Israel, Palestine, The Israeli Lobby, Apartheid, Etc
| October 9th, 2007Very few issues fill me with despair like thinking about Israel and Palestine.
I don’t understand why, when American Jews lean left, virtually all the major lobbies and organizations representing American Jews are on the far right. (Groups like AIPAC are strongly in favor of the Iraq invasion and have loyally supported Bush’s policies). Why, oh why, can’t we have a representative Jewish lobby?
(Speaking of which, see Glenn Greenwald’s recent posts on the ADL’s extreme reluctance to call out major right-wing figures for casually slinging around trivializing Nazi and Holocaust comparisons — 1 2 3 4 — even though they jump to criticize such important left-wing figures as an anonymous poster on Moveon.Org’s message board. Again, why do we American Jews — most of whom are liberal democrats — accept right-wing partisan hacks representing us in Washington?)
(But Glenn, you’ve missed a major example — the way that the ADL has never found time to criticize the word “Feminazi,” coined by Rush L., which Rush and other major right-wingers have been using nonstop for almost 20 years).
I’ve given up on any possibility of an honest debate or engagement with 99% of Israel’s supporters. I get it: Anyone who criticizes Israel, ever, in anything but the mildest of terms, is an anti-semite. (Edited to add the following sentence:) Meanwhile, far too many of Israel’s defenders are far too quick to dismiss any but the mildest criticism of Israel as anti-semitic. Rootless Cosmopolitan reports that Archbishop Desmond Tutu has now been branded an anti-semite, and St. Thomas University has accordingly cancelled a scheduled speech by Tutu:
Having asked sane and rational people to believe that Jimmy Carter is a Holocaust denier1 simply for pointing out the obvious about the apartheid regime Israel maintains in the occupied territories, the same crew now want us to believe that Archbishop Desmond Tutu is an anti-Semite. No jokes! That was the reason cited for Tutu being banned from speaking at St. Thomas University in Minneapolis. “We had heard some things he said that some people judged to be anti-Semitic and against Israeli policy,” explained university official Doug Hennes.
Since the above quote includes the word “apartheid,” which people are bound to object to, I’ll point out this post by Tony Karon defending his (and Jimmy Carter’s) use of the term. (Karon, who is Jewish, is branded “self-hating” rather than anti-Semitic.)
Also branded anti-Semites: Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, Harvard and Columbia University of Chicago professors, authors of the current best-seller The Israel Lobby. Neither of them has a single documented instance of anti-Semitism, but they’ve published a scholarly book criticizing Israel, so they’re anti-Semites. Daniel Levy’s review of the book in Haaretz is critical and balanced, the most reasonable commentary on the book I’ve read so far.
UPDATE: Here’s the fourth post from Glenn Greenwald on the ADL’s apparent bias.
- Tony is exaggerating here; Carter was called all sorts of foul things by Israel’s partisans, but they stopped short — just barely short — of calling him a Holocaust denier. (back)
October 9th, 2007 at 7:06 am
I’m from Minneapolis, so I don’t know why I’m speaking up for my sister city but, the University of St. Thomas is actually in St. Paul. (They hate it when they’re mistaken for Minneapolis. ;-)
There has been a local uproar from individuals angry at the decision to not allow Archbishop Desmond Tutu to speak when the university has had Ann Coulter on campus in the past. Personally, I’ll take the Archbishop (who has done much good in the world) over Coulter.
This comment was written by Daomadan.Report this comment to the moderators
October 9th, 2007 at 7:19 am
I’ve given up on any possibility of an honest debate or engagement with 99% of Israel’s supporters. I get it: Anyone who criticizes Israel, ever, in anything but the mildest of terms, is an anti-semite.
Thanks for admitting you have no real interest in honest debate or engagement. So sorry anyone who doesn’t hate Israel, forced, nay, FORCED you to this pass with their right-wing-worshipping ways.
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
October 9th, 2007 at 7:24 am
Isn’t Mearsheimer at University of Chicago?
http://mearsheimer.uchicago.edu/
[Thanks, I’ll fix that. –Amp]
This comment was written by Megalodon.Report this comment to the moderators
October 9th, 2007 at 7:25 am
Actually, that “Apartheid” quote has created some trouble for Carter because right-wingers see it as inconsistency. He tries to be polite with Darfur so that he can try and affect change there, but in doing so he’s avoided referring to it as “genocide”. Given that the right uses Darfur as the example to show how “weak” the UN and the left is on human rights, it makes his apartheid comments harder to swallow.
Personally, I don’t think Israel is really true apartheid… yet. I think it will be in a few years as the demographics continue shift away from a Jewish majority. But until then, the Israeli government has very few policies that are actually legally, specifically racist. Instead, they use very fancy footwork to make laws that repress the Palestineans while trying to avoid directly referring to religion or race.
This comment was written by Silenced is foo..Report this comment to the moderators
October 9th, 2007 at 7:59 am
Silenced is foo, I think that in the occupied territories, what’s going on is apartheid. I agree that what’s going on in Israel itself is not apartheid. (And the difference between laws that are racist in words, and those that are racist in intent and effect but not in words, strikes me as more academic than real.)
Mythago, 99% is an exaggeration, and I’m sorry if that insulted you. But it’s not as if there aren’t numerous examples of Israel’s supporters making trivial accusations of anti-Semitism towards Israel’s critics. Maybe instead of being mad at me for pointing it out, you should be mad at your fellow Israel supporters who have done so much to discredit anti-semitism as a serious issue.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
October 9th, 2007 at 8:00 am
Mythago, do you honestly feel that your post is responsive to Amp’s concerns?
In specific, I have a problem with the idea that:
Is equivalent to:
I think that Amp has quite a lot of interest in honest debate and engagement, but that he’s been let down too often to expect or hope for it any longer.
—Myca
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
October 9th, 2007 at 9:32 am
Maybe instead of being mad at me for pointing it out
For “pointing out” that, in your opinion, the number of people who are supportive of Israel to any degree and are intellectually honest approaches zero? Are you really shocked, shocked that anyone would react negatively to what is essentially a rhetorical game: I’m going to accuse you Israel-supporters of screaming “anti-Semite” at every single critic and it’s your job to rush around proving you’re not one of the bad guys?
Maybe instead of being mad at me for calling you on the tantrum you dropped into what otherwise might have been a thoughful post, you should be mad at those of your fellow critics of Israel who are anti-Semitic, and those who whitewash and excuse Palestinian terrorism, even when it’s directed at other Palestinians.
Plenty of people who are supporters of the existence of Israel are critical of the Israeli government. They’re just not inclined to get into bed with groups on the Left that are rabidly and stupidly pro-Palestinian, anti-Semitic, or both.
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
October 9th, 2007 at 10:36 am
If you can successfully label your critics as bigots and haters, you don’t need to worry about logic or facts anymore.
