Ahoy mateys!
A few of our users have recently pointed out that a lot of the pro-Zionist accounts on the fediverse nowadays seem to come from the feddit.org instance.
Feddit.org's explanation for this situation seems to fit into a few common variations:
- They accept both pro- and anti-Zionist members, so it's not proof of a bias.
- They [choose to] comply [in advance] with strict German / Swiss / Austrian laws regarding [overly broad] "antisemitic" language, or they might get in trouble.
- Calling for the destruction of Israel must obviously mean you want to kill every last man, woman and child, rather than simply wanting to overthrow Netanyahu's genocidal fascist regime. Because [bad faith] reasons.
- Lots of Euros (and Germans specifically) are pro-Zionist, so they feel like they have to accommodate this view.
But whatever the excuse happens to be, they need to do better imo. Israel is currently the most violent, fascist and genocidal nation state in the Middle East (if you exclude the US military bases there). And yet feddit.org seems to regard the Palestinians fighting against Israel's ongoing illegal occupation of their land as the real terrorists. As such, I am calling for feddit.org to:
- Explicitly prohibit pro-Zionist accounts from joining.
- Take measures to resolve their claimed legal issues, e.g., moving their server location to a less regulated jurisdiction, and ensuring that admin accounts remain anonymous regarding their location.
- Stop referring to folks who call for "Death to Israel" or similar as though they are the terrorists or violent extremists. The Zionist Israeli settlers, the murderous IDF rapists, and the entirety of the Israeli government are clearly the violent ethnostate extremists we should be worried about, not the Palestinians in Gaza who are fighting for their lives every single day against completely disproportionate levels of Zionist violence.
More context
Our instance already voted to ban pro-Zionist accounts (see https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/60585441 for reference) and the rule that was implemented is here: Golden Rule #8.
As further context, you can find relevant comments and discussion in this post by a banned feddit admin in MoG (that fact they chose to post in MoG is in itself quite telling), and this post about their defederation from quokk.au over anti-semitism allegations has recently become active again.
I've also pulled out some choice morsels from the modlog to illustrate the sort of thing we are talking about:
This one says it all... mrdown@lemmy.world being banned for calling out feddit.org users for being Zionist apologists. It's apparently "xenophobic" to state a few hard truths.
If you have had similar experiences on feddit.org, please feel free to share in the comments.
Voting instructions
I am proposing to ban the following communities from feddit.org, which seem to be the most problematic communities in terms of hosting pro-Zionist posts/comments:
- https://feddit.org/c/YUROP
- https://feddit.org/c/europe
- https://feddit.org/c/buyfromeu
- https://feddit.org/c/europa
- https://feddit.org/c/dach
- https://feddit.org/c/deutschland
- https://feddit.org/c/germany
Upvote this post if you want dbzer0 / anarchist nexus to ban these communities.
Downvote this post if you'd prefer not to ban these communities.
Note 1: Votes from external instances do not count, unless one of our admins has vouched for you.
Note 2: If you think feddit.org deserves a full instance ban instead, or have alternative suggestions, then please leave your comments below. If enough people think that's the better option, then we'll do that instead.
Note 3: Although I don't really expect this to happen, if feddit.org agrees to make policy changes to address these issues then we are willing to reassess the situation.
Just yesterday I had an odd interaction with an .ml user who reposted a straight-up nazi tweet, by a nazi profile, even with their own thread title resembling a frequent nazi dogwhistle. Several non-.ml users, apparently mostly from feddit, pointed out the post looks like it was posted by a nazi. .ml users responded in part by attacking their instance allegiance (calling them "whingy fedditers"). Since I posted enough clear evidence of the Twitter profile being a fascist, OP commendably deleted their thread.
What I saw there is feddit users being met with a hate boner from .ml and their correct suspicions of a tweet that looks antisemitic indeed being antisemitic being ignored and made light of.
That's my personal experience with feddit and its zionism, and consequently I've ended up suspicious of some of Lemmy users' standards regarding this whole matter.
