Mixing anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism

It's not been released yet, but a "hard-hitting" report by MPs is set to say that criticism of Israel is "being used as a pretext" for spreading anti-Semtism, according the Observer.

Denis MacShane, Iain Duncan Smith and Chris Huhne were involved, and they appear to have taken a perfectly legitimate investigation regarding the state-of-play with anti-Semtism, into an attempt to score political points against pro-Palestinian campaigners. The boycott campaign comes in for particular criticism:

The report voices particular concern over 'a minority of Islamic extremists who are inciting hatred towards Jews', and it criticises recent moves by left-wing academics to boycott links with Israel. Though emphasising the right of people to criticise or protest against Israeli government actions, it says 'rage' over Israeli policies has sometimes 'provided a pretext' for anti-semitism.

'Calls to boycott contacts with intellectuals and academics working in Israel are an assault on academic freedom and intellectual exchange,' the report says, adding that the response of university vice-chancellors to such campaigns has been patchy.

MacShane, speaking last week on a BBC radio programme devoted to Jewish community issues, said British Jews were right to 'shudder' at the 'aggressive' comparison of Israeli policies with the Holocaust. He also spoke of a 'witch's brew' of anti-semitism including the far left and 'ultra-Islamist' extremists who reject Israel's right to exist.

What MacShane is wilfully misunderstanding and 'brewing' together, is Judaism with the state of Israel - they aren't synonymous. Being an anti-Semite is not the same as being an anti-Zionist. Israel isn't criticised because it is a Jewish state, Israel is criticised on its record. That is why Jewish academics have been at the head of the academic boycott. Trying to shutdown protests regarding Israeli aggression under the cloak of anti-Semitism accusations is abysmal and will hopefully be treated with the contempt it deserves.

Meanwhile, where is the similar cross-party investigation into Islamophobia? 53% of Britons say that Islam is a threat, while two-thirds of Muslims say they will have to leave the country eventually due to the hostility.

Comments

[bob]

The guardian tried to hide his thread. Peres is on comment is free
and he's being abused by everyone:)

[Yitzchak Goodman]

Everyone understands that Zionism is not synonymous with Judaism, but bias and hostitility towards Israel often reach the level of bigotry. We don't really have a word for this particular form of bigotry, but it is all around. Ahmadinejad, for instance, continually pictures the Jewish presence in Israel as merely some sort of giant guilt-offering by Europe for the Holocaust. That may not be anti-Semitism per se, but it is still a massive distortion offered with hostile intent.

[joe90]

Pardon me,
but isn't that Israel state ideology - that Israel, is in fact, a 'Jewish' state and one of the reasons it is necessary to have this 'Jewish' state is because of events that happened in Europe, by Europeans towards other Europeans during WWII -
- what had any of that to do with Palestinians, or anyone else in the region?

You can hardly blame the President of Iran for repeating what the Jewish-Israeli establishment itself says about the reasons for the establishment of the racist state of Israel, and why nobody else matters to it except 'Jews'.

[Osama]

Yitzchak, let's put Ahmadinejad to one side. This report is into affairs in this country. Can you give examples of this "bigotry" you speak of?

Do you not accept that calling for a boycott of Israeli institutions is not anti-Semitic, and that this report is thus offensive?

[Yitzchak Goodman]

You can hardly blame the President of Iran for repeating what the Jewish-Israeli establishment itself says about the reasons for the establishment of the racist state of Israel, and why nobody else matters to it except 'Jews'.

Everyone is responisble to seek out the truth. The British tried to limit Jewish immigration to Israel during WWII. Zionism did not start with the Holocaust. The Jewish connection to the land of Israel did not start with the Zionist movement. The Holocaust figures in all sorts of different polemics. It is often given a pro-Palestinian spin: how can Jews blah blah blah the Palestinians when they were blah blah blah by the Nazis.

[Yitzchak Goodman]

Can you give examples of this "bigotry" you speak of?

