u/RunYossarianRun

I'd appreciate some reassurance but also an honest reality check if you've got one. Thanks all.

On the train this morning, a man enters the car. White, mid-forties, well-groomed and neatly dressed, a kefiyyeh draped around his shoulders.

He paces up and down the aisle and announces at the top of his lungs that he wants us to pay attention to Israel; that Israel has been committing genocide in Gaza for two and a half years; that this week, Israel has invaded Lebanon again, grabbing land, destroying civilian infrastructure, and killing medics and journalists.

So far, he is not wrong. Self-righteous, performative, and inconsiderate, but not wrong.

Then he says Israel is Nazi Germany. Says Israel wants to take over all the land in the region. Spouts the phrase “Eretz Yisroel” as “proof.” Says Zionism is inherently ethno-supremacist, "they think they're superior," and must be stopped. 

I try so hard to stay centered and pick my battles, especially when it comes to Israel/Palestine. But something happened today and I wanted to speak up. I raise my voice and tell him he’s crossed the line from anti-zionism to antisemitism. He says I’m entitled to my opinions.

He continues on about how Israel is Nazi Germany and he wants us all to be unapologetically anti-Israel. 

I say that Nazi Germany didn’t have a peace movement or a two-state proposal.

He says accusations of antisemitism are just bullshit.

I tell him he makes the pro-Palestine movement look terrible.

I suddenly feel embarassed to be arguing with a guy who is already making himself look terrible. Everyone in the car wants him to shut the fuck up, even any who might agree with him. One woman tells him to fuck off. Another says she is mortified.

I have mixed feelings about how I acted. I’m embarrassed that I engaged some stranger (especially a white guy) about P/I. We all know you can't talk to someone who's not looking for a dialogue.

But I’m kind of glad I said something. I kept control of myself and I never felt like I was in physical danger. Maybe someone in the train car appreciated it. Maybe they needed to hear that it's ok to support Palestine and also oppose Nazi comparisons.

You all know how omnipresent the P/I discourse is. Social media, news, every nonprofit and influencer no matter how minor or irrelevant. Plus, every day, I pass graffiti in my own neighborhood equating Zionism and Nazis, even praising Oct. 7. But lately, we've been getting stickers from the "Jewish Defense League"-- a banned-by-the-FBI, Kahanist terrorist organization! Those make me even madder. And I think they're two sides of the same coin– extremists who condone killing civilians. 

So I was carrying all that and feeling exhausted.

UPDATE May 28, 10:40pm:

Thank you all for your thoughtful responses.

On Nazi/Holocaust Analogies– This has been discussed a few times on the sub. Responses generally want to be honest and accurate about Israel's actions, but are concerned about Holocaust inversion, "whitewashing" Holocaust history, and bad faith actors. There are frequent calls for better genocide/history education that would open up more accurate analogies.
if/how should we address non-Jewish mentions of the Holocaust?
Those N@zi Comparisons (genuine question for hard-left folks)
Nazi comparaisons and alternatives
“Keeping it in the family” … Jews vs. Non-Jews on Zionism and Universalizations of the Holocaust Memory

On noting that the person did not appear to be MENA– I was alluding to a popular post on this sub from last month about having terrible interactions with non-Palestinians over I/P. TBF, this is a generalization, and also I didn't know the person's ethnicity for sure. But this quote really stood out:

>"They're nearly incapable of understanding nuance. consistently take campist positions, conflate Jewish identity with white supremacy. They dismiss claims of antisemitism as irrelevant, frame the issues in terms of good/evil taking away human agency from the discussion, misuse post-colonial theory and make unmeasured comparisons to the nazis."

This is… pretty much exactly what happened to me.