If I'm blind to Jewish victimhood I can promise you it's not wilful.

I'm on record condemning Hamas' atrocities (against Israelis and Palestinians), criticising the people who failed to condemn them or blamed Israel for them, and pointing out that it's insane to criticise Jews in general for the actions of Netanyahu and his government. But as you said you wanted to "be real" let's do that, shall we.

For starters, part of the "explosion of antisemitism" has actually been nothing more than perfectly valid criticism of Israel and its treatment of Palestinians. I constantly see people describing pro-Palestinan rallies or calls to stop the slaughter of innocent Gazans as "antisemitic." This conflation is asinine and dishonest.

Criticising the state of Israel's treatment of Palestinians is not antisemitism. Just as, criticism of Russia's invasion of Ukraine or America's invasion of Iraq, doesn't suggest hatred of American or Russians.

But yes, the other part of this explosion of antisemtitism really is antisemitism. I'm not denying it. Antisemitism, like all bigotry, is fuelled by stupidity. And a common forem of stupidity is to blame all people from a group for the behaviour of the worst people in that group.

And this is why I struggle so much to understand this impulse to conflate Jewishness with Zionism. Whether in an unverified quote from King or from you.

Again, most Jews don't even live in Israel. And many Jews are against Zionism and actively oppose what Israel is currently doing and has been doing for decades. Several Holocaust survivors have pointed out how shameful and hypocritical it is to invoke the Holocaust as a defence for Israel's oppression of Palestinians. Some Jews have even been punished or imprisoned for their views. Are they all antisemitic? Are they not really Jewish?

Some of the rhetoric I've heard coming from Zionists, both in Israel and elsewhere, has been truly monstrous. The sheer indifference to innocent lives, or even the glee at innocent Palestinians' suffering, is being absolutely correctly condemned. No claim to victimhood can ever justify it.

No serious person would deny that Hamas' actions on October 7th and before have been monstrous. Just as no serious person would deny that Israel's actions before and after Oct 7th have been monstrous. My issue is that Zionists only seem willing to recognise one side of this dynamic. And hide behind claims of victimhood and antisemitism every time the evidence for the other side is presented to them.