Very 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 denier ((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.)) 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.
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.
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.
Isn’t Mearsheimer at University of Chicago?
http://mearsheimer.uchicago.edu/
[Thanks, I’ll fix that. –Amp]
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/19/AR2007011901541_pf.html)
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…
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.
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 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.
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.
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:
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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?
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.)
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.
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.
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.
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?
David said what I was trying to say but didn’t get across clearly.
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.
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.
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.)
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.
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.
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?
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.
“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.
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.
“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?
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?
… always little people in little organizations, or none.
And that is different from:
… professors, graduate students, and student activists.
how?
Sometimes it isn’t, Jake.
“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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
@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.
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.
“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 might, but to target areas that would cripple the oppostition? Targeting a major symbol of American global economic prowess was certainly one way to “hit us where it hurt the most.” And, they even got their goal to some extent, if I remember correctly the economy took a downward turn for a period as a direct result of the attacks. Not enough to cripple us, it would take much more to do that, but it sent a message nonetheless. Not saying it was right, and certainly it hit innocent civillians, but so did a whole bunch of the bombs that we dropped on Afghanistan.
That’s all I have to say, I’m not anywhere near knowledgable on any of this stuff to weigh in, but I wanted to thank everyone for the education!
RJN, if you have some suggestions as places to go where one could learn “anti-semitism 101” I’d be interested.
And yes, the pentagon is imho a military target, but that wasn’t their only target on 9/11
Actually, if the rumor is true, it might not have been their target at all…I’ve heard it claimed that they were trying for Congress and/or the White House, but got lost and went for the building they could recognize for sure as a US government building. But then again, aren’t the buildings of enemy governments also legitimate targets?
My point was basically just that the actions of states we label “good” and those of the current ultimate “bad guys” aren’t always so different as we might like to pretend.
But, the world trade center is arguably a symbol of economic colonialism
I don’t know what the WTC buildings were symbolically, but actually they were a bunch of back offices that were inconvenient and difficult to fill. The WTC buildings were terrible by modern standards: too tall so too much time/energy wasted on elevator usage, too many internal rooms without windows, not really good wiring for modern office needs, etc. So the people actually killed tended to be lower level managers, assistants, and generally support people, not high muck a mucks.
Kate,
Under that line of reasoning is there ANY target that you feel to be off limits as a military target? I think 10-20 pipe bombs at different Christmas displays would also hurt both morale and the economy but I don’t think they would be as ‘moral’ as trying to blow up an army base or an air craft carrier. I thought the idea of “Rules of War” was that nation states agreed NOT to do certain things, like intentionally target civilians. I think that killing civilians as a ‘necessary accident” is a tragedy and that great lengths should be traveled to avoid that. i think that killing civilians on purpose is a crime and should be treated as such.
So I that that when the PLO blows up a pizza parlor at lunch time it’s worse than when Israel blows up a pizza parlor because there was a military target right behind it. I don’t think either is good. But I think one is worse than the other.
So the people actually killed tended to be lower level managers, assistants, and generally support people, not high muck a mucks.
so it would have been okay if the dead people had more money and power?
so it would have been okay if the dead people had more money and power?
Only insofar as it would have met the terrorists’ goals better, so at least they would be happier. The ones that weren’t converted to ozone by the event, that is. As it is, it was just a pathetic and completely useless attack that simply killed some people, hurt more people, and scared a bunch more people. Without meeting any goals not even those of Osama bin Laden, although I suppose he would take “made a bunch of people in the US scared and convinced them to give up their rights without a fight” as a consolation prize.
That makes sense to me. Thanks for clarifying. I really don’t think the 9/11 attacks have worked out well for the people that started them.
I want to add my full-throated concurrence to Richard’s “anti-semitism 001” comment. At least folks stuck on Feminism 101 usually preface with “I’m not a misogynist, but….” Here, by contrast, we have outright mockery that anti-Semitism is part of the equation at all, claiming that we’re free of anti-Semitism primarily (to borrow from Kimberle Crenshaw) “by proclamation alone.” Or, of course, the classic “I have Jewish friends, I can’t be anti-Semitic.” I cannot fathom why we are so quick to forget our own lessons when the subject is Jews.
So, with regards to Maia’s comment, I’d add (in addition to Richard’s excellent comment) that it also erases two more elements of Jewish experience that are critical to a true anti-subordination outlook on the conflict.
1) The expression of oppression as a binary, with Jewish (Israeli) oppressors and Arab (Palestinian) oppressed. I do not deny that Palestinians face oppression — condemnable oppression that people of all backgrounds and stripes have a duty to oppose. But I think it is qualitatively wrong, as others have expressed, to make it zero-sum — because we oppose the oppression of the Palestinians, we necessarily must universalize them as solely victims and Israelis as solely perpetrators. This just isn’t true. Israeli Jews have a very strong claim in their own right to being subordinated by the Arab world, including Palestinians — even in the context of the Holocaust, which is forwarded as the paradigmatic “European-only” anti-Semitic oppression. Even aside from the obvious point that had Israel been established in 1928, as opposed to 1948, there would have been no Holocaust, and even aside from the fact that Palestinian pressure prevented Jews attempting to flee Germany from reaching Palestine, thus dooming them to gas chambers, the more direct linkage is that Palestinian leaders such as Haj Amin al-Husayni overtly supported Hitler and in at least one case directly intervened to sabotage a plan to free 5,000 Jewish children headed to concentration camps who were to be exchanged for German citizens by the Red Cross. Trying to group oppression as a one-way street denies the specificity of anti-Semitic oppression in this context and silences bona victims even as it claims to be “progressive”.
2) While Richard talked about “imported” anti-Semitic tropes from Europe which have been appropriated by Arab states (and Iran, which isn’t Arab at all), I don’t think it’s fair to overlook indigenous anti-Semitism within the Arab world. Certainly, there has been some cross-pollination, and times where Jews have been treated quite nice by Arabs, but there is a quite long and vigorous internal tradition of anti-Semitic oppression and violence within the Arab world, complete with outright pogroms against Jewish communities. There’s a reason why the majority of Israeli Jews are from neither Europe nor America, but hail from North Africa or the Arab World. And there is a reason why, over the course of the 20th century, the Jewish population in the Arab world has collapsed, as most of the people had to flee for their lives to the only nation that would accept them and that they knew they would be safe, which is (survey says….) Israel. Fundamentally, I think this stems from the false view of Jews as inherently White and European, when many (and most, in Israel) are in fact of color and from Africa or Asia. Ghettoizing the problem of anti-Semitism to Europe (as a endemic problem or one that they “export” to other places) is not just incomplete, it erases the experience of Asian and African Jews who have faced their own variety of horrific oppression and subordination which also has to be part of the story.