Half the comments at the MPAC-UK site? Joe90 putting the word "Jews" in quotation marks?

Do you not accept that calling for a boycott of Israeli institutions is not anti-Semitic, and that this report is thus offensive?

It isn't intrinsically anti-Semitic, but that is a technicality in many cases. People who call for boycotts of Israel are often bigots anyway. The speak as if Israelis are all Europeans. They speak about Jewish self-determination in the Middle East as if it is mere supremacism. They assert that Jews are the "real Nazis." They deny that Israel is a democracy. Etc.

[Shavez]

CRITICIZE ISRAEL? YOU'RE AN ANTI-SEMITE!

How can we have a real discussion about Mideast peace if speaking honestly about Israel is out of bounds?

Rosa Brooks, Los Angeles Times, 9/1/06

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-brooks1sep01,0,5962701.column

EVER WONDER what it's like to be a pariah?

Publish something sharply critical of Israeli government policies and you'll find out. If you're lucky, you'll merely discover that you've been uninvited to some dinner parties. If you're less lucky, you'll be the subject of an all-out attack by neoconservative pundits and accused of rabid anti-Semitism.

This, at least, is what happened to Ken Roth. Roth - whose father fled Nazi Germany - is executive director of Human Rights Watch, America's largest and most respected human rights organization. (Disclosure: I have worked in the past as a paid consultant for the group.) In July, after the Israeli offensive in Lebanon began, Human Rights Watch did the same thing it has done in Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya, Bosnia, East Timor, Sierra Leone, Congo, Uganda and countless other conflict zones around the globe: It sent researchers to monitor the conflict and report on any abuses committed by either side.

It found plenty. On July 18, Human Rights Watch condemned Hezbollah rocket strikes on civilian areas within Israel, calling the strikes "serious violations of international humanitarian law and probable war crimes." So far, so good. You can't lose when you criticize a terrorist organization.

But Roth and Human Rights Watch didn't stop there. As the conflict's death toll spiraled - with most of the casualties Lebanese civilians - Human Rights Watch also criticized Israel for indiscriminate attacks on civilians. Roth noted that the Israeli military appeared to be "treating southern Lebanon as a free-fire zone," and he observed that the failure to take appropriate measures to distinguish between civilians and combatants constitutes a war crime.

The backlash was prompt. Roth and Human Rights Watch soon found themselves accused of unethical behavior, giving aid and comfort to terrorists and anti-Semitism. The conservative New York Sun attacked Roth (who is Jewish) for having a "clear pro-Hezbollah and anti-Israel bias" and accused him of engaging in "the de-legitimization of Judaism, the basis of much anti-Semitism." Neocon commentator David Horowitz called Roth a "reflexive Israel-basher & who, in his zest to pillory Israel at every turn, is little more than an ally of the barbarians." The New Republic piled on, as did Alan Dershowitz, who claimed Human Rights Watch "cooks the books" to make Israel look bad. And writing in the Jewish Exponent, Jonathan Rosenblum accused Roth of resorting to a "slur about primitive Jewish bloodlust."

Anyone familiar with Human Rights Watch - or with Roth - knows this to be lunacy. Human Rights Watch is nonpartisan - it doesn't "take sides" in conflicts. And the notion that Roth is anti-Semitic verges on the insane.

But what's most troubling about the vitriol directed at Roth and his organization isn't that it's savage, unfounded and fantastical. What's most troubling is that it's typical. Typical, that is, of what anyone rash enough to criticize Israel can expect to encounter. In the United States today, it just isn't possible to have a civil debate about Israel, because any serious criticism of its policies is instantly countered with charges of anti-Semitism.

[thabet]

It isn't intrinsically anti-Semitic, but that is a technicality in many cases.

You're demonstrating the problem that Osama is highlighting. What are "many cases", for example?

[ainelivia]

I am so tired of this constantly questioning the right of the State of Israel to exist. It does. Get over it guys.

