Have any of you noticed that there are some BLM allies who seem to be not so much pro Black as anti White? That they are using the BLM and social justice more generally as an occasion or justification or excuse for airing their anger towards The Man or The Establishment? They want the chance to hold up their middle finger at the oppressive system and its enforcers/beneficiaries/apologists and maybe any oppositional cause will do?

An inkling of this kind of thing started showing up for me among some of my Progressive friends when I would say, “Hey, did you see what Egypt is doing in Gaza to Palestinian businesses?” and they would answer that they hadn’t — they’re not keeping track of what Palestinians are going through, what they are doing is keeping close track of what Israel is doing to the Palestinians. What I mean is that these friends are not so much pro-Palestinian as they are anti-Israeli. They don’t really (I’m inferring) care that much about Palestinians beyond the situation of their being victims of Israeli offenses. It’s the offenses they care about, because the trigger is Israelis being bad, not Palestinians being mistreated.

The parallel I notice in myself is my opposition to smoking. I have to recognize that I don’t just hate smoking, I hate smokers. An enlightened version of me would want to get rid of cigarettes out of love of my fellow man and wanting to see him not be destructive of his health, but the fact is that I enjoy telling smokers that they can’t smoke in a non-smoking area not because I want them to make a healthier choice but because I want them to not be able to do something they want to do — I want them to suffer. My opposition to smoking has a component of cruelty: smokers should suffer a little, lose their desired object, to pay for being weak, for not having had the willpower in the first place to avoid getting addicted.

In a similar way, some leftist/progressives here in the US seem to be opposing Israeli treatment of Palestinians not out of compassion for the parties involved or a deep conviction that things would be better for everyone if the situation changes, but out of something closer to cruelty. I’m still a little hesitant to call this antisemitism, but this post and the comments are making a pretty strong argument.