I think a lot of us in this conversation ARE Jews.
That’s lovely. I don’t think it obviates the point.
Any discourse centering around group subordination has to account for the fact that their are going to be dissenters from the prevailing outlook of that group. I agree with that, and I think we need to respect plurality in our cultures and institutions. But that can’t be used to derail how the majority (of the subordinated group) conceptualizes their subordination. Clarence Thomas and Ward Connelly are Black, but that doesn’t mean we jettison the work of the far larger array of Black intellects, scholars, and community members who see their oppression differently. I know Amp is Jewish, and I respect his right to articulate a dissenting view of how Jewish subordination is constituted (as I do Thomas’, for that matter), but it can’t be used to swallow up the prevailing view amongst Jews as to how anti-Zionist discourse interlocks with the broader mechanisms of anti-Semitic oppression.
Still, I think it’s disingenuous to present his position as being equivalent to “I have Jewish friends.” I don’t see anyone in this thread making that claim, and I do see you leveraging a concept of what Jews think to invalidate the opinions of dissenting Jews such as Amp and myself.
I hear your comparison to Thomas, but an argument gainst Thomas is braced differently than the argument against the head of a garden variety ignorant white supremacist.
Also, I don’t necessarily agree that it’s reasonable to compare Amp’s (or my) position to that of Clarence Thomas’s.
I don’t have long now, but I may have more to say later. David Shraub, I made a statement about the Israeli state and you responded by talking about Israeli Jews and Jewish people before the state of Israel was created. I wasn’t making a statement about Israelis; I certainly wasn’t making a statement about Jewish people before the state of Israel .
I don’t know if this is deliberate sleight of hand on your part, or if we just have very different world view.
Even aside from the obvious point that had Israel been established in 1928, as opposed to 1948, there would have been no Holocaust,
No? I seriously doubt that. Apart from the fact that about 1/2 of the victims of the Holocaust weren’t Jewish, but Gypsies, Communists, gays, people with mental and physical problems, and other “undesirables”, there are a lot of people who would have been declared Jewish by the Nazis but not been considered Jewish enough to be worth saving by Israel, assuming an Israel established in 1928 had laws similar to the one established in 1948. For example, a close friend of mine who is a convert–to the wrong sub-group: she’s a reform, not an orthodox, Jew. As far as Israeli policy is concerned, anti-semitic attacks on her don’t “count”. Or my daughter, who is Jewish on her father’s side (and possibly a distant relation of amp’s, as it happens), but not on mine*. As far as I can tell, Israel would not have protested the sending of people like her to Auschwitz in the least. Always assuming, of course, that Israel had any power to, for example, get people out of Europe during the Holocaust and enough resources to keep them from starving once they did get to safety in the early 1940s after its establishment little more than a decade earlier.
Or maybe they would have invaded Germany on the grounds of its anti-semitism? I doubt that an Israel that existed in the 1940s would have had the strength to do so with any kind of effectiveness. Or maybe the existence of Israel would have made the Nazis think twice about their plans? Maybe–the Nazis were notorious cowards. But more likely it would have simply been invasion goal #1–and I doubt it would have been able to resist, unfortunately.
The existence of an Israel in 1942 might have saved many lives and reduced the number of deaths in the Holocaust by as many as 6 million and, obviously, that would be well worth doing. But I seriously doubt its existence would have prevented the Holocaust altogether.
*Sort of. It’s complicated.
Mandolin: Jibril’s comment was the “I have Jewish friends” (or in his case, in-laws), so “we are not anti-Semites” comment. You can’t tell me you don’t recognize the form. As for the Thomas comparison, I stand by it, but only because I think that we have an obligation to respect “dissenting voices” (including Thomas’) within the discourse of subordinated groups — even if we disagree with them (as I do with Thomas). I explored this topic in my postTaking Thomas Seriously. Like Thomas with Black people, Amp is articulating a view of the Jewish experience and our oppression that does not appear to be in accord with the primary way Jews conceptualize their own oppression as it relates to Israel. This doesn’t mean that we refuse to engage with it, but I think we have an obligation to accurately identify what it is (and isn’t), and not use the existence of these dissenting voices to blot out the predominant way subordinated groups view their own oppression (be they Black, Jewish, lesbian,what have you).
Maia: My argument was simply that we can’t talk about Israel (or any other Jewish institution) without reference to the context in which it came into creation — a context that (as is usual in the case of Jews) is replete with massive, systematic oppression and violence conducted against us at all levels of society. You argued that it was a mistake to transpose European anti-Semitism onto the Arab world. I responded that, in fact, there are plenty of linkages to non-European anti-Semitic violence and murders which are very much part of the Jewish historical experience that brought Israel to life. It’s ahistorical to the extreme to assume that structure of subordination simply evaporated in 1948 (particularly given the comments from the Arab world in the immediate aftermath of Israel’s declaration of independence, my favorite being that of al-Husayni, who declared a “holy war” and said “murder the Jews. Murder them all.” Accord Azzam Pasha, Secretary-General of the Arab League: “This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre….”). And so, in my first comment, I noted that to too many people, Jewish lives are forfeit, it doesn’t matter when Jews die, or at the very least there is some baseline of violence we should be prepared to accept. A couple rockets here, a few suicide bombers there, it doesn’t matter because it’s only Jewish blood. As progressives, we have an obligation to try and transcend this murderous ideology. But given that history of violence and suppression, I think it is severely mistaken to talk about Jews solely as oppressors when, for example, an Iranian official remarks that “Israel is a cancer on the region, and the way you cure cancer is with radiation.” How can I view that statement in isolation from the history of violence that it operates in? How can you ask me to cut myself off from my own cultural experience, to silence my narrative of oppression because it’s no longer hip to acknowledge that, in all likelihood, many folks will cheer and many more will shrug if millions of Jews are nuked into oblivion? I suppose we do have a different worldview: in mine, the fact that people rarely seem to care when Jews are killed is integral to understanding Israel’s history and policy with regards to this conflict, and this lack of empathy is a functioning of continued anti-Semitic oppression which continues to render me a second-class citizen (at best).
Dianne: My argument that this existence of Israel would have staved off the Holocaust (of Jews, that is. You are quite right that I should not have ignored the deaths of gypsies, poles, homosexuals, et al, and I apologize) is based off the well known historical fact that Hitler originally wished only to expel the Jews, not exterminate them. Nobody would take them, so his “Final Solution” (it got the name for a reason) was death camps. Had Israel been around, it presumably would have accepted the refugees, and saved their lives.