I’m surprised it took nationalistic Jews this long to get on the bus. It’s such a convenient bus, and goes to so many handy places.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
October 9th, 2007 at 11:14 am
I agree with Mythago; this sentence is unhelpful. As far as I can tell, my position on Israel is very similar to yours, Amp, but this sentence puts me off.
I find the whole conversation exhausting, as I tend to think all sides behave themselves badly. There are definitely anti-Semites involved in the conversation — and yes, nutty zionists, too. Israel gets treated as a symbol rather than a nation. A symbol of Jewishness (positive or negative), a symbol of biblical armageddon, a symbol of western redemption from the holocaust, a symbol of theocracy, a symbol of western culture in the middle east … blah, blah, blah. Everyone seems to want to manipulate Israel as if it were a cog in a war of abstractions. It clouds the conversation to the point of uselessness.
I don’t think it’s helpful to pin the responsibility for that on “Anti-semite!” shouting zionists, as if they were the sole or even main culprit. (And of course, they aren’t 99% of Israel supporters, but yeah. Hyperbole.)
I don’t mean to give you, or indeed Mythago, an uncharitable reading here. Also my comments should be read as relating solely to that sentence. I find this topic utterly exhausting, but what with everyone’s favorite troll Robert pitching in to slam feminists, anti-racists, and activists for homosexual rights on his way to slamming the Jews, I felt I needed to make some sort of comment.
Speaking of which, Robert, if you’ve got something useful or interesting to say on the topic, do say it. If you merely want to sneer at the concept of oppression, please refrain.
This comment was written by Mandolin.Report this comment to the moderators
October 9th, 2007 at 11:29 am
Your model of oppression makes it impossible to have meaningful conversations about controversial topics. As you yourself notice.
If that’s not useful, feel free to delete it.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
October 9th, 2007 at 11:30 am
Tony Karon here: Actually, at least one Israel partisan DID accuse Jimmy Carter of Holocaust denial, or at least of giving aid and comfort to such. Deborah Lipstadt, writing in the Washington Post
(www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/ar…)
said that the fact that he had only twice referenced the Holocaust in a book about the West Bank meant that “Carter gives inadvertent comfort to those who deny its importance or even its historical reality, in part because it helps them deny Israel’s right to exist.”
And it’s precisely to this twisted, even deranged logic that I was referring — there is absolutely no connection between the Holocaust and the apartheid regime that Israel has created on the West Bank.
So, despite your corrective above, I stand by my original statement that some of Israel’s most rabid partisans asked us to believe that Jimmy Carter was essentially a Holocaust denier, or at least a collaborator with Holocaust denial…
This comment was written by Tony Karon.Report this comment to the moderators
October 9th, 2007 at 11:34 am
You mischaracterize my remarks, as I notice you were very rude toward Mythago about supposedly doing to one of your comments in another thread, which led you to imply she was stupid (”I’ll use simple words and concepts”).
So, no. Astonishingly, it’s not useful for you to accuse everyone who writes on this blog in agreement with its premises of arguing disingenuously (”it’s such a useful bus”), and then coming out and directly saying that none of our words on controversial subjects are meaningful. It’s thoroughly disrespectful in ways that have gotten other commenters banned.
This comment was written by Mandolin.Report this comment to the moderators
October 9th, 2007 at 11:55 am
I agree with M&M about the 99% sentence. What it makes me feel is that if I have some disagreement–even a minor one–you’ll simply classify me as one of those rabid folks on the other side, and say “well, the chances were only 1% that I could discuss it with you anyway.”
Generally, I think this is a dishonest post. Though I agree with you in many respects (I’m not a fan of many of Israel’s practices) I think you are trying to take a martyr’s position. You’re also using a common argumentative tactic of relying on non-neutral terms while claiming neutrality.
Look at this quote in your post:
What a wonder! If someone disagrees that it’s apartheid, or that the proper classification/term is “occupied territories,” or that those positions are less than “obvious”… then what? Are THEY the radical right wingers? Or are you the problem, for trying to control the terms of debate?
I certainly think there are many fairly rational people–even many relatively left-wing, representative, people–who would disagree with at least one of those terms. There is no true scotsman.
You also seem to be pulling the “I’m a Jew, so if *I* don’t think it’s antisemitic then it really isn’t” line, though you don’t say it specifically. As we all know, there aren’t many contexts where that really works.
Finally: call me crazy, but is there some reason that Jimmy Carter is considered to be incapable of antisemitism, such that an accusation against him can be met by “yeah, but that was CARTER, and he CAN’T be an anti-semite!” After all, Carter’s choice of the word “apartheid” conveys a distinct view and moral stance. In particular, it’s a word which (like your post) doesn’t lead to great discussion. It’s a loaded attack in and of itself.
This comment was written by Sailorman.Report this comment to the moderators
October 9th, 2007 at 12:54 pm
This is a really good point. I’ve certainly met many Jews who were comfortable criticizing Israel’s manifold assholery, but who still felt the nation should continue to exist. It’s odd that we capitulate to right-wing narratives.
OK, anyway, I don’t really want to participate in the meta-conversation about the conversation about Israel/Palestine (she said, continuing to participate). It’s just that I do think there’s merit in Amp’s post and his position, and I wanted to voice that, despite my irritation with the sentence that Mythago pointed out. The way we talk about Israel *is* fucked up (on multiple fronts, IMO), and whether or not ‘apartheid’ is applicable as a term*, the violence that Israel perpetrates is unconscionable.
–
*I vote no, for the same reason I vote that liberals stop comparing Bush to Hitler in ways that suggest they’re identical. Such as saying: Bush is Hitler. Evil’s not always derivative. Innovation in awful is a growing field.
This comment was written by Mandolin.Report this comment to the moderators
October 9th, 2007 at 1:09 pm
I apologize for my “99%” comment, which as several people here have correctly pointed out, was unfair. I’ve edited the post to correct this.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
October 9th, 2007 at 1:41 pm
Mandolin, I certainly agree that comparisons to apartheid and Hitler should not be made carelessly or lightly. But I don’t think apartheid and Hitler are the same thing; apartheid is a particular kind of governing policy, Hitler was a person. If a regime uses apartheid policies, we should be able to say so, and I think it’s not the same thing as “Bush is teh Hitler!” rhetoric.
Regarding, specifically, Israeli policy in the occupied territories, I think it’s justifiable to say that Israel has instituted an apartheid regime there. To quote Tony:
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
October 9th, 2007 at 1:45 pm
Tony writes:
Tony, with all due respect, that’s not standing by your original statement, which didn’t include the “at least a collaborator” language; if anything, it’s a correction to your original statement.
I stand by my footnote; as far as I can tell, no one has accused Carter of being a holocaust denier. One extremely prominent Israel apologist has labeled him someone who “gives inadvertent comfort” to holocaust deniers, but that’s clearly not the same thing as calling him a holocaust denier.