"In the United States today, it just isn't possible to have a civil debate about Israel, because any serious criticism of its policies is instantly countered with charges of anti-Semitism." (quoting Shavez)

Sounds pretty much the same as the mirror situation with Islam in the UK. What I see is that in both cases, any criticism is immediately slammed down as Islamaphobia. So perhaps the problem is that both groups are just a little and possibly justifiably sensitive right now.

Having said that, I have both heard and read comments recently (in the past three months) about Israel and Jews that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. These comments may be anti-semitic, I don't know, I'm not Jewish, however, the tone of it sounds so much like Nazi propaganda that it is chilling.

[joe90]

Well ainelivia my good friend,
let me confirm that no state has a right to exist, not even Israel.

They are merely matters of fact about the world we live in and have no more rights than humans give them.

This typewriter I am using has no right to exist, it just does. A simple fact of the world about me. It happens to be my property, so, by extension, it has rights that are inherited through me, nothing more.

The only objects that have rights to exist are 'things' that live and the environments they need in order to live and survive, mate.

You can do what you want with a lifeless object, but you can't with one that lives. Lifeless objects are neither good nor bad, it is how humans use them that decides whether they are being used for good or bad purposes.

Countries and states are not moral agents and cannot distinguish between right and wrong - they are merely vehicles of power, nothing more. Only humans can distinguish good from bad, what is moral and what isn't. Lifeless objects can't.

So ainelivia, basically -

1 Inanimate objects have no inherent intrinsic rights to exist, they just do

2 Animate living 'things' do have intrinsic rights to exist, and it is from them that inanimate objects inherit their 'rights'

All the best pal
Always yours.

[Yitzchak Goodman]

The state of Israel is an abstraction. Saying that it has a right to exist is a shorthand way of saying that that the Israeli people have a right to continue to exercise their self-determination through the institution of statehood. Israel is not an inanimate object in the same sense that your typewriter is. Nobody knows what you mean by inanimate objects "inheriting" rights.

[ainelivia]

Thanks Yitzchak.

I really don't have time to debate semantics with those whose approach to debate is so "bullying" in tone, and who believe that if you produce an avalanche of words you will scare off people who disagree with you.

This is why we have problems in politics, much of politics is cordoned off with macho men whose aggression needs a steam valve, Joe19 above is a prime example.

I notice Joseph that you got very exercised about my comment that Israel has a right to exist, and by inference therefore the people of Israel have a right to their country, (you chose to ignore that by inference I intended that to be understood) no, you decided to adopt a really patronising tone, as though you are talking down to someone who doesn't have your obvious knowledge of, what, philosophy?? I was not making a philosophical point. I made a concrete one. Where is your sense of reality? That the country does exist, that I hope it continues to do so, and that I don't believe that anything either animate or inanimate has the right to question that. You assume in a wonderful display of macho arrogance that I wish to engage in a discussion about the metaphysical, semantics or god knows what really, but basically you want me off the subject of reality. Israel is there. Accept that and move on. Or are you using it to get away from the reality, that there is a growing anti-Israeli tone that is sounding more and more like the Nazis, in certain factions in this country, who, for their own political purposes have hitched their wagons to that which suits them.

However, and this omission looms large on my horizon, you did not address my remarks that in recent months, some of the comments that have been made in the media, on tv and in newspapers and particularly on the blogs, has a tone that is so reminiscent of Nazis propaganda that it makes my blood chill.

Perhaps if you were Israeli, or Jewish, you might feel that chilling too.

Oh and by the way, where do you stand on the right of the Republic of Ireland to exist? Because until the recent past, many of your countrymen didn't understand why the Irish would wish to be seperate from the British, they just didn't understand.

Sometimes the hypocrisy of political factions in the UK makes me want to spit. It's like that old joke, when you lose, you are Irish/Jewish/Black etc, but if you win you are British.

[joe90]

Yep,
you've been hanging around for a wee while spoiling for a fight - and I notice you use the tactic of claiming nobody knows what I mean -
- how do you know this, omniscient are you?

