I was curious how common it is to be, say, a leftist in a very conservative area.
My county, family, and school are all very conservative. It makes it a bit intimidating to engage in any political discussion. I also rarely get to hear leftist opinion anywhere in person, which means i need to devote a lot of time to considering and thinking about arguments that are probably already solved.
Are you, or have you been, in a similar situation?
You mean like the one where an isreali company is promoting the sale of stolen Palestinian land? and protestors showed up? 100% called for.
Most people understand that it’s the idf and the isreali government that’s to blame for all this, but if you have a population committing a genocide, yes, there’s gonna be some people who take it personally.
As I said before:
You’re rationalizing being shitty towards a religious group in your community. That’s how people see you. If your goal is to protest Israel, you’d protest an Israeli embassy or consulate. Any sees that they think “those people are angry at Israel.”
When people see you protesting a synagogue, they think “those people are antisemitic.” You’re thinking of the rationalizations you’ve read on the internet, but aren’t thinking about how to be effective. Sure in your little internet group every action can be rationalized to be “just criticizing Israel”. Out there in the real world, protesting a synagogue is antisemitism. Because obviously.
And why would you choose to protest a synagogue rather than a consulate? It doesn’t help Palestinians in any way. You aren’t doing these things for Palestinians, you’re doing these things for yourself. Doing deplorable things to prove to others in your group how devoted you are to the group. To show that you’re willing to be intimidate Jews because you don’t care if you’re labeled antisemitic. You trust your group to back you up with their rationalizations and say you’re doing a great job “criticizing Israel” when you’re attacking Jews in your community.
But outside of your group, protesting a synagogue is just plain old antisemitism. Nobody gives a shit about your rationalizations.