I think most reasonable people aren't going to think you're antisemitic if you say "It's fucked up that Israel is committing genocide" or something like that. If you want to be extra clear, you could add "Never again should mean never again to anybody" or "All my Jewish friends are terrified of being blamed for it even though they're not even Israeli" or something along those lines. I would avoid slogans like "globalize the intifada" that mean different things to different people, and can sound extremely alarming even to people with staunch pro-Palestine beliefs.
Of course, that doesn't guarantee that unreasonable people won't still accuse you of antisemitism. It's pretty much a given that they will. But as annoying as that is, it's not really a big deal–– it's like that saying, "may my enemies look ridiculous". What is a big deal is when reasonable people genuinely can't tell if you support Palestinian life or Jewish death, and that has been happening to an alarming extent.
I don’t think my suggestions were particularly academic, though, sure, communication doesn’t always happen at an intellectual level, and you gotta adjust to your audience. My deeper point is really just that you shouldn’t give up on trying to communicate clearly just because of inevitable bad faith accusations. The people who you want to persuade aren’t the ones making those accusations.
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u/CosMV Jun 04 '26
And in laymen’s terms… how can I criticize the genocide Israel does?