And while you’re right that Hitler targeted for extermination people who are not considered “Jews” under Israeli (/traditional Jewish) law, it’s important to remember that an exception to this policy is the Law of Return. Someone who has Jewish ancestry, but isn’t technically Jewish, still is eligible to immigrate to Israel at any time — precisely because Israel’s founders recognized that anti-Semitic violence rarely conforms to Talmudic definitions of who a Jew is. Admittedly, it is a counterfactual to imagine that Israel would have adopted this standard prior to the Holocaust. But the fact is that the established Israeli policy on this matter is one that very much would “protest” if your relatives were consigned to the gas chambers.
I read an article a little while back documenting an increase in anti-Semitism, ironically enough, within Israel from its Russian immigrant community — people who can come to Israel because they have Jewish ancestry, but aren’t Jewish themselves and in fact very much dislike Jews (but, it seems, are fans of the Jewish economy!).
“Jibril’s comment was the “I have Jewish friends” (or in his case, in-laws), so “we are not anti-Semites” comment. You can’t tell me you don’t recognize the form.”
You’re right. I found the comment offensive because it used that form, and subsequently blotted it out of my memory. I apologize for saying that attitude wasn’t in the thread. I understand the context of your remarks better now.
I would be interested in finding out whether it’s true that the way that Amp and I view the oppression of Jews is really out of step with the way that most American Jews view their circumstances. When I’ve been uncomfortable in groups of Jews who were voicing anti-Palestinian views, it’s true that I did not always speak up, and that often there were no dissenting views voiced. It’s also true that afterward, when we fragmented into smaller groups, I invariably found that other Jewish people had been just as uncomfortable as I was.
Kate L.:
One of the best books I have read on this subject, and which is perhaps particularly appropriate for people on this blog, because it is written from a working-class, lesbian feminist perspective is Yours In Struggle. David can probably recommend other books much more easily than I can. It’s been a long time since I have been reading this kind of material.
Diane:
The question referred to in my exchange with Maia is in my first comment here.
David writes:
I don’t agree that in either of the contexts my post touched on — the USA, or Israel — Jews can reasonably be described as an “oppressed people.” Caroline New (who I quoted here) defined oppression like this:
I don’t deny that anti-Semitism exists; nor do I deny that some Jews in the US and Israel suffer or are even murdered as a result of anti-Semitism. There are also some white people who, in some contexts, may suffer or even be murdered as a result of anti-white bigotry. In neither case does the mistreatment seem systematic, significant or widespread enough to make the Jews/Whites “oppressed peoples.”
I worry that in some of your comments (comment #68, in particular) you seem to be veering towards suggesting a moral equivalence between present-day Palestinians and Israeli/Jewish oppression; aren’t both groups “oppressed peoples,” after all? Perhaps this isn’t what you’re saying, and I’m mis-inferring.
I don’t believe that oppression must be a binary — although, as you’re probably aware, many feminists would disagree with me about that. But in the specific case of present-day Israel and occupied Palestine, I do believe that Israel is the primary oppressor, and Palestinians are oppressed as a people.
Just to be clear, bombing civilians — as Palestinian suicide bombers have done — is loathsome. Nothing can justify suicide bombing a pizzeria. But I also think that nothing can justify the apartheid regime in the occupied territories, and the death and suffering that Israel inflicts in order to maintain the regime. And Israeli’s defenders, in trying to justify the unjustifiable, too often argue as if — to recast your phrase — “it doesn’t matter because it’s only Palestinian blood” (and Palestinian freedom and homes and dignity) at stake.
Regarding W&M, I’d tend to agree with you that their vast overstatement of the Israeli lobby’s power dovetails with anti-Semitic beliefs, and can and should be criticized on that basis.
I think truthfulness is a reasonable defense against this charge. If W&M had contained their argument to a more modest claim that the Israeli lobby has, due to a combination of circumstances, enormous influence over Congress; that as a result, the debate on middle east and especially Israeli/Palestine issues in Congress is ridiculously narrow; and that the Israeli lobby’s considerable but not infinite influence is used to push US foreign policy in undesirable directions, then that also would have dovetailed with anti-Semitic beliefs. Nonetheless, if that was all they said, I would defend them on the grounds that speaking truth is necessary even if the truth in some ways dovetails with anti-Semitic beliefs.
However, as we both know, W&M didn’t confine their argument to the above points; instead, they imply that the Israel lobby’s influence has been decisive, rather than just important and contributory, to US foreign policy. But I don’t think that matters for my post’s argument, because even if W&S had made the more limited and factually justifiable case I describe above, they still would have been denounced from the rooftops as anti-Semites.
You suggest that Israel’s critics should just accept that criticizing Israel is tough, and try harder to criticize Israel while foreclosing echos of anti-Semitic canards whenever possible. If that was all that was required of Israel’s critics, I’d be on your side. But it doesn’t matter how hard Israel’s critics try, because the loudest advocates for Israel in the US aren’t out to criticize genuine, substantive anti-Semitism; they’re out to demonize criticism of Israel. If you criticize Israeli policies harshly, and you’re a person of any public significance in the USA, you will be accused of anti-Semitism (and not just by marginal figures). The only way to avoid it is to be someone below the radar screen, or to not criticize Israel in strong terms at all.
Because I think that treating the present-day Israeli government and the occupied Palestinian people as morally comparable entities, or as mutually subordinated victims of oppression, is incompatible with any genuine radical, anti-subordination analysis.
Robert wrote:
You know, I brought up the convert-or-burn thing before I had heard about Ann Coulter’s anti-Semitic turn on Donny Deutsch’s (no relation) program. But it is a wonderful illustration of what I mean, isn’t it?
To use a race analogy, I guess you could argue that a white person who thinks that whites are superior to all other races isn’t an anti-Asian racist, because they’re not prejudiced against Asians in particular, just against non-whites in general. I don’t find that persuasive, however, and I doubt many non-white folks would either.
It’s either a statement implicitly comparing pro footballers to another population (by default, the general population), or it’s a meaningless statement.
Regarding why the leading Jewish lobbying groups are right-wing, this seems plausible to me:
Richard wrote:
I agree with this.
Regarding the “why should the Palestinians be punished for the Holocaust?” question, if it’s anti-Semitic would depend, for me, on context. If it was a rejoinder to someone specifically citing the Holocaust in particular as the reason Israel’s founding was justified, or that the Israeli occupation is justified — and I’ve heard both arguments made — then I think asking that question would not be anti-Semitic.
David wrote:
Like Mandolin, I wonder how you are so certain that I am a tiny minority within the Jewish community (akin to Thomas), and that your views represent the norm. (In Thomas’ case, in contrast, we can use exit poll results to show that the vast majority of Blacks don’t share his attachment to the conservative movement.)
I don’t feel like I’m a second-class US citizen (at least, not because I’m Jewish). I do occasionally feel as if others consider me a second class Jew. A major reason I feel this way is the attitude you’re displaying here (very common for Jews who share your politics regarding Israel); the assumption that of course you and those Jews who agree with you are the norm and the center for all of Judaism, and those Jews who disagree with you are outliers.
