Going back to the Quenelle (Anelka's gesture), is it actually antisemitic?

I've looked into it a bit and it seems that it is sometimes (but not always) used as an anti-zionist symbol. But I've seen nothing to suggest it is antisemitic.

If it is simply anti-zionist, I can't see the problem. That is not at all the same as antisemitism. I'm guessing that pro-zionist groups are simply shouting "antisemitism" because they don't like it!

I'm happy to be corrected on this, if anyone knows more about this than I do.

Why bring this silly dig at football supporters now, Spurs have nicknamed themselves 'The Yids' for 40 years?

And also, if I was Jewish, I doubt I'd take anyone claiming Jews or Yids as 'dirty' being that offensive or accurate. I've never seen a dirty Jew in modern Britain, quite the opposite. If anything, their parents, Mothers to be precise, are more likely to clean and moisturise their precious darling faces until they find the perfect wife, and prevent them from ever having to lift or operate any manual machinery other than a car, not even a screwdriver.

COYP

It's smoke and fire, isn't it? I doubt anyone can prove anything about the meaning of the gesture beyond a reasonable doubt, but from the general reaction (particularly in France) it seems safe to conclude that the quenelle is a gesture that does have political connotations of one colour or another, and that someone plying his trade in the media frontline really should have known better. If you want to see that as palliating liberal bed-wetters that's up to you; I'd call it using common sense. Given Anelka's personal history, he tends not to invite being given the benefit of the doubt.

What's really unfortunate is that West Brom didn't quickly step in and take control of the situation. Very poor management on their part. Had they reacted with an immediate two game ban for making political gestures and said no more than that (which would have been reasonable) the whole situation might have been instantly defused.

Sydenham by birth. Selhurst by the Grace of God.

I agree on that point. Footballers shouldn't be making political gestures on pitch.

I just find it interesting that something which to me appears to be anit-zionist has seemingly been casually classed as antisemitic, as if the two were inseparable. It's fair to say that antisemites would be anti-zionist, but the reverse doesn't hold true. Lots of people I know (many of them liberal bedwetters, as per your term!) who are strongly anti-zionist, but most certainly not antisemitic or racist. The opposite in fact.

You say there is no smoke without fire. But someones anti-zionist views are not an indication of antisemitism and I find that an unfair and serious allegation to make. edit: I'm not saying that you are making such an allegation!

Edited by the_mcanuff_stuff (21 Jan 2014 10.46am)

Always with the quenelling. Be a mensch and stop, Anelka!

I think that most right-minded people are in agreement that political gestures have no place on the pitch or in sport, in general.

On a separate issue however - there does seem a great deal of misplaced opinion on the matter of anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism.

Whilst you are right to suggest that anti-Semites would be anti-Zionist; it is also fair to say that the opposite is true, albeit I believe it is used unwittingly.

Anti-Zionism is the opinion that the Jewish people should be dispossessed, against their will, of a fundamental right that they currently enjoy: namely, the right of self-determination. Whatever one believes about whether the Jewish people had a moral right to self-determine in 1948, this right is now a fact of international law, which states that 'all peoples have the right freely to [self-]determine.' Therefore, the selective deprival of fundamental rights is the essence of discrimination.

The boycott industry, which has proved largely successful, has succeeded in diluting and dividing the matter. Most people I believe use the term anti-Zionism ignorantly and as a reactionary term against perceived Israeli intransigence. The wider comunity would rightly be up in arms if it were suggested that Muslims were not entitled to their own nations.