What is antisemitism?
Anti-Semitism is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews.
What it’s not.
It’s not Anti-zionism.
It’s not opposition to Israel’s genocidal war against the Palestinian people.
It’s not opposition to illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
It is not challenges to Israel’s Old Testament and political origins.
It is not opposition to U.S. military aid to Israel.
It is not protesting Israel’s murderous violence against Palestinian men, women, children, and babies.
It is not giving a speech supporting Palestinians.
It is not giving a speech condemning Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
It is not calls for disinvestment from Israel.
It is not support for competing non-Jewish states such as Iran and other Muslim countries.
It is not demanding a free, equal, UN-recognized state for Palestinians.
It is not demanding all illegal Israeli settlements be removed from Palestinian territory.
I am sure readers can come up with other things that are not anti-Semitism, yet people who voice them are often called anti-Semites.
Anti-Semites are hostile to, prejudiced towards, or they discriminate against Jews. I do none of these things. I do, however, oppose Israel’s war against the Palestinian people, the building of settlements on Palestinian land, and the United States continued financial support of Israel’s military. I support calls for disinvestment from Israel and the immediate establishment of a Palestinian state. Holding these positions does not make me an anti-Semite. Zionists and Christian Fundamentalists who think the Bible prophesies the establishment of the state of Israel who continue to call me an anti-Semite do so out of either ignorance or deliberate attempts to smear and denigrate anyone who opposes Israel’s political policies and military violence.
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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