On oppression: While I disagree with you about Jews being an oppressed people in America (see, e.g., my article on how Church/State jurisprudence disadvantages Jews vis-a-vis Christians, plus my general argument about how Jews are appropriated in “Judeo-Christian”, silencing our independent ethical and normative perspectives), I think with regard to Israel you’re using the wrong metric entirely. There are many cities in America which are majority Black, within which Blacks control the levers of governmental power. Yet, we still agree that racism is operational, because these cities don’t exist in a vacuum — they swim in larger racist waters. Likewise with Israel — it exists within a global community that is structurally anti-Semitic (I could give about 9000 examples using the UN alone), and locally, it sits rather precariously within a region that is suffused with anti-Semitism. These two factors alone, I think, are sufficient to label Jews an oppressed party in the area. In most places in the Middle East outside Israel, Jews are essentially forbidden from living (a social and sometimes legal prohibition that is enforced via violence). Again, context matters — and with regards to Palestine specifically, Jews who live in Palestinian controlled areas wouldn’t just be oppressed, they’d in all likelihood be dead. The fact that Jews may have an oasis where this oppression doesn’t weigh directly doesn’t strike me as germane, anymore than the existence of HBCU’s obviates the existence of racist oppression in America (indeed, I’m quite fond of the Israel as HBCU analogy in general). I reject the effort to try and cut out the actual position of Jews from the world we live and try and view it in isolation. I think that gives us a distorted picture. And once again, I don’t think it’s a move you’d make in the context of other oppressed groups. Fundamentally, I don’t think the violence and hate directed against Jews is analogous to that directed against Whites qua Whites — it is not sporadic, isolated, unconnected to a larger oppressive ideology, and ineffective at dislodging Jews’ status as equal citizens.
(How does this weigh against Palestinian oppression? Honestly, I don’t care — I don’t find the “who has more oppression” game productive, nor do I think different forms of oppression are commiserate with each other. We can and should oppose the oppression of all peoples.)
As to what Jews “actually” think. First, I’d note that Thomas would echo both of your objections as to his own experience: he’d deny he’s a “tiny minority” within the Black community (and let’s face it: Black Conservatism — which doesn’t line up precisely with mainstream parties or mainstream liberal/conservative — is not exactly a fringe philosophy. It has some major champions, from Booker T Washington to Marcus Garvey to Thomas Sowell to even (I’d argue) Derrick Bell). He’d also argue that he’s not really a “second-class” citizen. And he’d argue that mainstream Black leaders try and suppress his narrative and argue that he’s a “second class Black” (Uncle Tom, sell-out, race traitor) for making his case.
But back to the main. According to a poll last year, 91% of American Jews think anti-Semitism in America is at least a “somewhat serious” problem. The split on the creation of a Palestinian state is 54 in favor, 38 opposed. My eyeball observations would split the Jewish community 65/30/5. 5% on the anti-Zionist left, 30% who are “greater Israel” folk and oppose a Palestinian state outright, and 65% support a two-state solution at some point (the entire 54, plus some who support it theoretically but answer no now because they don’t think the time is right, Palestinians haven’t “earned” it, or some other reason for delay). The 65 group, obviously, is thusthe most complicated, and could be split up internally (unilateral withdrawal, partial negotiated withdrawal, total negotiated withdrawal, withdrawal only after certain conditions are met…etc), but the point is that they feel that in the long run a two-state solution is the ultimate resolution of the conflict. But one thing I do feel confident stating is that most Jews feel that there is an intersection between anti-Israel and anti-Zionist discourse. How strong an intersection varies from person to person. But even folks like Michael Lerner agree that these two forces are too often interrelated. So yeah, I feel comfortable, having spoken with many Jews in my day, that the large portion of us a) support a two-state solution (and I agree that folks who don’t support that endeavor are not “pro-Israel” under any definition I use — I don’t consider it “pro-X” to support endless occupation by X, or endless apocalyptic warfare involving X) and b) feel that at some level, our equal standing as Jews and the discourse involving Israel are interrelated. Both aspects of that experience need to be dealt with.
David, I wonder how it is you think I’m set apart from the Jewish mainstream.
* If I was given the choice of saying that anti-Semitism in the USA is either “not a problem or all” or a “somewhat serious” problem, I’d say “somewhat serious.”
I’d also say that the survey instrument has a “somewhat serious” bias problem. :-P My suspicion is that if the survey had included an option like “anti-Semitism in the US is a real problem but not a major problem,” a large portion — perhaps a majority — of the people who answered “somewhat serious” would have gone for that option instead.
* Like most American Jews, I’d favor the creation of a Palestinian state. (I have utopian fantasies about a peaceful one-state solution, but believe that the two-state solution is far more practical and viable.)
* I do think there’s an intersection between anti-Zionist sentiment and anti-semitism (although you and I disagree on how large the overlap is).
According to what you’ve written, I’m pretty much in the mainstream of US Jewry.
With all due respect, I’m beginning to suspect that you don’t have a very good handle on what my views are.
Mandolin – I think you’re very wrong that what Jibril said was an example of ‘some of my best friends are Jewish.” Jibril made that statement in the context of telling a story about how her family had been directly and severely oppressed by the Israeli state.* Stating that you have friends in a group that has oppressed you has a very different political meaning from stating that you have friends in a group that you have structural power over. Jibril’s statement is much more like the former than the latter.
Richard Jeffrey Newman – Do you think that the history of Zionism is something that is systematically ignored in discussions over the formation of Israel? Because unless it is systematically ignored by calling that question anti-semitic seems to be demanding that discussions on the formation of Israel be centred on zionism.
I did mean to say in my post that I wasn’t arguing that Arabic anti-semitism didn’t exist, just that there were limits to which I thought it was possible to conflate the two. I’ll accept that that’s not what you were doing, the reason I thought you were is that it seemed that for that question to be anti-semitic there must be a systematic silencing.
I agree that not running together Israel and Jews together is not the only way that the debate over Israel can be anti-semitic (and that to argue that it is is extremely problematic).
But I think my position on the nation-state (I’m against them) makes it hard to participate a conversation about the ways the discussion of Israel is anti-semitic, because I keep coming to places where I don’t know if I’m disagreeing about Israel, anti-semitism, or the nature of nation states. If you believe states represent and act in the interests of the majority of people within their borders then personifying the Israeli state as Jewish (which I think David Schraub has been doing) makes some sense. But that’s not a belief I hold.