- or is this just the usual solopsistic narcisstic rubbish that crops up whenever 'Israel' is mentioned ?
- maybe you know the answer to that as well?

To whit -
States exist - they are inanimate - they are artificial and created by people - they have no rights except what are given to them by people when they create them - they can also go out of existence, same as people - but people have an intrinsic right to life that cannot be taken away from them, ever - states have no intrinsic right to life because they are not alive - therefore, inanimate objects, such as states, have no right to existance over and above what the living give to them who are responsible for their creation, their existence and their demise -

States do not have life therefore they cannot die, they just cease to exist - therefore they have no rights to the same existence as life has - therefore Israel like every other state that has ever existed has no right to exist, it just 'is'!

Quite straightforward, I would have thought !

[joe90]

Me patronising!!

Apart from the fact I wished you all the best and called you 'my good friend'!!

I'm just dumfounded -
- what in the name of the wee men is patronising about being a civilised and decent well-wisher??

[joe90]

A straightforward philosophical style exposition exposing the non-sense that is the statement 'Israel's right to exist' is bullying and macho arrogance on my part!

Talk about reading between the lines and giving me the blame for your own crimes ainelivia - bullying, arrogance etc

No apologies if I know what I am talking about when it comes to the philosphical difference bewteen animate and inanimate objects -
- what are your views then on the property of existence as a predicate for animate and inanimate objects?

[Yitzchak Goodman]

omniscient are you?

Why yes. How did you guess?

And you are muddling the whole bit about animate and inanimate objects. You could define the Land of Israel as a certain land-mass with a bunch of animate and inanimate objects residing on top of it.
The state of Israel, the political entity called Israel, however, is an abstraction. It is not exactly either animate or inanimate. Those are properties of objects, not abstract entities. And what did you mean by objects inheriting rights anyway? I know I'm omniscient and all, but this is fun.

[joe90]

Those are properties of objects, not abstract entities.

It is not exactly either animate or inanimate.

The state of Israel, the political entity called Israel, however, is an abstraction

Well, I'm sure its fun for you - village idiots staring gormlessly at the world about them have no end of fun.

I sometimes wonder - are abstract entities like yourself YG born or just mass-produced?

[Shavez]

All very interesting, but the answer to Thabet's question is?

[ainelivia]

Yes Joe, you did indeed call me a good friend etc, then you went on to attempt to rubbish what I had said with the intellectual mind games, semantics, and an avalanche of articulation. Indeed, we might be friends, good or otherwise, however, I'll take my time on that one. You are sending out very mixed messages Joe. I responded to that, and for that no apology is offered.

You may indeed know what you are talking about, but you are attempting to analyse and intellectualise a situation and current state of affairs that for you may be some kind of debate, but for the people who live in the region it is a matter of life and death basically.

I have no time for political posturing or those who engage in it. I have no time for intellectual mind-games. Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, what matters are people's lives, not ideologies, not belief systems, lives. You only have to look to the recent history of my country Ireland to know that the "cause" is what is sold to the young, angry and hopeless. And the solution offered is blood, kill innocent people and fight for the cause. Baloney. That just brings more anger, hatred and more hopelessness. And so the cycle will repeat itself. The people, in any country who propogate these teachings are the power-mad and hungry; but as usual it is the lives of young, mostly men that are used so that the mad men at the top can realise their ambitions, under the illusion of freedom and democracy or rightousness and morality.

One million we are told died in the war between Iran and Iraq. One million ill-equipped soldiers, many of them as young as 13; where was the outcry about that war crime? For indeed it is a war crime that a country sends it's people to die in a futile war. That's how little, some countries, despite their moral posturing, care for their citizens, and are not better than those countries they critize in almost Grimm Fairy Tale language. And until we as individuals learn not to be sucked in by the cause, this will continue.

