I can't edit the original comment because it triggered the flame war filters, but I'm curious why this is such a controversial question and garnered so many downvotes. I sincerely wanted to know what popular the consensus is.
You're right, when someone who isn't Jewish says "the Jews" it sounds weird and is followed by "control the banks" often enough that it sets me on edge.
ctrl+f "the Jews". I wouldn't make your opinion of what is "offensive" depend on an ad-hoc poll in times where even the most rudimentary looking into things for oneself seems to be getting rare. (or where people think clicking a button constitutes an argument, for that matter)
In this case, the comment also said "the Palestinians", and if you hear someone say "the blacks", as well as "the whites", yet you only retain the one and discard the other, that says more about the absurd climate than that person.
You're grammar rules here are inconsistent. The comment said "The Palestinians" not "the Muslims" because they were talking about Palestinians, people who live in Palestine. There are Muslims, Jews, Christians and agnostics living there. Israel's, people who live in Israel, include all varieties of religious groups. When you critique Israel's government policies but say "the Jews" you are incorrectly describing an entire religion when you claim to be talking about a group of people that live in Israel. Any "mistakes" with this logic are suspicious, but maybe they just skipped that part of the grammer?
> When you critique Israel's government policies but say "the Jews" you are incorrectly describing an entire religion when you claim to be talking about a group of people that live in Israel.
I totally agree, but they wondered if saying "the Jews" is offensive as such. It's not, as such.
When someone who cares a lot about the issue constantly mixes that up, that's very different from not getting it perfectly right on the first attempt because they're not familiar with the subject. And hey, even confusing Jews and Israel doesn't necessarily mean a person as an anti-semite, they could also belong to one of several schools of right-wing Israeli thought. But your point stands regardless.