I think your comment about anti-semitism 101 is a really interesting one, and probably does apply to me in some respect. While I feel more knowledgeable, and I’ve certainly done more listening, than the sort of people we send off to a feminism 101 blog, New Zealand doesn’t have a large Jewish population and Israel is not a political issue here. So most of the anti-semitism that I respond to is of the kind covered in 101, rendering Jews and Jewish experiences invisible or running Jews and the Israeli state together (plus some rather noxious fascist anti-semitism – which , to squeeze the metaphor, probably isn’t even grade school anti-semitism).
David Schraub – In your comment #68 you responded to me
I have never, and would never make that binary. I have, and would only, talk about the Israeli state. You continue to run together the two even after I’ve made it clear the limits of the statement I am making.
I have to go to bed now but tomorrow I might post 100 way the Clarence Thomas Amp analogy fails.
* Me I’m strongly against running together Israeli and Jewish (and generally against running together Israeli and Israeli state). But Jibril is not the only person in this discussion that has been doing so.
the entire 54, plus some who support it theoretically but answer no now because they don’t think the time is right, Palestinians haven’t “earned” it, or some other reason for delay
Or, more likely, they think there should be a Palestinian state, but it should be a legitimate, democratic state that isn’t window dressing for a terrorist outfit. Many people, unfortunately, saw the election of Hamas as a Palestinian consensus that what Palestinians “really want” is to wipe Israel off the map.
David, recognizing anti-Semitism as a problem in America is not the same as saying Jews are “oppressed”.
“Jibril’s statement is much more like the former than the latter.”
I disagree, strongly. Jibril was saying “I have Jewish friends” as a way of establishing that sie was not anti-semitic.
You say later in your post that you would never make a binary out of either Jews are oppressed or Palestinians are oppressed, but when you say that Jibril’s statement is NOT an example of “some of my friends are…” because of Jibril’s position, you are creating that binary. Jews are a historically oppressed group. Anti-semitism is a historical oppression. You can’t beg off of it by saying “some of my friends are Jewish.”
The only way that you can accept that it is not appropriate for one to discuss one’s lack of prejudice toward an oppressed group with the “some of my friends are” formation, and simultaneously say that anti-semitism can be discussed in this way, is if you are saying that Israel’s state as an oppressor obviates the oppression of individual Jews, which is exactly what you claimed you wouldn’t do.
Wow, this has been a really great comment thread (I hope not over yet). Thank you so much to David and Richard for the arguments you are bringing. I will be bookmarking this.
Amp: I’d actually say that — a particularly sharp disagreement on this one facet notwithstanding — we’re just not that far apart at all. We both believe in a two state solution. We both believe terrorism (and all forms of deliberately targeting civilians with violent force) is wrong. We both believe that Palestinians have legitimate grievances that morally demand redress. I think we both believe that Israelis have legitimate grievances too. I think we both believe that Israel “proper” (not the settlements) isn’t a colonialist endeavor, that Zionism does not equal Racism, and that Israel’s establishment wasn’t facially illegitimate and was a good and necessary thing. Even if we agree on most of that (with quibbles on the details, of course — I don’t find a one-state solution to be utopian at all!), that’s a lot.
We’re just sharply disagreeing over the role “anti-Semitism” ought to play in the discourse surrounding Israel. You don’t think Jews are oppressed, so don’t think it ought to take a central role. I look at the world Jews do and have lived in and think “you’ve got to be kidding!”, and thus do think it needs to play a central role. My analysis in these comments has been solely directed towards what that would look like and why we should do it. I resist the efforts to promulgate a “you’re just playing the anti-semitism card” discourse because I’ve seen that game played before with “the race card” and know how dangerous it can be. When members of a subordinated group claim that something hurts them, marginalizes them, or oppresses them, we have an obligation to at least take them seriously. It’s a profoundly reactionary response to deride them as liars, victim-mongerers, or just plain crazy. I think this is part of a progressive outlook on Israel — no less than pushing back against those who think the occupation should go on forever, no less than those who see Palestinians as having no rights.
Maia: I agree with you that looking at Israel from the perspective of an anti-nation-state position complicates things greatly. Assuming that you don’t choose Israel as the one target to flag upon (i.e., that the position isn’t pretextual and is applied evenhandedly — which from reading your stuff I’m pretty confident you’re fine on), that does alter the analysis. However, in a sense, I think it just illustrates the need to look at the issue from a Jewish point of view. Jews don’t fit well into the prevailing paradigms of a nation or even ethnicity, because of how scattered we are. Yet it’s clear that this diaspora existence is not a tenable option for Jewish safety. When we’re in a minority, we tend to die. And even if we don’t die, we still are limited in our ability to exercise cultural autonomy — we’re still otherized. Shops close on Sunday, not Saturday, food can be fraudulently sold as Kosher with no governmental repercussions, state dinners serve lobster, and our weird dress habits violate official dress codes. My support of the creation and maintenance of a “Jewish state” lies, in very significant part, on the idea that no subordinated group should have to be a minority everywhere. At least somewhere, we both need and deserve to have control over our own lives and destiny — no offense, but the rest of y’all haven’t proven to be good stewards. The great Jewish Tunisian anti-colonialist scholar, Albert Memmi, thought the creation of Israel was a necessary component of Jewish liberation “as a function of the specific conditions of [their] oppression,” for “if they Jews do not pull themselves together as a people they will necessarily remain a separated minority, threatened and periodically exterminated….subject to the benevolence of others….to the fluctuation of their moods, more often bad than good.” [Albert Memmi, The Liberation of the Jew (trans. Judy Hyun) (New York: Orion 1966), 277-78]
Keeping the experience of Jews at the fore-front of our analysis means that, when taking broad-based positions like “I oppose nation-states”, one has to articulate a manner of liberating the Jews within this paradigm that grapples with the specificity of our oppression. When you don’t know many Jews, this probably seems less pressing and you don’t have as many tools to go on to know what specifies our experience. I don’t blame you for that. And perhaps you can articulate an alternative liberatory vision — in which case, all power to you. But we can’t be an afterthought (or at the very least, you can’t expect us to consent to being an afterthought!).
Mandolin – I think the phrase “Some of my best friends are X” gets it offensiveness not from the oppression of group X, but from the power the speaker has over group X. The power that enables the speaker to erase group X’s experience and use them as props. I think there are many context that the statement “Some of my best friends are X” would not offensive, even if the group X is an oppressed group. I am not making an exception for anti-semitism.
It seemed to me that in the context of her story Jabril’s statement takes a very different meaning. In that context the statement is: “I have been wronged by an institution that claims to speak for Jewish people, but I do not hate Jewish people.” I agree that the second half of the statement means something different if read away from the first half, but I think to take the statement out of context is to render Jabril’s experience invisible.
I hope that explains why I do not see what I’m saying as setting up a binary oppression.