To get back to the question, yes, there is bias and hostility towards Israel at the moment and that's no suprise. There is also fear among the general population about extremist Islam and that doesn't suprise me either. We are being kept in a state of fear and anxiety, all the better to rule us by. Create fear, create sides, and hey presto we have causes. We are all too busy being afraid of the "evil other" to look closely at what is really happenning. And it is happenning on all "sides". As someone once said, there is nothing to fear, but fear itself.

[Yitzchak Goodman]

You're demonstrating the problem that Osama is highlighting. What are "many cases", for example?

Thabet, I didn't see your question at first because it was such a brief comment. I agree with Osama that there is a valid distinction between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism. And yes, "many" is a vague word. However, in the comment you are responding to, I mentioned the kinds of claims that I find to be bigotted. Do you agree that they are? When someone calls himself an "anti-Zionist" and calls for a boycott of Israel, how likely is he to make these sorts of claims?

[thabet]

Yitzchak,

I find comparisons between Israel and Nazis repugnant (and also strange when, sometimes, people who say this also deny the Holocaust). People make such claims undo their own arguments.

This doesn't mean moral criticism of Israel is beyond the pale. I see few defenders of Israel who are principled enough to accept moral criticism of its actions. All responses to criticism are stated in apocalyptic terms. Some will also degrade the Holocaust and anti-Semitism by, as Osama points out, mixing valid criticisms of Israel with the two. You will say the "other side" has its flaws, and I would probably agree with you. But just as it is demanded Palestinians/Arabs/Muslims take responsibility for their own actions, so to must Israel for its treatment of Palestinians (and its violence in Lebanon).

Nothing I've seen or read has indicated Israel is interested in peace, anymore than its enemies are said to be (e.g. expanding settlements, building the wall outside the '67 borders and so on are equally as provocative as taking soldiers etc.).

[Fez]

Thabet: comparisons, including between the Nazi and Zionist regimes, do not have to be absolute. I don't see why it should be "repugnant" to analyse commonalities, while acknowledging (even tacitly) the obvious differences.

Just because the Nazis are the popular hyperbole of evil, that shouldn't prevent us from trying to speak historically. Yes, they killed millions of Jews and others, but they were still human beings, and other human beings are capable to doing some or all of the things they did.

And just because Jews were the Nazis' most persecuted victim (at least that is my perception from what I am told), that doesn't preclude other Jews from embodying some of the evils of the Nazis, whether in attitude or action.

[Sadat]

As a religion, Judaism is the closest to Islam. But Zionism is a different ideology altogether.

Personally, I am not too keen on recognising a state that does not recognise the sovereignty of its neighbours.

[Yitzchak Goodman]

And just because Jews were the Nazis' most persecuted victim (at least that is my perception from what I am told), that doesn't preclude other Jews from embodying some of the evils of the Nazis, whether in attitude or action.

According to R. J. Rummel's "Death by Government" the Nazis are the most proportionately lethal regime that has ever existed. He writes:

. . . even though the Nazis hardly matched the democide of the Soviets and communist Chinese . . . they killed proportionately more. . . . The annual odds of dying under Nazi occupation were almost two-and-a-half times that of Soviet citizens being killed by their own government since 1917 . . .

That was for background. Nobody makes the Nazi comparison in order to engage in academic exercises of comparison and contrast. The rhetorical point of the comparison is always to associate someone or some thing with what was most odious about the Nazis. Nobody but a bigot would suggest that we can understand anything about the Middle East conflict by comparing Israel to Nazi Germany.

[Yitzchak Goodman]

Nothing I've seen or read has indicated Israel is interested in peace, anymore than its enemies are said to be

Really? Not giving back the Sinai? Not the Oslo accords? Not pulling out of Gaza? Not the fact that Olmert was elected on a platform of giving back most of the West Bank (involving a compromise with people farther to the left who did not feel he planned to go far enough)? Not the Israeli Supreme Court's ruling moving the wall back closer to the '67 border (speaking of the Wall)? Not all the Pro-Palestinian articles in newspapers like Ha'aretz? What *would* indicate a desire for peace?