Coworker said Israel shouldn’t exist

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Given the current mass murder happening in Gaza, it's really tough for Jews or anyone with ties to Israel to hold their head up high right now, even though they have been victims for hundreds of years.

It's just an all-around tragic situation, OP. Israel is reacting out of all proportion and is now the bad guy. Your coworker is entirely out of line, but 30,000 Palestinians, the immense majority of whom are innocent women and children, have died.

I don't know what to tell you. It's awful. I'm sorry you're made to feel attacked in your workplace - it should never happen! But then again your coworker is going through severe emotional trauma as well. I'm not Palestinian or Israeli, but come on. No country in the world should have blocked a ceasefire demand at the UN, like the USA just did. We're complicit to mass murder. It's not right.

If you feel you need to say something, it's your prerogative. After what he said, you certainly have just cause! I just hope it won't get him fired. There's too much pain and suffering already.

This all makes his comments like, " When someone sat in his usual spot at the conference table, he joked that the person was Israeli for taking his things." okay? No. Toxic and unacceptable.

I just went through our employee handbook. I didn't see any this comment would violate unless you equate Israel to Judaism, and I doubt most HR departments want to open that can of worms

I wrote it was toxic and unacceptable. I don't have your "employee handbook". This makes me wonder about the others around the table and how they felt. Did they give it the old boy net chuckle or were some offended as well?

So it's totally OK with you that his people are being exterminated? He shouldn't have any feelings about that?

Get real. I have feelings about the women being held hostage by Hamas but I'm sure has hell not going to make a quip about it at work around the conference table.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:This is absolutely not OK. Can you imagine if that coworker said something against blacks, Hispanics, or worse, if he were white and said discriminatory and racist things against any other race. It’s not OK just because he said something against Jewish people.

He didn’t say something with against Jewish people. He said something against another country.

Really dumb and inappropriate to state that at work, but also not appropriate to equate people with countries.

Please. If someone said something during a dinner with Muslim colleagues about how Hamas committed atrocities on 10/7, it would not be appropriate either even though it's true and the coworker is of course not Hamas. Bringing up anything about this current war in a work context especially around Muslim or Jewish coworkers is a shitty move meant to antagonize or hurt.

This is the most important piece. In the workplace, we need to try not to traumatize and hurt one another. This sometimes means keeping our own counsel.

On the other hand, the co-worker here is watching a real time genocide. I'd argue the onus is on everyone around him to show some grace as he watches his countrypeople (and possibly family) starve to death and be bombed.

HR can handle this and recommend and provide the employee with resources to help him handle the stress, WITHOUT burdening his coworkers. If he is struggling to maintain professionalism, which is understandable, he needs support/intervention before it escalates into a bigger headache for the organization.

Many people would consider silencing someone who opposes Israel as oppression. Are people not allowed to speak up in the face of genocide. Israel is committing a holocaust. What should the cost be to Israel for committing a Holocaust against the Palestinians? Should people not be able to say Nazi germany should not exist? If there is no Palestinian state why should there be a Jewish state?

Politics should not be discussed at work. Period.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Given the current mass murder happening in Gaza, it's really tough for Jews or anyone with ties to Israel to hold their head up high right now, even though they have been victims for hundreds of years.

It's just an all-around tragic situation, OP. Israel is reacting out of all proportion and is now the bad guy. Your coworker is entirely out of line, but 30,000 Palestinians, the immense majority of whom are innocent women and children, have died.

I don't know what to tell you. It's awful. I'm sorry you're made to feel attacked in your workplace - it should never happen! But then again your coworker is going through severe emotional trauma as well. I'm not Palestinian or Israeli, but come on. No country in the world should have blocked a ceasefire demand at the UN, like the USA just did. We're complicit to mass murder. It's not right.

If you feel you need to say something, it's your prerogative. After what he said, you certainly have just cause! I just hope it won't get him fired. There's too much pain and suffering already.

This all makes his comments like, " When someone sat in his usual spot at the conference table, he joked that the person was Israeli for taking his things." okay? No. Toxic and unacceptable.

I just went through our employee handbook. I didn't see any this comment would violate unless you equate Israel to Judaism, and I doubt most HR departments want to open that can of worms

I wrote it was toxic and unacceptable. I don't have your "employee handbook". This makes me wonder about the others around the table and how they felt. Did they give it the old boy net chuckle or were some offended as well?

So it's totally OK with you that his people are being exterminated? He shouldn't have any feelings about that?

Anyone can feel anything they want. Don't bring your feelings into the workplace. Talk to your spouse, your family and your therapist.

+1000

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:When Palestinians say Israel shouldn’t exist, they mean pushing the Jews into the sea and exterminating them.

When Israelis say Palestine shouldn’t exist, they mean the status quo that’s existed for decades.

Arabs-Israelis make up 21% of the Israeli population and have full voting rights in their system and freedom of movement and everything other Israelis have.