David Scraub – I am aware of cultural zionism – which (in my limited understanding) is the belief that Jewish people have to make their future together, but does not see Israel as part of that future. While I would not presume to put forward a vision of liberation for Jewish people, I think it’s really important that, given that I reject the nation state as a solution, I listen to Jewish people who are exploring other ways to freedom.
I do think it’s interesting that you run together Jewish and Jews who keep kosher. There are many Jewish people who want to shop on Saturday or eat lobster (although bear in mind in my ideal world there wouldn’t be shops or state dinners). I think it’s very problematic not to include them as Jewish.
Maia: That’s a really unfair charge. I include Jews of all levels of religiosity under the metric of Jewish — however, Jews who eat lobster aren’t marginalized along the axis of a largely non-kosher society. As in most cases, Jewish marginalization occurs along the axis of its differences from mainstream secular and Christian society, not its commonalities, so I think it’s fair game for me to focus on those portions . Jewish liberation means the freedom to practice and participate in Judaism however we each conceptualize it — but right now, there isn’t much of a social obstacle to being a Jew who doesn’t wear tefillin. Of the four examples I gave, two and a half don’t even apply to me (I don’t wear distinctive Jewish garb and don’t keep a strict sabbath on Saturday, but I do eschew lobster and keep a modified form of Kosher), so it’s rather ridiculous for you to assume that I’m consciously excluding myself from “Jewish”. In already charged conversations, I don’t think it’s productive to read with a predisposition that your interlocutor seeks to exclude, and I humbly request that you not assume what boundaries I do and don’t draw around Judaism.
As to your categorical rejection of the nation-state as the answer, I think you’re too passive about your obligations. You “don’t presume to put forward a a vision of liberation for Jewish people,” but when we as a people put forward our own standard (and I think both Amp and Mandolin do see Israel in some forward as part of Jewish liberation), you’re quite comfortable presuming to reject it, and that you can fulfill your burden to this facet of the liberatory struggle simply by “listen[ing] to Jewish people who are exploring other ways to freedom.” Even the cultural Zionists you cite (like Asher Ginsburg) believed that there should be a Jewish state in Israel — they just thought that the cultural aspect should come before the political aspect (settling Israel and turning it into a Jewish religious/cultural center would spark Jewish nationalist sentiment which would then be harnessed to create a political state — rather than creating a Jewish state and then assuming it will nourish a Jewish cultural community). The portion of the Jewish community which is anti-Zionist, I’d venture, hangs out at less than 25% (Clarence Thomas territory) — polls show that 76% of American Jews feel “very” or “fairly close” to Israel, and 74% feel that “caring about Israel is a very important part of my being a Jew. ” (For comparison: 62% of African-Americans “definitely or probably” favor “set-asides for minority-owned businesses and racial quotas in employment and education”).
“Three quarters of this oppressed group supports X as part of their full flourishing as human beings, but I don’t like X, so I’m only going to converse with the remaining quarter” doesn’t strike me as truly engaging with an oppressed party as much as maintaining your particular ideological commitments even when it comes at their expense. Silencing the great majority of Jews because you feel more comfortable hanging with a tiny minority of us is not friendly behavior, and not the sort of action I think you’d rationalize if the subject were race, class, gender, rights of the indigenous, or what have you. Jewish liberation, like Black liberation, like class liberation, like women’s liberation, ought to occur on the terms of the oppressed, not the oppressors (and on a globalized scale, non-Jews occupy a privileged relationship vis-a-vis Jews). Basically, my question is twofold. First, why do you think most Jews — including many leading progressives and anti-colonialist experts like Memmi — think that Israel is so important to their liberation, and second, if there is no solution to anti-Semitic oppression but a nation-state in some form — if it turns out that nothing else works — then what does that do to your agenda? Do you modify it to make sure we’re liberated too? Or are we hung out to dry because we don’t fit within your vision of the world?
David, the accusation that Maia is “silencing” “the great majority of Jews” is without foundation, and I think rather over-the-top.
I think you’re overusing the comparison to african-americans, class, feminism, etc.. There are overlaps between how marginalized groups are treated, but not all experiences are the same; particularly when the subject is (partly) Israel’s racist oppression of Palestinians, the discussion is obviously not directly comparable to all other discussions of race, class, and sex.
I have a great deal of respect for you and for your dedication to anti-racist thought. But with all due respect, there’s something inappropriate about a privileged white American implying over and over “my experience is directly comparable to the black experience!” by repeatedly saying (paraphrased) “you wouldn’t criticize my views like that if I were black.”
Also, like Mythago, I think your discussion so far has failed to make a distinction between “there are anti-semites in the world, and anti-semitism matters” and “the Jews are an oppressed people.” I certainly agree that anti-Semitism exists and matters, including in the USA and Israel; but I don’t agree that this makes Jews in the US and Israel oppressed as Jews.
There’s lots more I want to respond about, but once again my drawing board is calling me, and it may be several days before I have the time to respond substantively here again. I’m sorry I can’t be prompter.
Most of my experience of Israel- visiting it regularly, having friends and family there and so on, conveys the same conclusion as the one of Mythago, quoted above.
It might also serve to acceps that not only there are no black and white sides to the Israeli- Palestinian conflict, but also to acknowledge that there is exactly one side who has constantly made concessions for the sake of peace, and that side is … not Palestine.
When complaining about how Israel oppresses the poor Palestinians, I have a question that might be worth being answered: “what does Israel owe to a people whose main purpose is the distruction of Israel?” And another one:
“How many cases of Israeli civilians have you heard of who went into the Gaza strip and blew themselves up in hope of killing some palestinians?”
Whether we like it or not, and whether we want so hard to follow the “Israel is bad, Palestinians are good” line of thought so popular for the Western left, intellectual honesty would oblige anyone to admit that Israel never professed the desire to “throw all the Arabs into the sea”, which cannot quite be said about their opponents.
If anything has been learned at Camp David 2 is that there is a part in this conflict who has been making amends, and a part who hasn’t. IN case you have forgotten, the simple demand that the PLO stops terrorism has been met with such upset by the Palestinian part that they withdrew from the negotiations, which kind of says it all about the real intentions…
Asking that Israel return to its 1967 borders is fine and dandy. Maybe it would be nice of the most vocal proponents of this would kindly lead the way by giving up their teritorial conquests from their last wars. Because otherwise all of this is hypocrisy. It might also be worth noting the progressing diminished territory that Israel has received- remember that 75% of the land attributed to it by the Balfour act was in fact given to the creation of Jordan A state with no historical base?
Or maybe we need to ask why is there such a great deal being made
about the Jews getting a piece of land the size of a handkerchief?
It might also be worth wondering “what guarantees does Israel have that once all of the Palestinian demands are met terrorism will stop”?
I am not saying that all is white and well in Israel. It isn’t, and I have a lot of complains to make about it from my own experience there. But I am sick and tired of the “Israel is bad” thinking line of the left. The constant pandering to the Palestinian requests reminds me a bit too much of the Kelogg Briand pact and its consequences.
The intentions of the Palestinians ( PLO, HAMAS, FATAH) have been made clear more than once- and they have nothing to do with having their own state. How can anyone expect Israel to negotiate with people who don’t even recognize its existence?
Amp, I just wonder how bad or unequal an experience has to be before you’re allowed to claim respect for your experience of it?
On the one hand, you don’t seem to feel that your experience as a white Jew in the USA is oppressed ‘enough’ to merit that kind of respect for Jews in general, but on the other hand, you do seem to insist that your experience as a white Jew in the USA is privileged ‘enough’ to deny other Jews their experience of oppression, which is kind of confusing to me.
Then again, isn’t privilege/oppression always in relative terms, too? Ciswomen are generally recognized as an oppressed group, but in relation to transwomen we are still supposed to respect their understanding of their oppression and be very careful of our own privilege. I guess that’s to say that even if some white Jews are privileged vis-a-vis other groups, that’s not alone definitive of the Jewish experience in the USA.
I don’t live in the USA, but in Canada. I am a white Jew and I have it very good in lots of ways but I am almost constantly aware of my difference as a Jew, conscious of the choices I make about ‘passing’, what activities I put on my CV or not, whether or not it’s a good idea to wear a star of David in my passport photo, what conversations about ‘reasonable accommodation’ and resentment of the Hasidic communities means for me, etc etc. Am I oppressed? Is my peer group oppressed? I don’t know. It’s probably worse in Quebec than in other places, but I am really wary of your approach, which seems to imply that we can’t be sensitive or make a stink about our own experiences of difference until it’s REALLY REALLY bad. Which sounds a lot like, ‘don’t rock the boat,’ ‘it could be worse,’ etc etc and basically all the things said by Jews precisely when we don’t feel fully enfranchised in our home states, with the same entitlements as any other resident/citizen. It also seems like a dumb approach for keeping things from getting worse/making them get better.
There is also a little something that needs to be addressed, and I do seriously believe that Amp has spoken from lack of knowledge in this regard
This would only be true if the palestinians would in fact be a different race from the rest of the Arabs in Israel. However, that is incorrect, considering that the Arabs in Israel have the highest democratic rights in all the Middle East. It is also worth noting that there are no Jews in any of the surrounding Muslim countries…
No, Israel’s racist atitude towards palestinians is yet another myth, swallowed whole by those with a need to cast a stone against the damn Jews, or maybe with just a need to have things sorted neatly into “black ” and “white” boxes.The simple fact that rockets fired into Israel’s cities go unmentioned by the international media is one reason why this is antisemitism- the media representation of the situation in the Gaza Strip shows without a shadow of a doubt that dead palestinians are more important than dead Jews.
I resent this affirmation.
Living in constant fear of being blown up and attacked, amongst 200 million people who have repeatedly stated the desire to “throw all Jews into the sea” is not oppression and terror?
Maia:
The syntax of your second question is a litle garbled and so I am not entirely sure what you mean to say there, but I do have a general response to what seems to me the thrust of your question, which is this: The ability to separate the issue of the formation of Israel from the history of Zionism–or to hold the latter somehow not central to the former–is, in itself, an expression of “goyishe” privilege. (I am using the term “goyishe” only because there is no single word in English that refers to non-Jews as a positively rather than a negatively, i.e. non-Jewish, defined category.) For Jews, the formation of Israel, whatever else it may be, is also always the culmination of the Zionist project that began well before the start of the 20th century, and that project–whatever else it may have been; whatever else it may have become over time–was a response to the very real oppression Jews experienced in Europe, one that in many ways was not unlike the oppression of Blacks here in the US, minus slavery–though if you count the slave labor Hitler forced on the Jews, we experienced that in Europe too. (Thought I am not arguing that the two experiences of slavery are in any way identical; slavery in the south, obviously, lasted a whole lot longer than what Jews experienced under Hitler; and it was never the intention of slave owners in the US to work their slaves into extinction; and there are other important differences as well.) For a Jew to hold the history of Zionism and the formation of the State of Israel separate, in other words, would be to express a kind of self-hatred because it would be a denial, a very pointed and specific denial, of an entire realm of Jewish history. I also imagine that, from an Israeli perspective, trying to keep the history of Zionism out of the center of a discussion of the formation of the State of Israel would be rather like trying to keep the role of the British in the colonies at the margins of a discussion of the formaton of the US.
I also think your defense of Jibril around the whole “some of my friends are Jewish” issue is a little bit disingenuous. The fact that one has friends and/or lovers who are members of a group that is the object of racist-like hatred, with everything that implies about the systemic and institutionalized nature of racism–and antisemitism is such a hatred–does not mean that I have not internalized aspects of that hatred. So, when Jibril says, after talking about her brother and sister-in-law, “Anyway, we are not anti-semites….” (and just who is the “we’ in that formulation; I am not sure it is clear from the post), it certainly sounds like Jibril is saying that the fact of his or her brother’s intermarriage means that they, whoever “they” are, are not antisemites. The fact that Jibril seems to imply that the Arab world should be judged on its relationship to Jews based on a period of history that ended centuries ago and not on the rhetoric and policies and practices of the recent past–and I am not here talking about the actions of the Palestinians towards Israel–seems to me evidence enough of antisemitism to give the lie to the claim that the “we” of which Jibril say he or she is a part are not antisemitic.
I also wanted to say this about the question of whether or not the Jews are an oppressed people: Like Amp, I have a hard time with the blanket claim that we are oppressed, but I do think it is not going far enough simply to assert that antisemitism is a problem. What seems and feels true to me is that the potential for the Jews to be oppressed as we were in the past, is very real and very present precisely because the systemic and institutionalized aspects of antisemitism, the way it is woven into the cultural and political structure(s) of “goyishe” culture, are still there; and if you look at Jewish history from a Jewish perspective, from inside it, and you consider how very often, in so many places and in so many different ways, and with so many different rationales, we have been oppressed by all different kinds of governments and by both the left and the right, it is hard not to come away with the sense that such oppression could happen again anywhere and at any time. If you take Jewish history seriously, in other words, it’s hard not to see as foolhardy the feeling that beacuse antisemitism in the US, for example, is right now so relatively mild we don’t need to worry about the Jews being oppressed.
