Dave Chappelle is partially right: Jews are treated as space aliens

Comedian Dave Chappelle has largely been given a pass for his antisemitic jokes in his latest Netflix special, although there is some pushback for his anti-gay and anti-transsexual jokes.

Here are his antisemitic jokes (thanks to Sasha Goodman for the transcript):

I also saw a lot of videos of UFOS. I mean WTF is going on with that sh*t? These UFOs keep coming to earth, and it made me think of an idea for a movie. Sounds dumb, but hear me out. 

In my movie idea, we find out that these aliens are originally from earth — that they’re from an ancient civilization that achieved interstellar travel and left the earth thousands of years ago. Some other planet they go to, and things go terrible for them on the other planet, so they come back to earth, and decide that they want to claim the earth for their very own.

It’s a pretty good plot-line, huh? I call it “Space Jews.” *audience laughter* Space Jews. 

(Man in audience: Free Palestine!)

It's going to get worse than that, hang in there. It's going to get way worse than that.

[The next Space Jews joke comes ~30 min later]

There was a Black man who was in South Carolina during slavery who somehow got granted his freedom by his so-called master. And when he master granted him his freedom, he also gave him a plot of land. Now it turns out this brother was brilliant. He had a good eye, good knack for farming. And he farmed this plot of land very successfully and made a lot of money. And this is where the story gets crazy. When he got all that money... this n**** bought some slaves. Have you ever heard this before? This is a true story.

 Not only was he a slave owner, he became a slave breeder, and employed tactics that were so cruel, even white slave owners were like, "Yo, my man!" He was a wild dude, but he did it just because that's what successful people did at the time, and he just wanted to be down. What a f*cking tragedy. How can a person that went through slavery perpetuate the same evil on a person that looks just like him? It's mind blowing. And, shockingly, they're making a movie about him. Ironically, it's called "Space Jews."

*laughter and cheering*

Space Jews.

It occurs to me that Chappelle has recognized something that is fundamental to antisemitic discourse, the Jew as the Other. 

There is nothing more Other than being a space alien.

In Chappelle's universe, Jews were originally human, but they distinguished themselves so much from other humans that they left them in the dust of the Earth. They are way ahead of ordinary humans in every area - and they are a danger to the rest of the world, because they are unbearably cruel. Like aliens in 1950s sci-fi movies, Jews are technologically advanced but morally corrupt. 

Now, look at this example of dozens of tweets by Human Rights Watch head Ken Roth on the topic of an Israeli company, the NSO Group. This one is from 2019 and it quotes a New York Times article that also emphasizes NSO Group's Israeliness.

At the time, no one blamed the government of Israel for what NSO's clients did with its spyware. NSO is one of dozens of such firms that market spyware, zero day bugs that can be used for spyware and surveillance software. The fact that it is from Israel was utterly irrelevant. (Since then there has been justified criticism of Israeli export laws, but not at the time of this article.)

So why does Roth and the NYT emphasize the "Israeli" part?

Just change "Israeli" to "alien" and then it makes sense. 

People are using alien technology to spy on humans. Now, that's a story!

I recently noted that Palestinian media made a big deal over Mark Zuckerberg donating $1.3 million to Jewish charities in the US. That donation is pretty much pocket change to the Zuckerbergs. So why is this even a story?

Now, replace it with "Alien tech titan donates to alien charities." Now, that's a story!

When Israel is singled out as being guilty of real or imagined crimes that every other country gets a pass on, it is because Jews are aliens whose actions are subject to much greater scrutiny. They are being judged to see if they can properly belong among human beings - or if they are a unique danger to real humans. 

Would anyone care about Jeopardy host Mayim Bialik's views if she wasn't an "alien" - a proud Jew who supports Israel? 

Not to mention that famed author Alice Walker recommends a book that portrays Jews as lizard-like space aliens. 

The idea of Jew as "alien" pre-dates horror science fiction movies.

Martin Luther referred to Jews as "alien murderers and bloodthirsty enemies." 

 In 1905, Great Britain passed the "Aliens Act" to limit immigration - and it was directly aimed at the Jews who wanted to escape Tzarist Russia. It purported to be against criminals but everyone knew it was against Jews. 

The Nazi Nuremberg laws declared Jews to be alien to all other races. 

Whether Chappelle understood this consciously or not, he is continuing in a long tradition that treats Jews as not human, as not having the same rights as humans, and indeed as being an active danger to human beings.

If that isn't antisemitism, then nothing is.

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