pro choice women are called feminazi’s pro choice JEws are called zionazis

these viewpoints lead to 1) dead women 2) dead JEws

Tee point being that Jews and women should either know their place or be dead.

incidently -in the US-right wing people blamed the Twin Towers on abortion and homosexuality and left wing people blamed it on “zionists” . That’s why I’m “no party affiliation”.

But I don’t think that serious critics like Chomsky, Carter, etc.., actually do claim that Israel is the worse country in the word, or invoke Nazi comparisons.

There are some folks who specialize in criticizing Israel — just as there are people who concentrate on global warming, or China, or other issue areas — but I think that’s defensible, in and of itself. (What’s not defensible is anti-Semitism in critiques of Israel, regardless of if the person also criticizes other countries.)

It doesn’t seem that anyone is actually disagreeing with me on that point. GD did say that we have to be open to critical examination of statements criticizing Israel, and whether or not they’re anti-Semitic, and I agree with that.

To be clear, I was pointing out that many legitimate concerns about anti-Semitism are dismissed. Actually, that brings me back to something I wanted to ask before Petar derailed things:

But the discussion can’t end at “anyone who criticizes Israel without equally criticizing every other bad state in the world has acted in an anti-Semitic fashion.”

Is that really what Summers and Harris were arguing? Because I absolutely agree with that, but what I often see is Israel being held up as the worst country, not one of an incomplete sample of bad ones. For example, despite ICE raids and the prison industrial complex, I rarely see the US compared to Nazi Germany, whereas I see Israel compared to the Nazis pretty frequently. (Rather than argue over the particulars of Nazism and how it compares to immigration or expansionism, I hope we can agree that “Nazi” is usually shorthand for “evil.”) Criticizing only one country isn’t the same as not criticizing every country.

And that’s why I think my Croson comparison holds — in the global environ (the UN, anybody?), Jews are in a subordinated position vis-a-vis Arabs; although in some local contexts (such as Israel and the United States writ large — though in some still localer contexts in the US the dynamic switches again) they are in a superordinated position.

Helloooo kyriarchy!

I’m not asking that you, and other defenders of Israel, stop defending Israel, or stop protesting against anti-Semitism. I’m just saying that unfair accusations of anti-Semitism do happen, and they happen particularly often to liberals and leftists protesting mistreatment of Palestinians by Israel.

Well here’s the rub, now ain’t it. Obviously, I concede that does happen, and surely you concede that sometimes these liberal/leftists protesting Palestinian mistreatment in an anti-Semitic fashion do play the “anti-Semitism card card” to block off legitimate inquiry as to whether anti-Semitism is happening. The race card versus the race card card and all that. The question, of course and as as always, is which happens more often, and that’s where I take it we disagree.

Incidentally, I think the relevant point of comparison on a global scale isn’t Palestinians and Israelis, but Jews and Arabs. That is, Israel/Palestine is a localized case scenario of the globalized relationship between Jews and Arabs, or perhaps Jews and gentiles. The “broader polity” I refer to is one in which the gentile community — including the Arab world — exists in a privileged relationship vis-a-vis Jews. And that’s why I think my Croson comparison holds — in the global environ (the UN, anybody?), Jews are in a subordinated position vis-a-vis Arabs; although in some local contexts (such as Israel and the United States writ large — though in some still localer contexts in the US the dynamic switches again) they are in a superordinated position.

It doesn’t seem that anyone is actually disagreeing with me on that point. GD did say that we have to be open to critical examination of statements criticizing Israel, and whether or not they’re anti-Semitic, and I agree with that.

I’m mentioning that because I don’t want my main point to be lost in this discussion. That said, I do want to comment on some of the related (and more interesting) issues David brought up. David writes:

This is bogus, for the very reasons you objected to in your Batgirl analogy. That our anti-Semitism inquiry ought, rightly, focus on the needs, rights, and interests of the Jewish community does not preclude other avenues of analysis (such as the needs, rights, and interests of the Palestinians). It just notes that, obviously, these are separate inquiries.

I don’t think they can be separate inquiries.

I take it as given that an anti-Semitic statement or policy is one that is unreasonable. Anti-Semitism, by definition, is wrong. So we shouldn’t be able to conclude that such-and-such a policy is anti-Semitic but nonetheless right.

However, if we don’t allow the anti-Semitism inquiry to consider anything but “the practical upshot for the Jewish community,” we will inevitably run into cases in which policies which are, on balance, the right thing for the world as a whole nonetheless contain some sort of negative “practical upshot for the Jewish community.”

Maybe that’s not what you mean when you say “separate.” If you’re saying that any inquiry into anti-Semitism needs to “focus on the needs, rights, and interests of the Jewish community,” while simultaneously keeping in mind other contexts if they’re relevant, then I agree.

Likewise for Jews — superordination is not what qualifies as an “interest” under anti-subordination analysis. An “upshot” for Jews which solidifies our equal standing and protects our rights is facially just.

“Equal standing” compared to whom, though? In a situation in which Israel is “equally standing” on Palestinian necks, a view that Israelis should be viewed primarily as victims of worldwide subordination is not “facially just.”

