Yeah, i realized I could have gone in that direction after I posted.
I also considered
"A concrete reinforced tunnel?! At this time of year, at this time of day, in this part of the country, localized entirely within your enemies graveyard?!"
As soon as you blame the genocide on culture rather than authoritarianism, you have definitely stepped over the line from political speech to hate speech.
Can you also see how people who aren’t hateful bigots would interpret the joke? Can’t think of an analogy (although “pardon my French” for swearing and “it’s just sparkling ___” come to mind).
I do see how the joke could be meant to be hateful. Really hope it wasn’t, and just a “you don’t understand [generic language you don’t speak but we do]” joke.
On the topic of hate speech, when it's thinly veiled and/or coded (which it so often is), it's sort of like direct communication between the bigot and the minority. How bystanders interpret and feel about a targeted message to a group they don't belong to is hardly relevant.
As a Jew, I feel no connection to the events in the middle east, yet I'm constantly made to feel responsible. At the very least, everyone expects me to loudly disavow a situation I don't understand. All I really know is that I don't feel safe in my city anymore.
OP has made it clear this was a deliberate choice since apparently the original punch line names a place, yet they still changed it to "Hebrew" instead of "Israel".
None of these dog whistles are accidental, they are designed with plausible deniability in mind (if only OP could help themselves ad keep their mouth shut, that is, instead of admitting the quiet part out loud)
There's a lot of casual antisemitism going around now.
This sort of thing goes back a long ways. In the early 20th century they separated Jews into categories. "It's ok to hate Cosmopolitan Jews, that's not the same as hating all Jews" say the people that hate all Jews. But then slowly they start dropping the "Cosmopolitan" qualifier.
Antisemitism in the 21st century is following the same patterns as antisemitism in early 20th. Instead of Cosmopolitian Jews, it's now Zionist Jews. But you can see the same basic strategy at work.
People are looking the other way when there's violence towards Jews. A Synagogue is attacked, a Jewish business is burned down. But it's awkward to denounce those actions isn't it? Because you're sympathetic towards the people doing those actions. You disagree with the violent acts but since you hate the Zionist Jews, you feel more like "well the people that did those things were just misguided." Rather than denouncing it as you would if it were another group being attacked in similar ways.
Raise the heat slowly enough then the frog doesn't notice and jump out of the pot.
Eventually it gets to a point where you feel complicit. The water's boiling and you can't get out.
Sure you don't want to hop out of the pot yet?
At one point a meme was spread saying "it's ok to criticize Israel." Don't know the origin of that meme, but it's similarity to the white supremacist meme "it's ok to be white" from decades ago is interesting. No matter, we do know that the white supremacist types did a find and replace on their conspiracy theories replacing "the Jews" with "Israel" and those conspiracies gained traction.
Want out of that pot?
There was an explosion at a Hospital in Gaza. Many assumed Israel was responsible. These people accused Israel of genocide. Turns out the explosion at that hospital was a Hamas rocket, likely missed. But who knows? But definitely not an Israeli missile. But the accusation of genocide was already made. Nobody on the internet can admit they're wrong, so that narrative gained traction.
At Palestinian protests there are people cosplaying as Hamas. People that went into villages and massacred Jews are being idolized. Nobody questions it. It's considered normal to dress up as someone that murders Jews.
The water in that pot starting to feel warm yet?
And now we're at a point where the masks are starting to come off and we're seeing straight up antisemitism become more prevalent and dominating discussion on social media. People repeating propaganda from a group that wants to murder Jews like it's no big thing.
So people have to make a choice. Do you want to keep going along with the crowd that's becoming more and more antisemitic by the day? Or do want to be a smart frog and hop out of that pot while you're still able to?
At one point a meme was spread saying “it’s ok to criticize Israel.” Don’t know the origin of that meme, but it’s similarity to the white supremacist meme “it’s ok to be white” from decades ago is interesting.
I can't hop out of any pot. There is nowhere on Earth that will adequately protect me. The best I can do is live in the United States where I can legally protect myself. I don't know if I will ever feel safe again but I do know for sure that I'm never leaving my home without a handgun as long as I live. I was assaulted in public by a stranger recently, totally unprovoked, and that really solidified that my safety is 100% my responsibility... I feel so fucking alienated. The only connection I feel is to my ancestors who were forced into hiding, their ancestors who were forced into hiding, and so on... I guess it's my turn to carry on the tradition now
Honest question: why are commenters here saying “Hebrew” refers to an ethnicity rather than the language?
To my ears it sounds like an archaic or incorrect way to refer to a Jewish person or people, sort of like referring to Muslims as Arabs. But if I’m mistaken, or this is a new self-descriptor, I’d like to know.
I think the majority of commenters here don't actually know that Hebrew is the official language of Israel and assume it is a reference to the Jewish people themselves. Others seem to be claiming that since OP chose to use a language instead of a location like in the original episode (Skinner claims it's a regional dialect, and when pressed on what dialect, he says, "upstate New York."), he's somehow being antisemitic because he's equating it to, "all Jews," instead of, "Isralis." That's of course nonsense; Israel is the only country to have Hebrew as an official language, and the vast majority of the world's Hebrew speakers live in Israel. In fact, Hebrew was basically a dead language until the Zionist movement revived it in the late 19th century. The vast majority of Jewish people outside of Israel would only speak Hebrew as part of prayers, much like Catholics would use Latin (at least until they ended Latin Mass in the 60s). The idea of, "Hebrew expression," being coded towards the larger Jewish population instead the one country in the world where this language is regularly spoken is just silly.
Remember that they have conquered the Al Shifa hospital two months ago and we still haven't seen one single piece of evidence of the "HAMAS COMMMAND CENTER" they were screaming about. Other than a half assed attempt at putting a camera through a hole to show what was a... hospital servicing tunnel.
The original sentence is "it's an Albany expression". You chose "Hebrew" instead of a place's name in Israel. You offer no explanation for that. You can downvote me as much as you want, does not change the fact that this is not-so-thinly veiled antisemitism.