Why questioning the existance of Israel, as is, is considered anti-Semitism?

Question

I personally have no problem with Jews to have their own state, neither do I have problem with any other group of people who want to have their own states. Those who criticize Israel, even its existence, as far as I have seen personally (and I live in Iran which is most famous for denying the right for the CURRENT Israel to exist as a state), only criticize how THIS Israel has been established, then how is this considered antisemitism? No personal problem with Jews, respecting them very much, living happily together, only not to be pleased with a group of people of any religion or family to oppress another group of people. This should be considered anti-oppression, why you coin the name antisemitism in this website?

Answer 1

I think this question is pretty clearly in reference to your deleted question on the main site, which you already asked about on Politics Meta. If that is the case, the first thing to mention is that it was not deleted for being anti-Semitic, but rather because the moderator considered it a "push question." The reason given was:

The downvotes and closure is because Politics Stack Exchange is not a place for "push questions". As seen in the help center: "It is not a place to advance opinions or debate, but rather for exchanging objective information about the policies, processes, and personalities that comprise the political arena". Therefore, questions that seem to be mostly rhetorical questions with the intention of making a point about some political issue are considered off-topic.

Politics Stack Exchange has more problems than perhaps any other site on the network with so-called "push questions": questions that basically seek to inform people of something that the asker considers pertinent ("Did you know this?") or that simply seek to make a political point ("Why is X leader/X system so popular if they are terrible?," "How can X country/X leader get away with their misdeeds?," "Is my idea for a perfect political system good?").

Your question probably could have (and perhaps still could be) improved to avoid falling into this category, but as it is, it did fit this definition. For instance, two central questions in your post start: "But is it OK...," or "Why do every people of every belief must submit...." These are moral questions, and thus would fall under the "tending to solicit opinion-based answers" close reason in any case, but by their construction clearly would seem to be promoting a specific answer ("It is not OK," "People of every belief should not submit") and thus fall into the push question category.

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With that said, the characterization of your question as anti-Semitic came from two ordinary users, not the moderator who deleted the question, and those characterizations were based on the definition that you cited. I don't know whether the moderator also believed those characterizations, but that was not the reason they gave for deleting your questions. But it does not mean that your question is officially considered anti-Semitic according to site standards. Those users may see your question as anti-Semitic, but not everyone does.

Personally, I think that it is a little unclear what your self-answer and question are promoting, which is probably a factor in some users seeing anti-Semitism there. For instance, your self-answer has the assertion that "it is neither historical, not for the sake of humanity and to respect the victims of a severe oppression once (or even perhaps for Centuries) in Europe (against those who might be anti-Semite)," which some users seemed to take as implying that it was anti-Semites who were oppressed in Europe (though a more likely interpretation might be "oppression in Europe against those, which might be anti-Semitism").

Similarly, you say "Those who criticize Israel, even its existence, as far as I have seen personally (and I live in Iran which is most famous for denying the right for the CURRENT Israel to exist as a state), only criticize how THIS Israel has been established?" Again, that is unclear enough that someone could read into that anything from "Israel should be destroyed" (which, whether or not it would be indubitably anti-Semitic, would definitely fall afoul of another site rule, incidentally) to "Israel was founded in a questionable manner."

Writing with more clarity and specificity might make those users less likely to see anti-Semitism, depending on what point your are trying to make.

Answer 2

The basic answer to your question is "because at least one of the moderators believes it is". The opinions of the moderators are far more important than those of any other user, in this instance, because they have extreme powers to delete posts and suspend users. There is no ability for users to remove moderators, so the view of the user base as a whole is largely irrelevant, let alone the views of some subset of users.

If you believe a moderator is behaving inappropriately, you can make a complaint to Stack Exchange staff. However, it is unlikely that they will side with you in this case, because Stack Exchange operates under the jurisdiction of the US government, which has adopted the IHRA definition of antisemitism. The IHRA definition is commonly interpreted as suggesting that "questioning the right of Israel to exist" is antisemitic, so it is very likely that Stack Exchange (the corporate person) "believes" that too.

Answer 3

This was answered here:

The formation of the state of Israel is an interesting bit of history. But that's what it is: history. The state of Israel exists since 1948. Nowadays, over 75 years later, its existence is an established fact. One can argue about whether or not it was the right or the ethical decision to form it back then. Just not on this site, because 1. it's a matter of history and not contemporary politics and 2. politics stack exchange is not a discussion forum.

If you live in Iran, which famously just recently launched a failed attack on Israel, you must understand that the information available to you from Iranian sources is severely biased. I know quite a few people from Iran living in the US, and their worldview is wildly different from yours. Also, worth reminding you, that before the Iranian Revolution, Israel and Iran were very close allies and with very strong economical and political ties. Some of the initial Revolutionary Guard officers were trained by the Israeli military instructors.

Questioning anyone's right to exist is hate. That's true for Israel, and that's true for Iran, and for the Palestinians for that matter. Claiming that one country should cease to exist to make space for another is unacceptable. Claiming that one country should change its internal characteristics for someone outside to benefit is unacceptable.

There may be arguments for or against certain Israeli policies, but Israel is a sovereign country that is entitled to whatever policies it wants. Even if we disagree with these policies, it's not up to us whether the Israelis have the right to enact them. We can try to convince them not to, or maybe influence them otherwise (The BDS movement is claiming that that's what it is trying to do), but in the end of the day - Israelis need to decide for themselves how to live their lives.

Same for the Palestinians - we can hate their inhumane behavior, using human shields, targeting civilians, kidnapping hostages and bombing indiscriminately (all these things, by the way, they are doing in part with your country's support), but in the end of the day it's their choice how they manage their lives, and whether we agree with that or not doesn't matter as much.

And yes, same for Iran. The oppressive theocracy with severely hindered human rights, that perpetrates murderous attacks around the world and supports some of the most vile of terrorist groups, is a sovereign country and its citizens and residents are entitled to decide how to live their lives. Do we want to trade with them? Supply them? Interact with them? These are our choices. Should they exist? In what form? That's their.

Answer 4

To me, personally, if someone assumes hating THIS Israel is antisemitic, this itself is antisemitic, as it is arguably putting equal all Jews to either being a genocider/criminal or a pro-genocider/pro-criminal. But anyway people can easily define anything they like and pretend like it is the certain truth, and gather people under a same flag with that definition as a main slogan. This website also goes after a definition given by some pro-Israels, and so not strange that they have the idea that anyone who criticies Israel is anti-ALLJews, antisemitic, so cruel, oppressive, and many label like that. This is a mere matter of definition, just like US coins the label terrorist to people who are against the US interests, or maybe indeed the Zionist interests, no matter if those people are being oppressed and are fighting for their obvious rights or not. Such people can be Middle Easterners, or even their own citizens (like US university students, and even some Israeli university students, as far as I have seen). These are only names and labels.

But why many regular people sometimes accept such fabricated definitions? Maybe they really have the same attitude or simply think, be it right or wrong, the definition makes sense.

I waited for some times to hear other possibilities, with no considerable gain. If I missed a point do not hesitate to make me informed, I will love to hear also other possibilities.