Meta has said it will expand its hate speech policy to cover more uses of the word “Zionist” when applied to Jews or Israelis on its platform.
We will now remove messages targeting ‘Zionists’ in several areas where our investigation has shown that the term tends to be used to refer to Jews and Israelis, with dehumanising comparisons, calls to harm, or denials of existence," the company said in a press release on Tuesday.
In December, Human Rights Watch said that Meta was guilty of “systemic censorship of Palestine content” during Israel’s war on Gaza.
I’m not fully up to date on the details of these, but I was under the understanding that the whole zionism thing was just a racist conspiracy theory regarding a secret society of Jews controlling whatever.
In that case, isn’t the term inherently antisemitic, or are there also non-Jewish zionist theories?
Where did you read something like that? Originally it was about the creation of a jewish state, nowadays it’s just for israeli nationalism.
As you can tell - basically deduced from context. I’ve never really seen the term zionist outside of xenofobic rants, so that’s all I had to go on.
Zionism is a nationalist movement for the support of a Jewish state. Throughout history different people have had different justifications for the need for a Jewish state, some of them antisemitic. It is worth noting that not all Jews are Zionists and non Jews can be considered Zionists since the desire for a Jewish ethno-state does not require one be a Jew.
As the stated goal is the creation of an ethno-state and thus the exclusion of other groups, racism tends to be implicit for many. Since the creation of an ethno-state likely requires the removal of of the current inhabitants, some pretty despicable actions get justified.
It is important to note that many of the most outspoken anti-Zionists have always been Jews. It’s from these that I have often heard the argument that conflating all Jews with Zionism/the state of Israel puts Jews everywhere at risk of getting blamed/punished for the actions of the state of Israel.
Many extremist Christians support the Zionist movement out of either the desire to remove Jews from their country or because they want all of them to return to Israel so that the rapture/end of the word can be realized. Some extremist Christian groups are literally doomsday cults kinda explaining their lack of care for the future…I mean why worry when the end times are nigh.
The US, and much of the west, show unyielding support for the state of Israel and by extension Zionism for several reasons, chiefly geopolitical in nature (oil). Other reasons include racism towards the other peoples of the region, the antisemitism described above, shame over the Holocaust (the Allies all showed some compliancy with it at least in the beginning…antisemitism has deep roots in western culture), and the fact that confronting the wrong of the colonial project of Israel means confronting their own colonial pasts…and often presents.
Edit to add: Belief that all Jews deserve to be safe and not have to fear hatred in no way requires the establishment of a pure ethno-state, the displacement/killing of whole peoples, or the support of those who push for these. The book “On Palestine” by Chomsky and Ilan Pappe argues for a one state solution with freedom for Jews, Christians, Muslims, and other groups all having the right to self determination. As well as pointing out evidence that much of the two state discourse is explicitly vavout preventing peace in the region. Both Chomsky and Ilan are Jews.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/i-am-zionist-how-joe-bidens-lifelong-bond-with-israel-shapes-war-policy-2023-10-21/
No Zionism is the religion of israel. It does not have anything to do with Judaism. It’s a white surpremacy death cult akin to Nazism.
The best way to describe Zionists is a quote by Ilan Pape: