Recently I got into an unpleasant argument with somebody. They spend a good portion of their time calling out casual antisemitism from obscure strangers whom they blacklist, which is okay, but in the long run doesn’t accomplish all that much.

My contention is that sometimes it is better to directly correct people who (perhaps unknowingly) make anti-Jewish claims, like conflating Jews with Zionists or repeating the deicide libel. This user disagreed.

However, I slowly started noticing strange behaviours from this account. The first was going against scholarly consensus by claiming that Jews did not write the New Testament. I initially shrugged this off as a simple mistake. Then they wrote:

And I’m supposed to educate? Like what?

“No the Jews didn’t kill Jesus.”

Yeah that’s definitely going to change someone that deep in antisemitism

Except that refuting this libel in detail is a perfectly surmountable task! There is no need to assume that everybody who repeats it must be a hardcore antisemite either. I myself quietly assumed that this conclusion must have been true after I overheard my dad mentioning it, but I never held a ‘grudge’ over it either; let bygones be bygones.

I replied:

And why would this obvious non-Christian care about the deicide libel? Because he confusedly and incoherently mentioned it? Do you even know who the hell this stranger is or what point he was trying to make?

Their evasion:

Right so the single most deadly antisemitic lie in all of history is something that you seem to be annoyed that I’m treating seriously

I… what? How is that an appropriate response?

I complained about this user’s cluelessness, and they offered… another evasion:

not “could.” If you’re claiming Jewish deicide, you ARE antisemitic.

These evasions remind me of spam callers.

From their post history:

I have someone freaking out on me because I consider people doing Jewish deicide myths [sic] as Nazis

Likewise,

Nazis and Jews were never in a fucking alliance and the Haavara agreement was not a fucking alliance

While it is indeed an oversimplification to say that the German Fascists and Jews were ‘in an alliance’, the technicality that Haʼavara was not an alliance is not going to be of any comfort to Palestinians and, furthermore, Haʼavara should be disturbing all on its own.

I could share other suspicious activity but you probably get the point by now. Anyway, here are my questions:

Was I responding to A.I., a literal shill, or somebody gullible enough to do hasbara for free?

Am I acting paranoid? Was this maybe only a socially awkward user?

Is saying ‘I’m not a Zionist, but…’ the latest hasbarist tactic? Are there now Zionists in denial?