However, it clearly is true that Carter has been labeled a Jew-hater, based not on any demonstrated bigotry against Jews, but based on his willingness to criticize Israeli policy harshly. So on the larger issue I think we agree.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
October 9th, 2007 at 1:54 pm
Mythago wrote:
Just to clarify, I’m not mad at you. You rightly called me on what was an unjustified exaggeration. I hope now that I’ve apologized for that, we can discuss other matters.
I am mad at those people. However, I don’t believe they hold a prominent place in US discourse, nor do they hold positions of power in the US, which makes them less of a concern for me as an American.
Indeed, I am one of those people.
So do you consider me “in bed” with rabid anti-Semites? It’s unclear if your criticism here is meant to include me or not.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
October 9th, 2007 at 2:09 pm
Mandolin wrote:
Are you sure he was talking to Mythago? I thought Robert was responding to me, since I said I didn’t clearly understand what he ( or mythago) was trying to say. I didn’t want to be a jerk but I found a lot of what they were trying to say needlessly complicated. His summary was much better (imho) than his pervious position statement.
Robert, was that to me or Mythago?
This comment was written by joe.Report this comment to the moderators
October 9th, 2007 at 2:44 pm
All the headaches Jimmy Carter had during the Camp David accords, only to get shit on like that.
It really gets to me. Good post, Amp.
And don’t forget, various rightwing fundamentalist Christians, like here in the south, excuse their antisemitic bullshit all the time with “But I love Israel!” And they do. And like with Limbaugh’s “feminazi”, it is excused and ignored by the Charles Krauthammer faction, as long as they toe the political line.
This comment was written by DaisyDeadhead.Report this comment to the moderators
October 9th, 2007 at 3:29 pm
ampersand - do you ever read tikun olam, richard silverstein’s israel blog? i find that he gives very good commentary from the point of view of a liberal jewish critic of israeli domestic and foreign policy. he certainly has gone to some lengths to counter the stridencies of AIPAC and similar groups.
This comment was written by r@d@r.Report this comment to the moderators
October 9th, 2007 at 4:37 pm
Mythago - I consider myself neither rabid or stupid (although on the left for sure), but I would say I’m pro-palestinian. I don’t understand why you use that as a position that is on par with anti-semitic.
These discussions always remind me of something Naomi Klein said - which is that equating Judaism and Israel benefits zionists and anti-semites.
I think your point about Jewish lobby groups is really interesting, and really sad. Because Liberal Democrats is quite a step rightwards if you look at the political history of American Jews. Anyone who has studied the left in America knows it would be absolutely non-existent if left to the goyim.
This comment was written by Maia.Report this comment to the moderators
October 9th, 2007 at 10:16 pm
Maia, I think you may be misreading mythago. I don’t think she’s saying it’s wrong to be pro-palestinian, just that it’s problematic to be rabidly and stupidly so. If you are not rabidly and stupidly so, then I don’t think she has a beef with you.
This comment was written by Mandolin.Report this comment to the moderators
October 10th, 2007 at 2:48 am
Mandolin - but she ran pro-palestinian and anti-semitic together - as if they were any way similar or comparable.
I don’t think rabidly and stupidly are useful descriptions of political positions myself.
This comment was written by Maia.Report this comment to the moderators
October 10th, 2007 at 3:25 am
If we assume that the existence and and well being of Israel is good for Jewish people (and so far as I know most Jewish people do) than isn’t opposition to Israel anti-semitic in the same way that opposition to AA is racist? I’m using racheal’s ‘color blind racism’ definition here. Also, don’t Jewish people own the definition of what is and isn’t anti-semitic?
This comment was written by joe.Report this comment to the moderators
October 10th, 2007 at 5:18 am
Joe, surely you can be in favour of Israel’s existence and well-being without supporting all of its activities - just as you can be in favour of the USA’s existence and wellbeing without supporting everything its government does. In fact, in both cases we could refuse to support some policies because they are detrimental to the nation’s well-being. The Iraq war is one of these. A segregated Israeli state that infringes on the rights of Palestinians is, arguably, another.
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October 10th, 2007 at 9:54 am
Also, don’t Jewish people own the definition of what is and isn’t anti-semitic?
Personally I would disagree with that, but even if that is correct, Amp pointed out that he is Jewish, and one of his big complaints is that a minority of Jews in America seem to be speaking for all American Jews, without taking the others’ opinions into account.
This comment was written by Decnavda.Report this comment to the moderators
October 10th, 2007 at 10:08 am
I’m surprised it took nationalistic Jews this long
Is that the PC version of “Zionists”?
Amp, even those right-wing-huggin’ guys at the ADL are not happy with the cancellation of Bishop Tutu’s appearance. (They also sent a response to Glenn Greenwald.)
And Maia, Mandolin is correct. I don’t see the Israeli/Palestinian situation as a zero-sum game, where if you believe the Palestinians deserve autonomy, dignity and nationhood, you must also hate the Zionist oppressor and cheer suicide bombers. Do you?
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
October 10th, 2007 at 10:40 am
Mythago, who do you see “cheer[ing] suicide bombers” in the US left?
I’ve seen some people on the far left — although rarely Americans — say that it’s not the place of people who aren’t occupied, to cast judgment on tactics used by occupied Palestinians to fight against the occupation. I don’t agree with that, but I’ve seen it said.
So I have seen some folks withhold judgment. I haven’t seen anyone cheer on suicide bombers. Who, exactly, are you talking about?
As for the ADL’s response, in a couple of my post’s links to Glenn Greenwald, he links to and responds to the ADL piece you cite.
But I hadn’t seen their response to the Tutu situation, and I’m very pleased they took the right position in that case. Good for them.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
October 10th, 2007 at 10:51 am
Sailorman, I’m not going to bother responding to most of your post, not because I think you’re “one of those rabid folks on the other side,” but because you’re not responding to anything I wrote. Instead, you’re making up garbage I never said and implying I said it.
For example: I never claimed to be objective; on the contrary, this is clearly an opinion piece.
Another example:
Did it occur to you that if you can’t find me saying it, maybe it’s because that’s not what I’m saying?
From now on, please don’t reply to me saying something unless you can show that I’ve said it, with a specific quote that directly states the claim you’re attributing to me. As you’ve demonstrated both in this thread and in the recent thread about IQ, your critiques of what other people say have no fidelity to what they’ve actually said.
Alternatively, if you seriously think that I or someone else is implying something without directly saying it (as sometimes happens), then marshal evidence and make an argument. Just saying “you seem to be saying this, even though you don’t say it,” without any evidence or argument to support your accusation, is ridiculous.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
October 10th, 2007 at 12:46 pm
As for the ADL’s response, in a couple of my post’s links to Glenn Greenwald, he links to and responds to the ADL piece you cite.
And I’m sure that the ADL will have yet another reply to HIS reply. But they’re not quite as conservative as, say, AIPAC. Why is the Israel lobby hawkish? Probably because there aren’t any left-wing groups tripping over themselves to give pro-Israel groups money and support.