The examples of feddit moderation posted here in OP are almost entirely sanctions against grave personal attacks. I am completely unconvinced that this is proof of the moderators' zionist positions. "Fuck you, you piece of trash" and "fuck you and your whole family" is not "a few hard truths". I'm also unsure if I get the context right, is mrdown a Palestinian? Many of those comments break the most elementary civility standards and verge into murderous fantasies.
Then say it like that? No, destroying a country is not the same as overthrowing its regime, those are different things. I support the latter with regards to Israel, but would hardly dare say the former.
This post was supposed to convince me feddit's behaviour is problematic. I come away with the opposite impression. So, I vote against the bans.
Passing Zionism and Israel as representing the Jewish People is the most anti-semitic thing there is because the actions of that ideology and that nation are some of the most depraved imaginable: portraying Zionism and Isreal as representing the Jewish People is the logical equivalent of claiming that the commiting of Genocide (including explicitly targetting children) and even participating in the running of a pedophile ring (the Epstein one, which Mossad supported) are "Jewish things".
Meanwhile there are the more traditional kinds of anti-semitism which do not taint all Jewish people by conflating them as a group with depraved ideologies and nations and instead just directly slander Jewish People for being Jewish.
And this bring us to your post: you're saying that we should overlook the actions of the first kind of anti-semite, by claiming that in us doing otherwise would weaken efforts against the second kind of anti-semite.
Your claim is the very opposite of logic: it is the first kind of anti-semite who are strengthening the messaging of the second kind (for example, under the [IMHO false] axiom that Israel is the same as The Jewish People, then the Mossad's involvement in the Epstein child-sex ring leads to the mathematically logical conclusion that Jews are pedophiles or at least supporters of pedophilia) because the second kind can leverage the depraved Israeli and Zionist actions and the link to the Jewish People claimed by the first kind to slander all Jews.
Because of this connection between these two kinds of anti-semites, in reality those fighting the former kind of anti-semite weaken the second whilst those protecting the former strengthen the latter.
And this brings us to feddit.org being filled to the brim with the first kind of anti-semite and activelly protecting them from criticism.
No, i'm not saying that. I described what I saw and what I roughly concluded. What you're ascribing to me is far beyond my current considerations.
So why did you feel the need to talk about the latter kind of anti-semitism in a discussion about the former?
As I pointed out, by fighting the former we are in fact weakening the latter by denying them the empowering of their "arguments" that they get from the former kind of anti-semitism, so if you worry about the latter kind of anti-semitism, it was being indirectly addressed by the demands being made by the OP.
Surely it would've made more sense for you to support what the OP is trying to do rather than go "whatabout".
THANK YOU!! we have to call hate where we see it as it is. failure to do so only lets it fester and spread, making the world worse for everyone. bigotry of any kind is a threat to everyone, including people who think themselves safe from the bigotry they don't see. we have to recognize not only that zionism is antisemitic, but that antisemitism masquerading as antizionism is zionist.
to reiterate something i said elsewhere, the fediverse at large is in a good place and is self governing well. but that doesn't mean racial hate isn't on the rise in our self managed spaces. we must continue to work to encourage tolerance, and part of that is telling bigots they're not welcome.
zionism is bigotry. it is not just harmful to palestinians, it is harmful to everyone, including the people who mistakenly think it's a form of anti-bigotry
https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2025/05/30/poll-israelis-expel-palestinians-gaza-genocide/
But it is most Israeli Jews. 80% want full expulsion, 50% want complete genocide.
yes, Zionists. not all Jews are "Israeli", not all Jews are Zionists, but most "Israelis" are Zionists, and almost all Zionists are Jews or Christians (mostly Christians!).
Zionism ≠ Judaism
yeah, SStateSSians do be like that. and 82% of Evangelicals are also Zionists, which is nearly thrice the global population of Jewish people.
convenient that there are little to no numbers outside of either the US or "Israel" breaking down support for "Israel". you're also citing a Zionist source.
~~citation fucking needed~~. oh i see, you misread the part where i said most Zionists are Christians.