And I would argue that the same thing is true when looking at the fact that Jews are in power in Israel. No matter how strongly one opposes the oppression of the Palestinians, not to understand the formation and existence of Israel as a Jewish state in a context that includes the entire history of the oppression(s) the Jews have suffered right up until the latter half of the 20th century–I am thinking here of the Soviet Union, not Nazi Germany–is to fail to see the forest for the trees. The existence of that forest does not justify what Israel has done and continues to do to the Palestinians; the existence of that forest does not mean that Israel is not an oppressor nation; the existence of that forest does not mean that the nation-building project that was and is Zionism–and I mean here what the Zionists actually did, not their aspirations for a Jewish state–is beyond reproach because of some absolute moral authority that Jewish suffering confers upon Jews; but it does mean that the forest really exists, that it is an emotional, psychological, cultural and political reality for Jews. And when someone tries to talk to us about Israel as if the forest isn’t even there, give me one good reason why we should trust him or her.
Now, I personally am not a Jewish nationalist–though I would not call myself anti-Zionist; as you can tell from what I have just written, I have a lot of sympathy for Zionism’s reaons for being; as well, I do not think that whatever I might think and feel about Zionism as someone who lives outside of and has never been to Israel qualifies me to say much about the nationalist feelings of Jews for whom Israel is there home, either because they were born or emigrated there. The problem that I have when arguments against/critiques of Israel have in them unexamined antisemitism–even critiques that are well-meaning and made by people who are trying their hardest not to be antisemitic–is that I see in them the shadow of the forest I talked about above. Because antisemitism, if it is unleashed on the Jews the way it has been in the past, will go after all of us wherever we are, and it will not matter what our positions are vis-a-vis the Israelis and the Palestinians.
That’s a really interesting follow up – but I’m going to have to apologise for cutting and running – it’s been a bit of a day of it, and I’m not expecting to ease up anytime soon (I may soon post about why).
Replying to David, very late:
the well known historical fact that Hitler originally wished only to expel the Jews, not exterminate them.
Duh! You’re absolutely right, my brain fart. I’m not completely convinced that Hitler wouldn’t have moved on to wanting to kill all Jews everywhere eventually even if he could have, initially, expelled all European Jews to Israel. I do still wonder if Israel could have actually dealt with an influx of millions of refugees or if it would have been eventually forced to close its borders. And I suspect that Hitler would have found some excuse to invade Israel eventually, if only to distract people from the collapsing economy and horrible war. In other words, I doubt that the existence of Israel in 1940 would have made everything wonderful, but it probably would have made the history better, maybe prevented at least the Jewish Holocaust.
But while alternate histories are all good fun, the question remains as to how to solve the problems that history as it did happen has dumped in our laps. Israel surely has a right to exist if only because it has been there for 60 years and declaring it null and void would displace millions of people and destroy the local economy for no good reason and with no particular hope of a better life for anyone. On the other hand, the Palastinians have been sort of left in an awkward position without much hope of either being accepted whole-heartedly into Israeli society–even assuming that they would accept that solution, being able to form their own state, or being welcomed into a third. Personally, I think the second solution, for all its problems, is the one most likely to succeed. The fourth alternative–nuking the Palastinian territories into glowing glass–is, I hope, completely unacceptable to the vast majority of Israeli and non-Israeli Jews, other Middle Easterners, Americans, and all other interested parties. There is, I suppose, a fifth possibility which is just let things continue to drift along as they are with low level persecution of the Palastinians, occasional suicide and other bombings, intermittent bombings of neighboring countries by Israel’s military, the constant threat of war, etc. But who would that make happy?
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?
I seem to remember a few years ago the Southern Baptists’ having a campaign going on to specifically convert Jews. Not atheists or Muslims or Buddhists, but Jews. That strikes me as rather specifically anti-semitic.
the very real oppression Jews experienced in Europe, one that in many ways was not unlike the oppression of Blacks here in the US, minus slavery
Funny you should mention blacks in the US, because I was just thinking about possible parallels between the founding of Israel and the founding of Liberia. Liberia was founded by American blacks in the early 19th century. No one denies that American blacks, even free blacks living in free states, faced oppression in the US in the 19th century, right? Liberia was supposed to be a homeland for this oppressed group, a place of their own where they would not be considered second class. An honorable goal. Yet, shall we say, all did not go perfectly. The American settlers tended to treat the natives as sub-human savages best dealt with with guns. And there was an undertone of racism in the idea of reestablishing a homeland for ex-American blacks as well: it was felt by many American whites (including, I think, Lincoln) that blacks and whites couldn’t live side by side in the US without conflict and it was best for blacks to all be removed from the Americas. So, while racism can’t be ignored as part of the founding of Liberia, neither can colonialism: the Americans moving to Africa were black, but they were also Americans and carried the cultural assumptions of their own superiority with them. And the existence of a black “homeland” allowed whites to pretend that they didn’t need to find a way to work through racism, that they could get rid of the problem by getting rid of the people who made them feel guilty or uncomfortable. Finally, I don’t see criticizing Liberian policies–FGM, poor treatment of refugees, a rather corrupt government, etc–is saying that Liberia shouldn’t exist or that the American blacks who wanted to found their own country were wrong to do so. Just that that country is imperfect and makes and has made decisions worthy of criticism. I trust the parallels are obvious?
Why is it that any time the term “oppression” comes into discussion the peril of the American black population comes into discussion as the ultimate paragon of oppression against which every group who wants the “oppressed” label should measure themselves?
I am not denying at any point the cruelty of slavery and the suffering of the African Americans, but I am starting to feel a little tiny bit insulted when reading that the 2 millenia of oppression my people suffered has to be compared with the only oppression Americans have experience of in order to be quantified as such? And No, I am not going to claim that the Jews have a monopol on suffering, but I do find the comparison ignorant and , yes, somewhat antisemitic. We are talking about the lynching cases , but forget to mention that for hundreds of years killing a Jew wasn’t even considered a crime in Western Europe. What about the times when mass killing of Jews and burning of their villages was the favourite sport of the young European nobility in Catholic countries like France?
What about the Spanish Inquisition and the thousands of Jews tortured in order to be “convinced” to convert?
No, the Jews weren’t slaves. They were less than animals, creatured to be used and tortured and killed however any of the Christians saw fit.
Even the destruction of the Judean state and the exile of the Jewish people in the second century BC, when Hadrian changed the name of the land in order to erase any trace of the Jewish presence there ( hence Palestine). Which is exactly what makes the creation of Israel not a colonialist act- just a mere reparation for almost 2 millenia of oppression, and now some people want to take even that little concession away from us. How is that not oppression?
And just because the oppression and antisemitism are not that obvious now in teh West as they were 60 years ago, should we grovel and beg and be happy that we get at least some bones from the master’s table, like it seems to be advocated around here, or should we finally speak up and denounce the constant systemic oppression we had and still have to face?
So would you argue that Jews are an oppressed population in contemporary American society? It sounds to me like you are making that argument.
I do not find, personally, that I as an individual suffer any major roadblocks in my life because I am of Jewish descent.