FAQ for trolls

QAIA’s facebook page has been heavily trolled lately. The comments display an exhausting mix of misinformation and straight-up racism. Our work is on anticolonialism, not on educating trolls. So rather than take commenters on individually, we’ve written up this FAQ. It gives real answers to the often ridiculous “questions” posed to us here. We’ve also banned hateful commenters and deleted conversations. They are archived, don’t worry.

Here’s the list of comments we respond to here. It may grow as needed. (2019 update: nope, the trolling is pretty much always the same.)

1. 
“There is no apartheid or genocide in Israel!”
   
2. “You don’t get to self-report that you aren’t anti-Semitic! Anti-Semitism is a problem in queer anti-racist organizing!”
3. “Israeli security is for the protection of Jews under threat from racist/hostile Arabs!”
4. “Israel is where Palestinian queers run to, because in Palestine, queerness is punishable by death!"
5. “Queers and Jews who are anti-Zionist are self-loathing!”
6. “Queers are being murdered in Chechnya, Syria, etc. – but Israel is your problem?!”
7. “You’re condemning a Jewish-only state but promoting an Arab-only state?!”
8. “Saying Jews are white is only logical if you’re anti-Semitic!”
9. “What about Arab oppression of minorities?!”
10. “Do you protest Pakistani, Saudi, Iranian apartheid?!”
11. “I oppose occupation/acknowledge Israeli apartheid exists, but I’m still a Zionist.”

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1. “There is no apartheid or genocide in Israel!”


There is apartheid. The 2017 UN ESCWA study examined Israel’s governance of Palestinians in the four categories Israel uses: in the Occupied Territories, Jerusalem, inside Israel, and in refugee camps. It also used international jurisprudence to define apartheid. The report was published according to usual UN practice. (The claim that it “wasn’t cleared” before publishing is a canard: such studies don’t get “cleared.” They are research publications.) Here’s a running list of apartheid laws in Israel.

There is genocide. Genocide is a term defined by the Polish Jewish scholar Raphael Lemkin in 1944. The term has been debated and updated, as ideas should be. Israel’s destruction of Palestinian life fits Lemkin’s definition and others since then. Here’s a simple legal explanation from the Center for Constitutional Rights.



2. “You don’t get to self-report that you aren’t anti-Semitic! Anti-Semitism is a problem in queer anti-racist organizing!”


We got this troll-comment in response to this post, where QAIA said that anti-Semitism isn’t an issue in queer, anti-racist organizations like the Chicago Dyke March. Self-reporting can be iffy (as when Israelis say “there’s no apartheid or genocide in Israel.”) It’s worth looking at the context.

• QAIA folks work in many queer anti-racist organizations, and our trolls don’t. It’s an activist culture we know. Queer anti-racist organizations – especially collectives! – are extremely attentive to any inkling of anti-blackness, anti-immigrant bias, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, transphobia, and classism. They are intensively self-policed, believe it. They’re. Not. Anti-Semitic.

• Accusations of anti-Semitism against queer anti-racists only ever come up when people call for Palestinian rights. Literally, ever. 

  Accusations of anti-Semitism have been levelled by white Jewish activists against queers of color, without any acknowledgement of the power differential between them. White queers claiming they’re being victimized by queers of color… If you’re okay with that, this FAQ is not up to your needs.


• Accusations of anti-Semitism are often levelled against Jews, without the accuser acknowledging that complication. They’re implying that the person is acting from outside a community, against that community, which is a pretty vile deception. Accusing someone of being self-hating requires a lot more engagement and questioning in order to be credible. Lying about someone being both self-hating and anti-Semitic for your own ends? Despicable. 

   
• Stories about supposed instances of queer anti-racists being anti-Semitic are increasingly being placed by organizations with PR departments, and are increasingly “post-factual.” For instance, a staff person of a Zionist LGBT organization wrote an article in a national Jewish newspaper about the Chicago Dyke March claiming that supposedly anti-Semitic organizers were “triggered” by seeing a Star of David. Only much later did the people whom she said were “triggered” get to speak for themselves – and not in a national newspaper. Among them were Jewish activists, who had also been wearing Stars of David and other Jewish symbols. Anti-Semitism is real, but the recent crop of accusations is not honest, and it interrupts anti-racist work that actually is interested in combating anti-Semitism along with other racisms.

3. “Israeli security is for the protection of Jews under threat from racist/hostile Arabs!”

Since 1948, Israel has been a colonizer working with other colonial powers. When we talk about security, let’s talk also about what we’re trying to secure.

