in antisemitism in the average gentile, because they push the narrative of representing jewish people as a whole, which would make us all culpable for their horrific actions. and even the people who aren’t being antisemitic themselves are certainly more okay with the people around them being antisemitic. it's likely someone you know or are close with believes in some sort of conspiracy about jews running the world or having all the money or controlling the media etc etc. not zionists, not israelis, jews. israel wants jews to believe that everyone hates us and they’re the only safe place for us to exist. as a diaspora jew whose family fled the shoah this is not fucking true and it’s insulting to say that it is, but being a gentile saying this shit only helps israel’s cause because it's what they want us to believe. they want the world to hate jews. don’t fucking fall for it. judaism is not zionism and zionism is not judaism.

to be fair, this is kind of exactly why people are skeptical — institutions like the ADL and similar groups that produce these statistics are deeply zionist and are counting anyone speaking out for palestine in these hate crime statistics. it’s important to acknowledge that both of these things are true; that zionist groups are coopting the idea of antisemitism to suit their needs (making the word feel as though it means nothing!) AND that actual antisemitism — that is, hatred towards judaism and any jewish people, holocaust denialism, saying that we “deserved” the shoah or that “hitler was right”, that kind of thing — are all happening more and more in increasingly public spaces

Film: Kodak Pro Image 100

Damon Torrance

Interior illustrations by Robert Tinney for ‘Byte’ magazine’s Dec 1977 issue