Who, exactly, are you talking about?
To borrow your phrase, “some people on the far left”. If you hang out over at the UK blog Harry’s Place you’ll see everything from shoulder-shrugging (what can you expect the poor Palestinians to do?) to active justification. I *have* seen anti-Israel types argue that there are no innocent Israeli civilians.
And certainly elements of the Palestinian government cheer on and encourage suicide bombers. If supporters of Israel can be accused of agreeing with all of Israel’s tactics, I think that goes the other way, don’t you?
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
October 10th, 2007 at 1:03 pm
I’ve seen cheering too, for the record. And behavior I would characterize as rabid and stupid (from both sides), or at least flailing and ignorant.
I imagine part of this, for me, is because the period of time during which I talked to people who were active on either side was when I was in college. There was a certain percentage of college kids who were zealous, badly uninformed, and willing to say anything, particularly if it was cruel enough to really injure their opponents. (And plenty who weren’t/aren’t like this, of course.)
This comment was written by Mandolin.Report this comment to the moderators
October 10th, 2007 at 2:10 pm
There IS a national organization that aims, in part, to be direct alternative to AIPAC. Tikkun (distinct from the blog linked above) is interfaith but Jewish-led. It advocates the existence of the state of Israel, but a peaceful and equitable two-state solution. It’s also anti-war in general: opposed to the Iraq war, opposed to any threats against Iran, and generally concerned with poverty and justice.
Read its current article about the more powerful Israel lobby here.
So you can have a representative Jewish lobby. Work with this group, send them money, link to them. I’ll understand if you don’t think they’re perfect, but they sound close enough to be better than starting from scratch.
This comment was written by Laura.Report this comment to the moderators
October 10th, 2007 at 3:18 pm
Ya gotta give Catholics credit for confession and repentance: The president of the University of St. Thomas recants and invites Archbishop Tutu to campus.
Jewish Voice for Peace represents itself as “a voice of Jews and allies that oppose censorship and will not stand idle when people of conscience are falsely called anti-Semitic simply for opposing the policies of the Israeli occupation.” According to Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), the Tutu problem started when the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) quoted Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) quoting Tutu as comparing Israel to Hitler and apartheid. Whatever the merits of triple-hearsay in general, ZOA denies ever attributing such a quote to Tutu in the first place. Go figure. Even the Anti-Defamation League came out with a statement yesterday supporting Tutu.
Of course the whole hubbub has distracted attention from the larger question of the merits of Israeli policy, much to JVP’s consternation.
Finally, while the president of St. Thomas has recanted his views on Tutu, he has not reinstated the faculty member who was removed from an administrative post after publically criticizing the president’s decision. So stay tuned.
This comment was written by nobody.really.Report this comment to the moderators
October 10th, 2007 at 6:00 pm
Amp, you know my position on this. Obviously, not all criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic. But the operational definition of “anti-Semitic” that you and too many of our compatriots on the left is not only impoverished, but impoverished in a manner that we are at the forefront of opposing when applied to the context of other oppressed peoples. Anti-semitism is not just “rabid hate or violence” (to quote Tauyna Lovell Banks’ example of the bad stock definition of racism). It isn’t just intentional malice or prejudice towards Jews. Rather, anti-Semitism is a systematic and structural component of society that contributes to Jewish subordination. Within that broad-based, anti-subordination paradigm, it’s not so easy to banish discussion of anti-Semitism to only certain fringe critics. Like racism in the context of African-Americans, anti-Semitism in the Jewish experience cannot be marginalized — it demands and deserves a central place in our analysis.
Operating from this view, anti-Semitism is implicated in a great deal of criticisms of Israel — even the “moderate” attacks like those of Walt & Mearshimer, whose work I don’t think can be understood in isolation of the anti-Semitic trope of Jewish hyper-power (particularly since W & M are foreign policy realists and thus from their own framework their book’s argument is that Jews are so powerful they literally can break the international system’s equivalent of the “laws of physics”). The Jews-as-an-eternal-wanderer narrative ought to get more play when folks start implying that Jews shouldn’t have a nation at all. Arguments that conflate the Zionist project with European Christian colonialism or imperialism (”Crusader state,” e.g.), in addition to violating generally held leftist precepts about the specificity of experience, have a specific anti-Semitic overtone given the Christian supercessionist narrative which seeks to deny Jewish distinction and absorb it into a Christian whole — instead of Jews, “Judeo-Christian” (which is just “Christian”). And in general, the subconscious belief that Jewish bodies are forfeit — that it doesn’t matter when Jews and there is some baseline of violence against them that Jews should just “accept” as natural — cannot be exiled from the conversation when we start talking about Israeli responses to suicide bombings, et al.
Does this make it harder than some folks would like to criticize Israel? Perhaps — though only in the same manner in which a vigorous anti-racism project can make it tough to criticize Blacks. I agree that we need to work to negotiate that task (my way has been to separate “anti-semitic argument” or “implications” from “anti-semitic persons” — I don’t think W&M are anti-semites, but I think some of their argument is inflected with it), but while that’s important, it can’t be a project built over my back.
What’s frustrating to me, Amp, is I know I’ve made this point before, and I don’t think you disagree with it per se, but there’s been virtually no effort to incorporate this anti-subordination perspective into your subsequent analysis. The idea that their can be a radical, anti-subordination critique of anti-Semitism appears to have virtually no penetration. How many folks here have heard of (much less read) Albert Memmi, for example (the Tunisian Jewish anti-colonialist scholar who wrote, among other things, “The Colonizer and the Colonized,” “The Portrait of the Jew” and “The Liberation of the Jew”)? Until this week, I hadn’t heard of him either, even though I’ve been mining his precise terrain for years now. But the perspective has been entirely ghettoized — and what’s worse, nobody seems to care.
This comment was written by David Schraub.Report this comment to the moderators
October 10th, 2007 at 8:12 pm
Amp,
Are you serious about throwing in the towel on this issue?
“Why, oh why, can’t we have a representative Jewish lobby?”
I am interested to find out what compelled you to post the above, and why you are in such despair.
You’ve posted on many issues (indeed, you created this blog based on your deep belief on addessing these many issues), but this is the first time I’ve felt you letting your anger on a particular issue get the better of you.
I thought your post to Sailorman was fair enough until you used to word “ridiculous”, whereupon, for me, all the logic of the previous statement went out the window with the thumb-on-the-nose waving gesture the word implies.
It is very frustrating to know just how much energy there is on the Jewish left, but in this case they just aren’t speaking my (our?) language, or, in general, not loudly enough for us to hear it.
What IS that about, and can we get back to discussing it?
This comment was written by Eva.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2007 at 3:43 am
David said what I was trying to say but didn’t get across clearly.
This comment was written by joe.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2007 at 5:01 am
Very few issues fill me with despair like thinking about Israel and Palestine.