The guy said he want ice to kidnap me and defended genocide joe. He accused me of being a nazi and pro trump when i said that trump is also a genocidal maniac. So yeah fuck him and his whole family
Murderous fantasies? None of those insults allude to murdering people
Zionism is pretty similar to nazi so both ideologies should be rejected and anybody who defend them should be banned
I don't know how any self-respecting leftist who isn't a Zionist or Zionist apologist could look at a comment like Emopunker's and think this isn't Neoliberal Zionist apologia. Take your whataboutism elsewhere please.
Edit: No links, screenshots, or modlog info on the subject at hand. For all we know this story about a fascist ml user could be made up to apologize for Feddit. Fuck off dude.
So OP posted a dozen examples, and you think they're not sufficient by themselves, and instead have to bring up an another screenshot? That's just solidifying my point.
What definition of zionism do you work with?
What is "whataboutism" here anyway? I'm talking about how people perceive and judge feddit users' comments, which has veered into blanket dismissal of their comments even when objectively justified. That's why I brought up the situation.
Well fuck you too, asshole, have you considered asking me for the links and screenshots before telling me to fuck off? I didn't post them originally because they weren't crucial to my observations. Aren't my own comments still visible on my profile, couldn't you just check there? There will be nothing in the modlog because the user deleted the thread themselves. But here are the screenshots of my own replies and two replies that I still have in my notifications, as the rest is now unavailable:
The OP posted a screenshot of the fascist antisemitic tweet that was also posted to 4chan's /pol/ with a similar caption, you can see it there in the archive that I linked. The title of the Lemmy thread was "Every time".
You are expected to provide some proof of your claims as it would not be the first time Zionist apologists have come here making up stories to apologize for the Zionist behavior of mods or admins. Thank you for providing some screenshots at least. @Flatworm7591@lemmy.dbzer0.com Can you see the post this commenter is referencing?
Please understand, after seeing a Feddit admin outright provide neoliberal talking points justifying the occupation of palestine, as well as neoliberal justifications for silencing anti-Zionists and antifascists under the guise of "complying with german law" I don't have a lot of patience for ""skeptics"" like you, who might actually mean well or who might be Zionist apologists acting in bad faith. It's impossible to tell
It is clear you don't have a very full or complete picture of the Feddit situation because our users have quite a bit of experience with Feddit users and their administration banning anti-Zionist and antifascist views either citing a flawed definition of antisemitism, or using liberal respectability politics. This includes an admin of Feddit coming here to argue with a user justifying their Zionist positions as "Just complying with German Law" and then whining when another instance admin elsewhere banned them for that.
If you think respectability politics is important even when it comes to human lives, you will find very little agreement here. If you think Feddit being critical of real antisemitism means they have a point when dismissing anti-Zionists as antisemitic bigots, you will again find very little agreement here. You really shouldn't expect people to feel warm towards your dismissive sentiment because it is the sentiment that leads to bad actors like Feddit's admins being dismissed as "misguided" or "well meaning" while perpetrating harmful ideology and suppressing the criticism that highlights that.
Are we on Wikipedia or in the court, perhaps? No, this is just a forum. You only had to ask and I would post the screenshots. It is quite obvious why I didn't post them initially (if the thread was still up I'd have linked it) - they're large and would probably detract from the point, like I'm still arguing with the guy from .ml instead of talking about a somewhat different matter here.
I've read the OP text and some of the comments. So you're effectively agreeing that all of this still doesn't provide a very full picture. Apparently I had to interact with Feddit users elsewhere enough to come to your conclusions. But I didn't, so the reasonable thing to do for me for now is to stay by my vote "against", because I can't make conclusions based on things I don't know about.
I said what I saw and how I made my conclusions based on that. I asked you for your definition of zionism, to try to figure out what exactly is the problem with the screenshot you posted and to understand your viewpoint better in general, but you haven't provided it yet. It seems you're expecting me to read minds and/or spontaneously agree with you even while you're insulting me. I can't do that.
And that's reasonable, those are two different things indeed, and I hope I haven't conflated them.
You are expected, not required. This is just a forum, discussing a serious issue.