In more recent decades, Israel has not been insecure: it’s been the aggressor. But it has been useful to present Israel as a vulnerable victim – a tactic commonly used by powerful states. Like when Americans cry “why do they hate us?” as US drones bomb civilian schools and hospitals. Here’s just one take on Israel's insecurity.


4. “Israel is where Palestinian queers run to, because in Palestine, queerness is punishable by death!”

If you’re truly interested in Palestinian queers’ needs, read what this activist from Palestinian queer organization Al Qaws says about Israel as a “haven” and Palestine as a home place for queers. Please stop concern trolling us about Palestinian queers, and worse, using them as props for your argument.


5. “Queers and Jews who are anti-Zionist are self-loathing!”

• Being anti-Zionist means being against the reasoning of Zionism. It means being against the idea that we as queers, Jews, or anyone else need to fence ourselves in, and fence others out, in order to be safe.

• It means rejecting the idea that danger to Jews, queers, or anyone is somehow lessened by occupation, apartheid, and the dehumanization of Palestinians, Arabs, Muslims, or others.

• It means rejecting the Israeli governments’ (and lobbyists’) claims about its intention to “protect” anyone. The idea of believing what any state claims about its virtues is silly, whether it’s Israel, the US, or any other. In the case of Israel, which openly represses, jails, and kills civilians who disagree with it, believing it’s a democracy that “protects rights” is ludicrous.

• Queers and Jews are anti-Zionist because we’re fighting for our survival and liberation, and Israel is a violent oppressor and generator of violence.

6. “Queers are being murdered in Chechnya, Syria, etc. – but Israel is your problem?!”

• This is like “all lives matter” but worse. In order to deflect attention from Palestinian suffering, you’re using another group of people’s suffering that also isn’t yours. And you’ve chosen specifically queer suffering to try to claim some moral ground. It’s so foul. Please. Stop. 


• Israel is the US government's key partner in making war, developing weaponry, and generating fear and "clash of civilizations" rationales for colonialism. So yes: Israel is particularly our problem.


• When people are working against Israeli apartheid, it doesn’t mean they’re not working against other abuses. 


• Anti-Zionist queers care about queers, and also other people. A million people in Gaza are starving, without a health care system or other basic needs, denied electricity (cooling, food storage, running water) by a terrifying collusion between Israel and the corrupt Palestinian Authority, and trapped at closed borders by agreement between Israel and Egypt. Palestinians have been undergoing some version of these abuses for 65 years. And Chechnya is your problem? (Of course it is – but Palestine should be too.)

7. “You’re condemning a Jewish-only state but promoting an Arab-only state?!”

Who TF is promoting an Arab-only state? Anti-Zionism opposes the Zionist idea of a state that grants different rights to different groups of people. Supporting Palestinian rights doesn’t mean expelling Jews, it means making people equal and ending the pretense that Palestinians don’t have a right to live freely in Palestine. It also means undoing  some of Israel’s illegal actions, like expelling Palestinians from their homes. Wondering what that would look like? Read one possibility here.



8. “Saying Jews are white is only logical if you’re anti-Semitic!”


Not at all. European Jews were once marginalized as a race, excluded from civic life and political and economic power. Today, they are generally not. White supremacists do indeed target all Jews as a race, and as they gain power, European Jewish inclusion is less stable. But the claim that European Jews are people of color – as it has been made lately by Zionists – is a coded claim that European Jews are marginalized in US and Western society like black people and historically colonized people. And that claim is untrue.


Jews from outside of Europe are people of color, including Arab, Asian, and other Jewish people. Some Jews from POC heritage have white privilege, including political and economic power, that has been created by the whitening of European Jews and the complicated nature of Jewish racialization. Recognizing those Jews as people of color is a way of recognizing and undoing Zionism’s portrayal of Jews and Israel as “European.” At the same time, it’s important to notice when “people of color” is being used to describe people who have and are exercising power – for example, the Israeli military – as if they were disempowered.



9. “What about Arab oppression of minorities?!”

There’s a robust discussion of racism and classism in Arab communities. Pay attention. No need for people from a country with a white supremacist and queer-phobic president, police force, and militia movement to be all that smug.



10. “Do you protest Pakistani, Saudi, Iranian apartheid?!”

QAIA works on the issue of Zionist violence, US support for it, and Israeli pinkwashing. We are proud and supportive of other anti-racist and anti-colonial activists around the globe (and we can’t help it: we especially love the queer ones.) There are SO MANY other issues that also need attention. We encourage trolls to get off our Facebook and go address them.



11. “I oppose occupation/acknowledge Israeli apartheid exists, but I’m still a Zionist.”


Yeah… no.