I can see why, given that the second comment to a post on the subject illicited an attack that accused you of hating Israel and having no interest in honest debate. While such comments may be expected on an open blog, this one came from someone with whom I suspect you are in substantial agreement on this and many other subjects. And the thread didn’t get any nicer from there.
The problem, or at least a problem, is that there is a point on both sides. Anti-Semites have been known to couch their anti-semitism in terms of criticism of Israel in order to make it more “respectable”. On the other hand, Israeli politicians and outside supporters have been known to use an accusation of anti-semitism to squelch honest debate and outcry against their periodic misbehaviors. (And don’t bother to claim that Israel never misbehaves. It’s a country ferFSM’ssake: it’s going to commit some crimes and make some bad decisions. I can’t think of any country that hasn’t.)
I consider myself a supporter of Israel. I consider myself a supporter of Palastine. Both states have a right to exist. Neither has a right to bomb civilians or make citizens of the other into non-persons for its political gain. Both have. I don’t know how this is ever going to change, but it must or the world will be stuck with everything from name calling to missle attacks from people on opposite sides of the debate indefinitely.
This comment was written by Dianne.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2007 at 5:45 am
The quoted language in which Tutu is called “anti-Semitic and against Israeli policy” says it all. Anti-Semite is, in mainstream discourse, is now defined as being against Israeli policy, pure and simple, and nothing more than that.
Let me give another perspective that might appear shocking to some. Please bear with me for a bit.
My family lived near al-Nazerat (Nazareth) in the Galilee for about 500 years, since being forced to leave Spain during the Reconquista. They were Muslims, and both Muslim and Jews (who were a thriving community under the Muslim emirates of al-Andalus, but whom the conquering Catholics were burning at the stake) were being driven out. Anyway, we lived near Nazareth from around 1470 to 1967. During the 1967 war, papers were filed claiming my grandfather had “abandoned” the family land by taking his family into town in 1948 for a few weeks to avoid being killed by the Zionist paramilitaries. As the land was “abandoned” it “reverted” to the State, which in turn sold the land to the quasi-governmental agency, the Jewish National Fund. We were evicted and declared “absentees” who therefore were not citizens of Israel.
I was nine years old. I have never been allowed to return to the home where I was born.
So you can see how my family and I are not fond of “Israeli policies.” But my brother is married to a woman from New York City, a Jewish woman who appears to single-handedly run her synagogue’s Sunday school program, and they are raising their children as Jews. My brother has, himself, gone from being a non-observant Muslim to a non-observant Jew. As a very religious Muslim myself, I only wish he were an observant Jew– the Book teaches that Jews, Christians and Muslims all can be “muslims”– those who submit to God– should they simply try to be good and faithful Jews, Christians and Muslims.
Anyway, we are not anti-Semites.
But here is the rub, the “backlash” in calling those who oppose the political facts of Israel “anti-Semites.” Here, and in Europe, that is the great swear word. That is the label that shuts people up. No European or American wants to be compared to Hitler.
But in Palestine and in the rest of the non-Euro/American world out there, we don’t have any residual Hitler guilt. We don’t feel responsible– and we know that when the Euros were having the great pogroms that were the antecedents of the Holocaust, Jews in Baghdad were having their Golden Age of high culture and Jews around Dar-es-Islam held high political office. So being called an “anti-Semite” doesn’t shut us up with guilt. But what does happen is this. If a person is robbed and oppressed and blamed for his own victimization, and he is told he is not allowed to even complain about it or he will be called an anti-Semite, he won’t be quiet. He will say, all right then, call me that! And after a while, if he is told, that means you hate Jews– he might start to do that too.
The friends of Israel do not do the cause of fighting anti-Semitism any great favors by co-opting that great cause of anti-bigotry in order to support a country built on racism and theft.
This comment was written by Jibril.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2007 at 8:02 am
Oy….
David Schraub is right: anti-semitism, even when it is expressed in personal ways as one individual’s hatred of Jews, is also always structural and institutional and it has a long and complex intellectual, political, sociological and cultural history–as long and complex as any other -ism that progressives oppose. As such, it is something that often works its way into the DNA, if you will, of arguments that might otherwise seem perfectly reasonable in terms of their practical approaches to the Palestinian-Israeli situation and that are made by people who are very clearly not active, conscious, purposeful anti-semites as individuals. They may even be people who sincerely and actively oppose anti-semitism. I will give you one example; it’s been made popular by Iran’s President Ahmanidejad, but I am going to give it here because I also read it in a novel by a Syrian author–I don’t have it with me here at work; I will try to remember to post the title when I get home–who was trying to engage the whole question of terrorism and suicide bombers in particular in a serious way that did not involve name calling, blaming, celebrating one side or the other, and so on.
The argument is made in the form of a very simple question: Why should the Palestinians have been made to pay for the sins that Germany, in particular, and Europe in general, committed during the Holocaust? There are many problems with this question, but it does seem to me to be an apt one if what you want to do is investigate the motives of the nations that voted in favor of the formation of the State of Israel in 1948. Among the problems with the question, however, is that when it is directed at the Jews/Israel–even if the Jews/Israel are only implied as the target of the question–the question itself erases, renders irrelevant, the entire complex, non-monolithic history of Zionism–and, with it, much of the history of the Jews of eastern and western Europe–and that erasure is anti-semitic on its face. More to the point, that kind of anti-semitism is something that all Jews, Zionist or not, supporters of Israel or not, should stand vigilant against, as should anyone presuming to label themselves as progressive; because as long as that kind of anti-semitism remains unconfronted, it will be impossible to have a really honest conversation about Israel and the Palestinians.
Another aspect of this debate that I think the Jewish community has failed to grapple with adequately, and that I think is an unacknowledged issue at the heart of why, despite the fact that so many Jews lean left, the political power tends to lean right–aside from the question of the degree to which Israel’s continued existence is simply good politics/foreign policy for the US–is the question of what Israel means to Jews. Is it our homeland or not? Is commitment to its existence as a Jewish state somehow central to, say, my Jewish identity or not? When Israel calls itself a Jewish homeland (as Ariel Sharon, and others, did and have done)–as opposed to a Jewish state–for whom are they speaking? When Jews in the United States, or anywhere else in the world, call Israel the Jewish homeland, for whom are they speaking? For whom do they have the right to speak? On the one hand, these questions are separable from the specific issues arising in regard to the policies of the Israeli government; but Amp’s question had to do with the dynamic within the Jewish community, and I would venture to bet that the question of where any given Jew stands in relation to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is directly related to where they stand on the question of whether Israel is the Jewish homeland or not. (Just to be clear, I am not saying that the latter necessarily determines the former in any direct cause-and-effect sort of way; I am simply positing that they are related.)
