People claiming "conflating Jews with Israel is the real antisemitism" always bothered me because I just innately had this knowledge that it was stupid, without really realising why. Then it hit me.
It's because I speak french.
When Robespierre demanded French Jews be protected whilst in foreign countries he referred to them as Israélites. Books that document Jewish history and culture in france and francophone areas refer to them as Israélites. When Napoleon removed French Jews' rights, he referred to them as Israélites. Old bible story cartoons I watched referred to Jews as Israélites.
In the dictionary, "Israélites" is literally a synonym of Jew.
In french, Israélite referrs to all ethnic Jews (of Israël, Ashkenazi, from Maghreb, etc) regardless of religion. The word "Juif/Juive" (= Jew/Jewish) specifically referred to people who practice Judaism, regardless of ethnicity (so converts were more often referred to as Juif, rather than Israélite, if they were not ethnically Jewish). "Israéliens" was used to refer to people of Israeli nationality, regardless of ethnicity or religion.
Over time the usage of "Israélite" kinda got replaced with Juif/Juive, as languages change, but it's still not entirely uncommon in literature and research papers.
So it bothered me because I grew up speaking a language that acknowledges Jews' ethnic origins being from the kingdom of Israel, so all I was reading was basically "it's violently hateful towards french people to conflate the french with france"