On the other hand, how many Jews live in Gaza or WB? Lots of Christians but no Jews. Wonder why that is?

This is why speaking about the elimination of Israel is anti-Semitic, because there is no path where Israel doesn’t exist and the Jews within its border continue to exist. There’s plenty of precedent to demonstrate that this is true.

There are a lot of problems with your comment, but the biggest one is you pretty much asking us to ignore that Israel is currently starving the 2 million people in Gaza and bombing all of their homes when thinking about what it could mean when an Israeli person is saying that there should be no Palestine.

That's fine, states or terror often suffer

You could say the same about Israel.

According to US law. Hamas is the terrorist designation not Israel. I dont make the rules

At one point, the US called Nelson Mandela a terrorist. Now people here revere him as a freedom fighter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Given the current mass murder happening in Gaza, it's really tough for Jews or anyone with ties to Israel to hold their head up high right now, even though they have been victims for hundreds of years.

It's just an all-around tragic situation, OP. Israel is reacting out of all proportion and is now the bad guy. Your coworker is entirely out of line, but 30,000 Palestinians, the immense majority of whom are innocent women and children, have died.

I don't know what to tell you. It's awful. I'm sorry you're made to feel attacked in your workplace - it should never happen! But then again your coworker is going through severe emotional trauma as well. I'm not Palestinian or Israeli, but come on. No country in the world should have blocked a ceasefire demand at the UN, like the USA just did. We're complicit to mass murder. It's not right.

If you feel you need to say something, it's your prerogative. After what he said, you certainly have just cause! I just hope it won't get him fired. There's too much pain and suffering already.

This all makes his comments like, " When someone sat in his usual spot at the conference table, he joked that the person was Israeli for taking his things." okay? No. Toxic and unacceptable.

I just went through our employee handbook. I didn't see any this comment would violate unless you equate Israel to Judaism, and I doubt most HR departments want to open that can of worms

I wrote it was toxic and unacceptable. I don't have your "employee handbook". This makes me wonder about the others around the table and how they felt. Did they give it the old boy net chuckle or were some offended as well?

So it's totally OK with you that his people are being exterminated? He shouldn't have any feelings about that?

When people start tossing out words like genocide and extermination, I roll my eyes and ignore them.

Hamas declared war on Israel with a brutal sequence of terror attacks last October when they actually attempted to genocide Israelis by going house to house and killing everyone they saw. That's it in a nutshell.

If Israel really wanted to exterminate and genocide the population of Gaza, they could do it. But they aren't.

It's sad that what is happening should be happening, but Hamas started it and Hamas continues to prolong it by refusing to give up the hostages who are still alive and using Palestinians as human shields. Hamas owns every single death as their own fault, whether Israelis or Palestinians. Every single death is blood on the hands of Hamas and their supporters.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Given the current mass murder happening in Gaza, it's really tough for Jews or anyone with ties to Israel to hold their head up high right now, even though they have been victims for hundreds of years.

It's just an all-around tragic situation, OP. Israel is reacting out of all proportion and is now the bad guy. Your coworker is entirely out of line, but 30,000 Palestinians, the immense majority of whom are innocent women and children, have died.

I don't know what to tell you. It's awful. I'm sorry you're made to feel attacked in your workplace - it should never happen! But then again your coworker is going through severe emotional trauma as well. I'm not Palestinian or Israeli, but come on. No country in the world should have blocked a ceasefire demand at the UN, like the USA just did. We're complicit to mass murder. It's not right.

If you feel you need to say something, it's your prerogative. After what he said, you certainly have just cause! I just hope it won't get him fired. There's too much pain and suffering already.

This all makes his comments like, " When someone sat in his usual spot at the conference table, he joked that the person was Israeli for taking his things." okay? No. Toxic and unacceptable.

I just went through our employee handbook. I didn't see any this comment would violate unless you equate Israel to Judaism, and I doubt most HR departments want to open that can of worms

I wrote it was toxic and unacceptable. I don't have your "employee handbook". This makes me wonder about the others around the table and how they felt. Did they give it the old boy net chuckle or were some offended as well?

So it's totally OK with you that his people are being exterminated? He shouldn't have any feelings about that?

When people start tossing out words like genocide and extermination, I roll my eyes and ignore them.

Hamas declared war on Israel with a brutal sequence of terror attacks last October when they actually attempted to genocide Israelis by going house to house and killing everyone they saw. That's it in a nutshell.

If Israel really wanted to exterminate and genocide the population of Gaza, they could do it. But they aren't.

It's sad that what is happening should be happening, but Hamas started it and Hamas continues to prolong it by refusing to give up the hostages who are still alive and using Palestinians as human shields. Hamas owns every single death as their own fault, whether Israelis or Palestinians. Every single death is blood on the hands of Hamas and their supporters.

THIS.

[Anonymous]

LOL this troll thread is going to get locked in like 5 minutes, why are you people arguing