This comment was written by Richard Jeffrey Newman.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2007 at 8:09 am
Arguments that conflate the Zionist project with European Christian colonialism or imperialism (”Crusader state,” e.g.), in addition to violating generally held leftist precepts about the specificity of experience, have a specific anti-Semitic overtone given the Christian supercessionist narrative which seeks to deny Jewish distinction and absorb it into a Christian whole
While I agree that the (re)founding of Israel is something quite different from classic European colonialism and imperialism, one also shouldn’t deny the fact that most of the original founders were European or European-descended American Jews and that their European/American origins influenced their behavior as well. Denying that history would be just as wrong as denying the specific history of Jewish people in Europe and the Middle East.
Incidently, I think I understand why you don’t like the term “Judeo-Christian” but the fact remains that Christianity is just an offshoot of Judeaism and so is Islam and denying the interconnection between the three religions can lead to a misrepresentation of reality as well.
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October 11th, 2007 at 8:41 am
Dianne - Islam is not an offshoot of Judaism. Muhammad was inspired by what he saw as a high-quality religion, but the first Muslims were not Jews who converted; they were Arab and tribal animists. By contrast, the first Christians were all Jewish, and most of the original leaders were really Jewish. /pedant
Amp:
I don’t understand why, when American Jews lean left, virtually all the major lobbies and organizations representing American Jews are on the far right…Why, oh why, can’t we have a representative Jewish lobby?
Well, in part, I think you do. You’re mistaking effectiveness for existence. There are plenty of left-wing Jewish lobbyists and activists; if you broaden the focus of “activism” past formal, registered, political lobbying, it seems to me that the left-wing activism absolutely swamps the right-wing activism in terms of who’s doing what.
So why is the right-wing advocacy so much more successful and/or visible? That’s a complicated question, but I would wager that at least part of the answer comes down to the question of allies, and the current political orientation of the US itself. The allies of a right-wing Jewish lobbyist are evangelical Christians - who make up something like a third of the US electorate, currently run the place (though not for long), and who include the President of the United States.
Who are the allies of the left-wing lobbyist? Yeah. So there’s one explanation for the disparity in perceived effectiveness.
(Another way to think of this is, come back in five or ten years, if we’re into the second cycle of the Clinton Presidency (sob) - betcha a dollar the balance will be shifting the other way.)
Another little smidgen of the explanation - and I hesitate to mention this one, but what the heck - has to do with the locus of anti-Semitism in the US today. There are anti-Semites on both left and right, but on the right we had a purge of anti-Semites back in the 1960s. To oversimplify, a right-wing anti-Semite is likely to live in a trailer in Arkansas somewhere and subscribe to “White Power Daily”; a left-wing anti-Semite is likely to be teaching at a state college somewhere, or running an activist group.
This tends to combine with the question of allies, as above; the right-wing Jewish lobbyist goes to Washington and meets with Christian senators who genuinely support Israel; the left-wing Jewish lobbyist goes to Washington and meets with other lefties who secretly think the Jews are zionist fascists. So there can be more effective cooperation in one instance than the other.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2007 at 9:33 am
David, I do intend to respond to you, but I’m sworn to not spend significant time on “Alas” until I get a new page of my comic finished, and responding to you will take a bit of time. I hope to respond to you tonight.
Robert, I think you’re wrong about there being a major shift to the left in which Jewish lobbyist groups are influential once the Democrats control the White House and a solid majority of congress. But I’d be very happy to be proven wrong about that in a few years.
Do you have any evidence for any of your attacks on the left (which you understandably hesitate to say in a forum in which right-wing ideology is subject to questioning), or is this pretty much “the NRO says it is so, therefore it is true” territory?
That anti-Semites are more common among college professors than the general population is one of those beliefs on the right (like the belief that global warming isn’t happening or that everything in Iraq is going swell) that seems utterly unsupported by facts. An ADL survey found that college campuses are the least anti-semitic place in America today — and that college professors, even those critical of Israel, were less anti-Semitic than Americans in general.
Personally, I think that the belief that all Jews who don’t convert to Christianity are going to be rightfully condemned to Hell by God is extremely anti-Semitic; but I’ve met many more right-wingers than left-wingers who believe that, despite the “purge” you refer to.
Edited to add: Without wanting to digress the thread with a big discussion of this, Robert, let me request that you avoid classist “trailer park” jokes here in the future. And also that you recall the incident in the Indian River School District last year. Are folks like the state representatives, former school board members, Pastor Jerry Fike, and the Stop the ACLU Coalition who you meant when you said right-wing anti-Semites are living in trailers and subscribing to “White Power Daily”? (I don’t know for sure that all those folks are conservatives, but I’d be willing to bet that the large majority are). Have these Pastors and local politicians been purged from the conservative movement?
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2007 at 9:45 am
That anti-Semites are more common among college professors than the general population is one of those beliefs on the right (like the belief that global warming isn’t happening or that everything in Iraq is going swell) that seems utterly unsupported by facts.
It’s also a belief that I didn’t express.
But I said what I said, and I think it speaks for itself, so I won’t parse arguments with you today. Got work to do.
I will address the convert-or-burn argument you bring up, though. That argument is anti-Semitic, it seems to me, only if there is something particular about being Jewish that causes the going-to-hell part. Last time I checked, fundamentalist Christians believe that anyone who doesn’t follow Jesus is hellbound. So where does the anti-Semitism part come in? In fact, the Jews are privileged in some fundamentalist narratives, because many Christians believe that (believing) Jews get grandfathered in as the original holders of the covenant with God.
I’m sure that you can come up with an explanation of why Jews being held to an easier standard than members of other religions is anti-Semitic. Maybe it’s the soft bigotry of low expectations.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2007 at 10:18 am
“a left-wing anti-Semite is likely to be teaching at a state college somewhere, or running an activist group. ”
Are we defining anti-Semite as “critical of Israel?” Otherwise, this is gibberish.
This comment was written by Mandolin.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2007 at 10:22 am
No, I’m defining “anti-Semite” as being fearful of or hating of Jewish people. Sometimes being opposed to Israel is cover for that, more often not.
If you don’t think that the left wing’s anti-Semites tend to be found in the academy, then I’d be interested to know where you do think they are to be found.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2007 at 10:27 am
“If you don’t think that the left wing’s anti-Semites tend to be found in the academy, then I’d be interested to know where you do think they are to be found.”
Hey, that’s not on me. You’re the one who’s made an outrageous claim without proof. Evidence now?
This comment was written by Mandolin.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2007 at 10:35 am
My personal experience of right-wing anti-Semitism has been that its practitioners have a variety of life roles, from disabled-guy-in-a-trailer (I assume it’s not a classist joke if it’s someone I actually know, Amp) to small businessman, to religious leader of a small church; always little people in little organizations, or none. My personal experience of left-wing anti-Semitism has been almost exclusively in the academy - professors, graduate students, and student activists. I wouldn’t venture to guess about distribution in the population as a whole; these are the anti-Semites I have personally encountered.
That’s the evidence I have. So, there’s my answer. Mandolin, what’s YOUR experience of anti-Semitism on the left and right, and where do you find its practitioners to be operating?
