Warning: This post is political and involves my views on antisemitism and the Gaza situation.

So, in my travels over the past year or so, I've been trying to hit independent book stores or otherwise cool local places. I mean Devorah always wants to go to the local yarn store to get something either spun or dyed in the area but I don't have a similar hobby. I figured that I could visit a local book store. In San Francisco last October I got, among other books "Taking Greenwich Village" which was terrific and this past year in Savannah I picked up a trio of books including "Lovers in Auschwitz" which I haven't gotten to yet. In Philly, I picked up Stephen Ambrose's "Nothing Like it in the World" on the building of the transcontinental railroad.

Well, during my travels, I discovered a really cool store but had to leave almost immediately due to what I consider antisemitic posters on the wall. I'm not at this time going to share the location or name of the store since I plan to contact them via email and hopefully be able to have a dialog, I mean, there's so much antisemitic messaging out there now and most of the people proudly sharing the messaging are, or at least I'd like to believe just ignorant of the facts and realities. I probably should have tried to open the dialog when I was there but at the time it was raining, Devorah had already exited the store and I didn't want to leave her in the rain.

Hopefully, I can reach these people and they'll see the harm they're doing because it's a really cool store - they've do tech workshops like hosting a website or working a bluetooth/wifi scanner. Have electronics supplies, tech zines (notably, Julia Evan's zines which are terrific) and lots of cool maker and off grid type stuff.

Unfortunately, many people who call themselves liberals and claim to be for the persecuted are super comfortable promoting antisemitism, they just don't see it. I have friends on Facebook who readily share posts with Hamas propoganda. Stuff like that falsehood about 14,000 kids will starve by next week, things like the fraudulent Hamas published casualty numbers, or remember when Israel was accused of bombing civilian sites only for really small corrections being published days later about Hamas tunnels and facilities under or right next to the sites in question. There are horrible tragedies happening in this war but the whole situation is a lot more nuanced than propoganda releases like "Israel's killing children."

Now, let me be clear, I have no love for the current Israeli government. Netanyahu is a criminal - he's Israel's trump and it's absolutely fine to criticized him and his government's actions but when you blindly post Hamas propoganda and at the same time ignore Arab on Arab atrocities not to mention little things like the constant barrage of rockets into Israel or the fact that Oct 7 was a Hamas attack and there are still hostages being held, all you're doing is promoting antisemitism which is becoming a real issue. We seem to be reading about attacks on Jews weekly and you all are fine with it and that's a problem.

Now, in the particular instance of this store. There were a couple of signs supporting Palestine. One was "Ceasefire now" and the other, "From the River to the Sea." Nothing about the hostages, nothing about rockets being fired into Israel, nothing about the Arab on Arab atrocities in places like Yemen. Just the antisemitic soundbytes of Hamas.

Now, I'm all for a ceasefire, but given that the sign seems to be made by the usual suspects, it's coming from people who are demanding that Israel cease defending itself. No mention on releasing the hostages, no mention of stopping the rockets, in fact, the ceasefire now camp is also the intifada everywhere camp and the Oct 7 everywhere camp so indeed when one sees that same "ceasefire now" messaging, it's almost always antisemitic and it's code for "the Jews have to stop defending themselves so we can slaughter them." If you really want a ceasefire you should be upfront with demanding that Hamas disarm and the hostages be released.

The other sign is even more problematic. "From the River to the Sea" is short in this case for "From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free." If you question the people sharing this message it means that Palestine will exist from the Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea. Note that that's where Israel is now.

They're chanting for the destruction of Israel. They claim it's "their land" ignoring that over 50% of the Jews in Israel are indigenous to the region and the rest are genetically connected, their ancestors having gotten kicked out during the diaspora. Supporting "From the River to the Sea" means you don't support a two state solution and you're calling for the destruction of Israel and guess what? That's antisemitic. You're saying that Jews do not have the right to self determination in their ancestral homeland. It's antisemitic because you want to replace Israel with yet another Arab/Muslim state while denying one specific people the right to have their own state. This is why I keep coming back to the truth that Antizionism is Antisemitism.

I could go on and debunk other falsehoods but I don't want to go on for too long.

• Israeli's are colonizers - no, they're not. There is only one nation in the world that speaks Hebrew and it's in the geographic location that Jews came from. That's not colonization. How many Islamic countries are there or English speaking countries? You can't be colonizers without any colonies.
• Genocide - There's no genocide. Right now there's an ugly war going on but the populations in Gaza and the West bank continue to rise as does the Arab Israeli population. How can you have a genocide with rising populations?
• Apartheid - Again, I call BS. All Israeli's pulled out of Gaza two decades ago. Hamas could have built a paradise instead they built tunnels and weapons of war. In Israel Arab Israeli's have full rights and representation in government so no apartheid there. Is there racism? Maybe but that's a different conversation and American's certainly don't hold the high ground there. West Bank? Well, that gets complicated and very nuanced so we can debate that one.
• The Nakba? That's another one I call into question. Funny how those who keep talking about Arabs being expelled never talk about the hundreds of thousands of Jews expelled at that time from Arab countries or the 50,000 or so Arabs that remained in Israel who have now grown to become over 2 million Israeli citizens with full rights so were clearly not expelled.

Back to "From the River to the Sea" some smartass always says "well, Israeli's used that slogan." Okay, so they did, and it was a scummy thing back then too.

To close off, posting things like "From the River to the Sea" is at the end of the day calling for the destruction of Israel, it's antisemitic and should never be accepted.

Call out Netanyahu. Call out specific Israeli policies and actions you don't like but if you don't at the same time call out Hamas, call out Arab on Arab atrocities like in Yemen then you're just being antisemitic.

I hope the store in question thinks about what they're promoting and removes those signs and then I'll be able to shop there and otherwise support them.