Comments in your example:
anti-zionist jew here. my observation has been that i see the most true anti-semitism coming from .ml, hexbear (when i venture out to see what's going on there) and .zip. i see the most zionism coming from .world, sh.itjust.works, and feddit. and both sides seem dead set on saying for jews what it is to be jewish.
the most concering to me is how many supposed palestine supporters repeat the hasbara talking point that palestinians are arabian. this is ethnographically and historically incorrect. palestinians are indigenous to the levant. the jewish relationship to the land is far more complicated with most diasporadic teachers emphasizing that our role in the world and in the diaspora is to listen to and hear the workers of the world and teach them the organizational techniques that have worked for us. in essence, if there is to be a jewish presence in the levant it needs to work the opposite of how israel is doing it. land management will have by needs changed since last we were there, and we should treat the palestinians, who have been there all along, as our respected cousins and teachers. we have not been part of that land for 1700 years now. many of the foods that are seen as quintessentially jewish are eastern european in origin.
anyway.
yes.
there's so much antisemitism in the fediverse masquerading as antizionism. there's a lot more genuine good antizionism, and there's also more zionism than antisemitism (though zionism is itself an antisemitic world view), but the people spouting the antisemitism always do so with a veneer of how what they're saying is about anti-imperialism, most often from accounts who are less anti-imperial and more campist
Got any concreate example because I follow daily Palestinians discussion on lemmy. I never saw anybody saying Palestinians are Arab
It is so sad to see pro Russia anti Israel people . People can read the Wikipedia page about Israel and Russia relation the relation is basically two loving couple with occasional fights like any couple.
There is many content that is spot on on Palestine but still defend Russian invasion of Ukraine. So I have to not post it.
Shameless plug. I create this community where both zionists and tankis can spread their propaganda https://piefed.social/c/apologiafreenews
https://slrpnk.net/post/28551182/18481907
So we're clear. Generally speaking, this user has his head on right about this specific conflict. But in this particular comment they are accidentally advancing something that Israel wants you to believe about Palestinians
I agree. Many Palestinians simply are descendent of ethnic jews that was converted to Islam and was Arabized since when Arab took control of the land there was no major mass expulsion of jews
mmm don't feel comfortable with putting it this way. before ~300 when the romans cracked down on religious minorities it'd be more accurate to say that Palestinians and Jews were two groups of Canaanites with a high degree of cultural interplay. yes there are a lot of modern day Palestinians descended from Canaanites who identified as Jewish, but to say the primary culture they descended from was Jewish is another form of de-idigenization.
for what it's worth, my family is from a region of Europe that is today part of Ukraine. the way I'd describe my relationship to Ukrainians and Palestinians is we are all cousins, brothers, and sisters divided by centuries of trauma. part of why i despise Israel is they want to take my connections to my people away from me and dictate to me who i am and how i should feel about them. they want me to hate and fear Palestinians and Ukrainians because i don't live on Levantine or Galician soil anymore. but the songs i've inherited and the foods i eat speak a story of kinship and friendship, and a familial promise to meet again and share the foods and songs we still share as well as the new ones we've learned.
Zionism wants me to reject the connections my mother, her mother, her mother's mother, going back thousands of years worked to maintain and sustain across famine, genocide, and oppression. But still, it would be wrong for me to say that Palestinians are of me or that i am of Ukraine. this would be to disrespect all of our identities in our shared struggle to find the freedom we once, long ago, worked together to fight for
I see the distinction you're making about Canaanite roots, and I agree. But I think what I’m trying to get at goes even deeper than a general 'common ancestry.'
I didn't mean to generalize . When I mention that many Palestinians are descendants of Jews who stayed, converted, and became Arabized, I’m pointing to a direct, unbroken link. It’s not just that we are 'cousins' from a distant Canaanite tribe; it’s that in some cases, we are the same family that over time developed distinct identity characteristics. I think it is an even better framing against Zionists.
Acknowledging that some Jews became Palestinians through history isn't meant to erase their unique identity today, but to highlight that our roots are so intertwined they are often one and the same.
this I can absolutely get behind and is what I was driving at, too, just from a different angle.