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2007 at 10:58 am
… always little people in little organizations, or none.
And that is different from:
This comment was written by Jake Squid.… professors, graduate students, and student activists.
how?
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October 11th, 2007 at 11:02 am
Sometimes it isn’t, Jake.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2007 at 11:12 am
“I wouldn’t venture to guess about distribution in the population as a whole; these are the anti-Semites I have personally encountered.”
But you did venture to guess. When you say, “a left-wing anti-Semite is likely to be teaching at a state college somewhere, or running an activist group,” that’s a guess about the population as a whole.
Are you verifying that you have no evidence, apart from the anecdotal, for your claim?
This comment was written by Mandolin.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2007 at 11:18 am
But you did venture to guess. When you say, “a left-wing anti-Semite is likely to be teaching at a state college somewhere, or running an activist group,” that’s a guess about the population as a whole.
No it isn’t. It’s a guess about where anti-Semites with left-wing politics hang out. Is “pro football players tend to congregate in cities with lots of bbq rib joints” a statement about the population? Or about pro football players?
Are you verifying that you have no evidence, apart from the anecdotal, for your claim?
Yes. By and large, anecdotal evidence is the only direct evidence we have. Surveys aren’t going to tell you the truth about deep-seated bigotries, unless those bigotries are socially acceptable. Anti-Semitism isn’t socially acceptable; it’s anecdote or nothing, in terms of direct evidence.
There are lots of places to find indirect evidence, but its interpretation is so wildly subjective that it’s hard to use it in a discussion between people who don’t share the same basic premises.
And again - if you think my anecdotal experience is crap, that’s fine - but then so is everyone else’s, and that’s a huge chunk of the experience of anti-Semitism in this country, including Amp’s basic post and his amendments and commentaries on it.
There are more real things in the universe than show up in your social science literature, Horatio.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
October 11th, 2007 at 3:15 pm
David Schraub said:
Speaking as a newly minted political science Ph.D., I have to agree - this is spot-on and very well put. If Walt and Mearshimer had spent their careers writing books about the domestic determinants of foreign policy - how labor unions affect trade agreements, or how the defense industry affects the arms trade - then I’d have no qualms about this book, not even with the conclusion that the AIPAC et al is bad for American interests as a whole.
But Walt and Mearshimer have both spent their whole academic lives arguing that no state can ever let domestic politics affect its behavior in the international system. According to their version of realism, all states must seek to maximize their position in the international arena, and it doesn’t matter if they’re democracies or autocracies, capitalist or communist; they’ll all behave the same way, given the same amount of power resources. In this theory, there’s no way for something as petty as an interest group to be consequential.
So how come they all of sudden find something so distinctive about the Jewish lobby? Jewish networks are extra-powerful and nefarious in a way that no other group in the history of world politics has ever been? That sounds classically anti-Semitic to me.
It’s not that you can’t academically question these groups; it’s that you can’t do it from a theoretical perspective that disallows their existence.
This comment was written by Laura.Now, as it happens, I do think that AIPAC et al are particularly powerful, in a detrimental way, which is why I was advocating Tikkun as an alternative. However, I have spent my very brief career writing about the domestic determinants of foreign policy. For example, I think the Irish-American lobby delayed US entry into World War I, and the Cuban-American lobby is highly effective on US policy on Cuba. I agree with Robert’s point that the alliance between right-wing pro-Israel Jewish groups and fundamentalist Christian groups is key to their current success, so the question is bound up in why fundamentalist Christians are currently so successful, and why they’ve decided to support this particular brand of Israeli policies.
Within this framework, I think the observation and judgement is no longer anti-Semetic, because it no longer singles out Jewish groups as unique, which is what Walt and Mearshimer do.
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October 11th, 2007 at 9:55 pm
mythago wrote: And Maia, Mandolin is correct. I don’t see the Israeli/Palestinian situation as a zero-sum game, where if you believe the Palestinians deserve autonomy, dignity and nationhood, you must also hate the Zionist oppressor and cheer suicide bombers. Do you?
Both countries would be much stronger if they came to some sort of resolution to the problem instead of conducting a cold war that turns hot occasionally.
It doesn’t do Israel any good to occupy and institute the control they have over the West Bank and Gaza 40 years after they conquered it, and years after Jordan and Egypt abandoned the territories.
It doesn’t do Palestine any good to be given lip service by other Arab nations and be used as pawns by fundamentalists who want Israel eliminated. Jobs and infrastructure is what they need, and it’s likely to come from taxes from commerce with Israel.
This comment was written by Aaron V..Report this comment to the moderators
October 12th, 2007 at 3:42 am
Mythago - I hate the actions of the state of Israel - I think the state of Israel is oppressing Palestinian people. I would call it an oppressor.
I’ve never understood the discussion around suicide bombing - which always seems to imply there’s something worse about suicide bombs than other kind of bombs. The only difference between suicide bombs and the sorts of bombs states have is that they generally kill less people and are weapons of the powerful, not the powerless. So why is suicide bombing presented as the epitome of evil?
I do think that your previous comment ran together being anti-semitic and pro-palestinan. Amp’s post was at least in part about how carelessly this is done, and how destructive it is.
Richard Jeffery Newman - I think I’d need to hear more to see why you think that that question is anti-semitic on the face of it. I’m not sure that it is possible to ever ask any questions by the standards that would set. Every question is going to ignore some history, some stories.
I also think it’s really problematic to hold one area of the world responsible for discourses that have been used to oppress people in another part of the world. The anti-semitic narratives discussed in this thread were created in Europe and are part of Western culture. They won’t have the same meaning or history in other cultures.
To use an example I wrote about a friend talking about lynching Brad Shipton. This was thoughtless to do so, because I do know the history an I was posting on a site primarily read by Americans. But I don’t think a New Zealander writing in New Zealand about New Zealand issues should feel responsible for avoiding discourses that have a racist overtone to them in America.
From what I’ve read of your work Richard, you are far more knowledgeable than I am of middle-eastern history and culture. But it seems to me that by singling out a Syrian and Iranian in a discussion about the discourse on Israel in America you seem to be implying that everyone’s comments must be understood within the context of European anti-semitism.
This comment was written by Maia.Report this comment to the moderators
October 12th, 2007 at 5:25 am
because suicide bombers typically aim to cause damage to ’soft’ targets. Most states typically aim at targets of military value.
When the military targets are hidden among civilians this can be a distinction without difference, but I think it’s an important one.
This comment was written by joe.Report this comment to the moderators
October 12th, 2007 at 7:04 am
Maia–
I’m not entirely sure how to answer your questions because I don’t think I am doing what you say I am doing. I have a number of responses, which I am going to give here, in no particular order. Unfortunately, I am (still) typing in a place where I don’t have access to my books and other references. Anyway, here goes:
1. While it is true that every question is going to ignore something, it matters greatly what gets ignored and when what gets ignored is as central as the entire history of Jewish nationalism, then we are not talking simply about the fact that every question will come from and define a necessarily limited perspective.