“An anti-subordination view of anti-Semitism quickly becomes problematic in any discussion of Israel, because Israeli Jews are simply not the subordinated party in the Israel/Palestine hierarchy.”

This is, at best, a Croson problem. City of Richmond v. J.A. Croson, Co. saw the Supreme Court strike down a minority set-aside program in the city of Richmond, which was majority-Black. The Court reasoned that since Blacks couldn’t be subordinated in a polity which they controlled, the program was unconstitutional — indeed, a simple act of racial spoils.

Your comparison is dead wrong, David, because Palestinians in Israel and Palestine are not analogous to White people anywhere in the US.

In Palestine and Israel, there is a system of Israeli dominance. So it would be ignorant (for instance) if someone argued that Palestinians cannot suffer from Israeli subjugation in Gaza. That would be analogous to Croson, because — to rephrase you — Gaza does not exist in a void — it exists as part of a broader polity in which Palestinians most certainly are subordinated.

The Court was wrong in Croson, because they ignored the broader polity in which Whites subordinate Blacks. And you are wrong to analogize Blacks to Israelis and Whites to Palestinians, because you’re ignoring the comparison inherently ignores the broader polity in which Israel subordinates Palestinians.

Even granting that Israel represents a localized case of Jewish privilege (which I will concede, though I think it’s more problematic than you make it out to be — most privileged situations don’t come with falling rockets), it is not isolated from the broader currents of anti-Semitic subordination.

Actually, it’s common for the subordinating class to fear violent attack from the subordinated class: think of Nat Turner, or of the African National Congress during Apartheid. Or of the constant (and mostly unjustified) fear of black rioting during the civil rights era. For that matter, there was a good reason Pharoah wanted to keep the Jews in Egypt weak, in the Bible story.

(I’m not saying that Israel/Palestine is analogous to Nat Turner, etc, in the particulars; I’m only pointing out that it is, in fact, not at all unknown for privileged situations to come with fear of violence.)

It is, of course, true that Israel is not in a world apart from worldwide anti-Semitism — but neither, I’m sure you’ll agree, is it in a world apart from the world in which Israel subjugates Palestinians.

It is thus wrong to use localized power as a ward to neutralize anti-subordination analysis when the broader situation remains unchanged.

It’s equally wrong to use the broader situation as an excuse for attacking critics of how “localized power” consists of Israel oppressing Palestine, by accusing them unfairly of anti-Semitism. (There are also cases in which the concerns about anti-Semitism are completely justified, of course.)

I’m not asking that you, and other defenders of Israel, stop defending Israel, or stop protesting against anti-Semitism. I’m just saying that unfair accusations of anti-Semitism do happen, and they happen particularly often to liberals and leftists protesting mistreatment of Palestinians by Israel.

[Note from Amp: I’ve changed the text color on Petar’s comments on this thread to white, making them more-or-less impossible to read, unless you choose to read them by using your mouse to select the text.]

This does not appear to be working, FYI. Though I am glad, in an odd way, that i could more easily make myself read them. Yuck.

Petar, thanks for your interest in “Alas” over the years. With all due respect, however, I don’t like what you’re adding to the conversation. Please do not post comments on “Alas” any more. Best wishes to you.

Huh, I was just writing an email to you guys asking whether or not he ought to be banned.

—Myca

Beyond that, the lack of understanding about what including an analytical framework of Jewish subordination in a discussion about Israel might mean (hint: it’s not a get-out-of-jail-free card) renders the rest of this discussion quite useless. The pertinence of globalized anti-Semitism not ending at the borders of a localized case of relative Jewish privilege means we still have to discuss anti-Semitism even when we’re talking about Israel. But, as I wrote above:

That our anti-Semitism inquiry ought, rightly, focus on the needs, rights, and interests of the Jewish community does not preclude other avenues of analysis (such as the needs, rights, and interests of the Palestinians). It just notes that, obviously, these are separate inquiries. You aren’t going to get at what Palestinians deserve only through looking at Jews, nor vice versa.

So forgive me for having having less sympathy for people who orderly walked into trains, camps and gas chambers than for those who died with a rifle in the their hands.

And:

I am sure you do, but after rereading my post and yours, I think the problem is with either with your emotional involvement, your mastery of English, or your capacity for logical thought.

Petar, thanks for your interest in “Alas” over the years. With all due respect, however, I don’t like what you’re adding to the conversation. Please do not post comments on “Alas” any more. Best wishes to you.

Where the fucking Hell did you get that? I explicitly said that I am opening myself to charges of anti-Semitism, by admitting that I have more sympathy for those that died with a weapon in their hands than for the millions of concentration camp victims, especially when the former are relatives of mine. I do not think that makes me anti-Semite, but I would understand people who would think so.

Fuck you, Petar. That’s disgusting.

Er no, you’re not forgiven, first for regurgitating the ‘lambs to the slaughter’ lie, and second for dismissing genocide as somehow less important than dying in combat. What the fuck?

So forgive me for having having less sympathy for people who orderly walked into trains, camps and gas chambers than for those who died with a rifle in the their hands. But no matter how much respect I have for my great-grandfather, his death does not give me the right to, lets say, beat up people who express Communist or Collectivist values . The desire? Sometimes. The right? Never. The same goes for Jews, Native Americans, and anyone else.