There were some good replies in there, but mostly I thought it was disappointing. I guess it's probably fine to just tell someone to fuck off because it's a community management issue, but I think it's good to try to have some engagement with arguments to both understand your own positions and to be ready to refute things when it actually matters. I tried responding, but in the time it took me to write something, the thread was deleted.
You probably won't find this compelling, but I think that it's good in cases where someone seems sincere and shares several of our values that at least a little effort is made to re-educate them. It's simply to our advantage for more people to agree with us. The OP was antisemitic, but it got worse in the comments, where they assigned collective guilt to Jews in general because there were a number of Jewish Nazi collaborators before the Nazis really started with the Holocaust. I think this is a stronger indication that the poster was unsalveagable as far as a forum is concerned, because I think they are just motivated by a seething resentment of Jews, but I'm curious how they would respond to the self-evident charge of them assigning collective guilt to an ethnicity, something that is really fucked.
Anyway, I don't mean this as an indictment of people who aren't the aforementioned antisemite, I just wanted to mention a thought I had and also make my comment from before:
useless comment
Why are you still centering the "uncomfortable" feelings of a group that overwhelmingly supports genocide?
This is a deranged argument that, on its own, merits your banning. The popularity of Zionism among Jews does not negate the question of ethnic discrimination, and the logic that you are using here could easily be pogromism. "Why aren't we taking violent action against a group that overwhelmingly supports genocide? Never mind that the "group" being talked about isn't a coherent political entity or even a coherent community, but an ethnic group!" Also, even if we counterfactually said that directing antisemitism against zios is okay (it is not!), there are still many Jews who closely identify with their Jewishness and are ardent anti-zionists!
Because you're using an inversion of a common zionist argument, let me use the inversion of its counter: The vast majority of people who are uncomfortable with the burning of a Star of David are not Jewish, and I'm willing to bet that the majority aren't Zionists either (or they at least oppose the genocide but may or may not understand that it's the inevitable expression of what Israel is). A lot of people object to the inciting of ethnic hatred, and you yourself recognize that the Star of David is different in this respect from a cross, because you single out Jews as an ethnicity to tar and trample on, but when discussing the burning of St. George's cross on the English flag, you relate us to the KKK because of their burning crosses in front of black churches (etc.). Those two things (England's flag and KKK rituals) have nothing to do with each other and are just superficially connected by the floating signifier of the cross, with no specific connection to something like an ethnicity because it is being extended very cross-ethnically (pun not intended), and hypothetically also applies to Arab Christians, to LatAm Christians, and so on. Regardless, around the world in many different countries, many people object to inciting ethnic hatred and they also object to genocide, e.g. in China, so the idea that the objectors are all Jews is completely false.
Also obviously this shit gets used as a cover for antisemitism, like in your case as you reveal by assigning collective guilt to Jews because like 70% of them according to some polls support Israel, as though that means the other 30% are chaff! (Never mind the other problems with this logic)
"other slogans and symbols" by this, do you mean the IOF flag burning? Because I think people don't just want to communicate "death to the IDF", they want to communicate the destruction of Israel as an apartheid, jewish supremacist state, in which case it is literally communicating something else. Or do you see that also differently?
Is it also not part of our tasks as communists to be a few steps ahead of the masses of the oppressed classes, who are seemingly already quickly coming to see the distinction?
If it seems like I'm taking a clear side, it's because I feel like I understand the side who is for burning the flag better, but want to fully understand the other side before making a real position
No, that's not what I mean (though burning that flag is cool and good). Slogans and symbols include "from the river to the sea" and images of all of historic Palestine with the Palestinian flag projected on it, both of which I believe are clear in communicating the desire to eradicate Israel. "Globalize the Intifada," also, communicates this, but it's not the same as the OOP issue because a coherent pro-Palestinian movement must support the Intifada, and so if there is miscommunication (or more likely misinformation) on what it is, that must be explained anyway.
I do think also that destroying the IDF is basically tantamount to destroying Israel because they're a necessary part of Israel's survival, but I don't really care and obviously it is vulnerable to becoming a shitty deflection the way complaining about Netanyahu is.
This isn't a policy point. This isn't a dispute about what the actual state of the world when this is over should be like. This is a dispute about communication, and the particular method in question is plainly not necessary for the advancement of the project of eradicating Israel (unlike with "Globalize the Intifada"). It's silly to call me a tailist for that when I am arguing for the necessity of Israel's destruction by sanctions and military resistance and intervention.
As much as those are clear to us, because we see the way that Israel can only exist with the IOF, or that "From the River to the Sea Palestine Will Be Free" is only realizable with the destruction of Israel, this isn't clear communication about our intentions to anybody less familiar with the material conditions of an apartheid colony. At least I know of people who argue that the one doesn't necessitate the other, and so believe that there is a distinction which they see that communication as upholding. This means constantly communicating that instead of using the symbol which would more clearly communicate it, that being the burning flag. So what justifies requiring more circuitous communication constantly? Does this come directly back to the argument that it's a Jewish religious symbol which shouldn't be used for this, which you've already made elsewhere?
And is posting a picture of a whole Palestine really communicating the same as a burning of the Israeli flag? The one being a constructive and the other destructive seems to me to be communicating separate claims, which are connected sure, but requires 2 concrete different sorts of actions which we would sanction.
Im sorry if my communication is upsetting you, I'm not trying to accuse you of being a tailist. I'm wanting to know your defense against that accusation, which you gave a fine answer to and I don't think you are one.