2. While it may be true that the rhetoric of European Christian antisemitism is not native to the Arab/Muslim world, and while it is true, as Jibril notes above, that there have been times when Jews and Muslims not only co-existed peacefully, but when Jews held important positions in government, etc., it is not true that the treatment of Jews in the Muslim world has been uniformly as positive as Jibril implies. Indeed, the whole question of the position of Jews in the Muslim world is quite complex. More to the point here, though, is the fact that the rhetoric of European Christian antisemitism has been at work in the Arab/Muslim world for some time now: the PLO employed the rhetoric of the blood libel in its propaganda, and more than a few Arab leaders have taken great pleasure in promulgating both the text and the values/ideology of the The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. The fact that the rhetoric of antisemitism is not native of the Arab world does not absolve those who use it of responsibility for using it.
3. It is not clear to me why you think I am holding the people of one part of the world responsible for discourses that have been used to oppress people in another. The question that Ahmadinejad and the Syrian author raise is not part of Christian European antisemitism; I said that the question, when directed at the Jews, is antisemitic on its face because it denies an entire realm of Jewish history. It is naive to think that people in the Arab world are unaware that Zionism started long before the Holocaust and that the claim of Jewish nationalists to the land of Israel is based on far more than a guilt tripping of the world over the concentration camps. I am holding Ahmadinejad, that Syrian author and those I have heard in the US pick the question up as entirely reasonable responsible for knowing the history that is involved in the question they are asking, and I am saying that, to the degree that they remain willfully ignorant of that history, or simply refuse for rhetorical reasons to acknowledge it, they are expressing antisemitism.
4. If the question were asked not specifically in terms of the Holocaust, but in terms of the Zionist project as a whole, I think it would be, actually, a legitimate question to ask–as long as the point were not to imply that Israel ought not to exist. It would be legitimate precisely because there were Zionists who asked the very same question, and if asking the question became a way to open up a discussion about the history of Zionism that took into account the ways in which Zionism was not a monolithic movement, then I think it would be worthwhile discussion to have.
5. You made the point upthread somewhere that one way of avoiding antisemitism in critiquing Israel is by being clear of the distinction between Zionism and Judaism, and Jews and Israel. Certainly this is true and it is important that people do this. However, when avoiding conflating those terms is understood to be the only, or even just primary, necessary move to make to avoid antisemitism in critiquing Israel, that understanding itself becomes antisemitic because it implicitly renders invisible the ways in which Zionism is part of Jewish history, not just the history of Israel, and it renders irrelevant the ways in which the question of Israel is something that it is impossible for Jews not to stand in relation to as a question of Jewish identity. I am not a Jewish nationalist, but Zionism is part of my history; the formation of the State of Israel is part of my history as well; and so it matters to me, personally, deeply, that my history is respected in discussions of Israel and contemporary Zionism, not only, but especially in conjunction with Palestinian-Israeli situation. It is important to be able to say Israel is wrong in its actions and policies and also be able to say that critiques of Israel, even those that on the surface might seem to separate Zionism from Judaism and Jews from Israel, are antisemitic, when they are antisemitic.
6. Finally–and Maia, this is not directed personally at you, because I don’t know you well enough to know if it applies, though I suspect it does not–people on this blog, and others that I have read, are fond of pointing out to people when they are engaging in or need to read “feminism 101.” One of the frustrations that I have in conversations like this–and I am venting here, not accusing anyone on this blog or in this thread–is that an awful lot of people who want to pronounce on whether any given critique of Israel is or is not antisemitic, have not gotten past “antisemitism 001.”
Ok, I think I need to end there. I will be back later, I hope.
This comment was written by Richard Jeffrey Newman.Report this comment to the moderators
October 12th, 2007 at 7:15 am
Most states typically aim at targets of military value.
They do? Might I mention the British “de-housing campaign” of WWII, the indiscriminant bombings of VietNam and Cambodia, the burning of Atlanta and Washington DC in 19th century wars…States may “aim” at targets of military value, but they sure don’t seem to mind if they miss. And if it is ok or at least not so bad to aim at military targets, then surely the only thing wrong with the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon was that it was done with a civilian plane. It is certainly a military target.
This comment was written by Dianne.Report this comment to the moderators
October 12th, 2007 at 8:11 am
If the question were asked not specifically in terms of the Holocaust, but in terms of the Zionist project as a whole, I think it would be, actually, a legitimate question to ask–as long as the point were not to imply that Israel ought not to exist. It would be legitimate precisely because there were Zionists who asked the very same question…
I’m not sure what question is being asked, having failed to find maia’s original post that you are responding to, but I’m going to jump in anyway…Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t there a movement among some orthodox Jews to say that an earthly state of Israel shouldn’t exist because its existence is an attempt to create the kingdom of God on earth and therefore it is blasphemous and doomed to fail? I wouldn’t call such a position anti-semitic or self-hating, but it does question the existence of Israel.
I’m not sure about making whether or not Zionists ask this question the test of whether or not it is legititmate is a good idea, though. It seems to imply that any act is ok as long as all people involved believe it a good idea. If, for example, Israel decided to nuke all its neighbors without warning it would still be an evil act, regardless of whether anyone in Israel or any Jewish person anywhere in the world objected or not.
This comment was written by Dianne.Report this comment to the moderators
October 12th, 2007 at 8:34 am
@Robert
No it isn’t. It’s a guess about where anti-Semites with left-wing politics hang out. Is “pro football players tend to congregate in cities with lots of bbq rib joints” a statement about the population? Or about pro football players?
Apples to oranges. Saying that antisemites are in authority positions actually makes the university complicit in their antisemite teachings. That means you’re making an anti-intellectual judgement on universities at large.
If you were saying that leftist antisemites tended to be at universities, without focussing on their positions at the university, you might get away with it. But suggesting that universities teach antisemitism is a whole other ball of wax.
This comment was written by Silenced is foo..Report this comment to the moderators
October 12th, 2007 at 8:37 am
Dianne, all I’m saying is that while accidentally killing civilans is bad, acting without regard to whether you kill them or not is worse, and killing them on purpose is worse yet.
I’ll stipulate your point that states don’t always live up to their ideals.
And yes, the pentagon is imho a military target, but that wasn’t their only target on 9/11.
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October 12th, 2007 at 9:15 am
“And yes, the pentagon is imho a military target, but that wasn’t their only target on 9/11.”
But, the world trade center is arguably a symbol of economic colonialism (for lack of a better word, my brain isn’t working so well today, hope you know what I mean), and for the last several decades the US has enforced it’s global power through economic policy as much as through military prowess, if not more so. So, while it is not a strictly military target, it was a logical target considering the aims and goals of the Taliban. Isn’t one goal of war to render the enemy helpless? To target areas that would not only demonstrate military