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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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 Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2007 6:56 pm Post subject: 'Anti-semites' and 'self-loathing jews' |
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I've seen the accusation of 'anti-semite' being bandied about this forum all too often. It is not a trivial accusation, yet it seems to me to be flung about rather frivolously. It should in fact be a heinious charge, never to used without overwhelming evidence, and yet these days it has been devalued by its overuse as a way to deflect from criticism of one nation's flagrant human rights abuses.
Appalled by the brutal oppression of a vulnerable and largely helpless populace? That's quite normal and to be expected...unless, that populace happens to be living in Gaza or the West Bank. Then, you are suddenly anti-semitic. It's fine for you to be appalled by China's mistreatment of some of its minorities. It's fine for you to be appalled by China's horrible and ongoing persecution and dispossession of the unfortunate Tibetans. That doesn't make you an anti-Asian, or a rabid hater of Chinese folk. It's acceptable to oppose the Chinese government, without been seen to despise every 1.3 billion individual Chinese people. It's quite acceptable to bemoan the terrible treatment and persecution of the Kurds in Turkey. No-one will label you anti-Turkish, and comment you must feel an ugly and unseemly contempt for ordinary Turks. But on learning of Israeli weapons and missiles fired on helpless Palestinian children, one must look the other way. Not to do so, will not just make you a critic of Israeli government policy, but also a rabid hater of the whole jewish diaspora!
From Tony Judt (a famous scholar and 'self-loathing jew'): http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/711997.html
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Israel has stayed the same, but the world - as I noted above - has changed. Whatever purchase Israel's self-description still has upon the imagination of Israelis themselves, it no longer operates beyond the country's frontiers. Even the Holocaust can no longer be instrumentalized to excuse Israel's behavior. Thanks to the passage of time, most Western European states have now come to terms with their part in the Holocaust, something that was not true a quarter century ago. From Israel's point of view, this has had paradoxical consequences: Until the end of the Cold War Israeli governments could still play upon the guilt of Germans and other Europeans, exploiting their failure to acknowledge fully what was done to Jews on their territory. Today, now that the history of World War II is retreating from the public square into the classroom and from the classroom into the history books, a growing majority of voters in Europe and elsewhere (young voters above all) simply cannot understand how the horrors of the last European war can be invoked to license or condone unacceptable behavior in another time and place. In the eyes of a watching world, the fact that the great-grandmother of an Israeli soldier died in Treblinka is no excuse for his own abusive treatment of a Palestinian woman waiting to cross a checkpoint. "Remember Auschwitz" is not an acceptable response.
In short: Israel, in the world's eyes, is a normal state, but one behaving in abnormal ways. It is in control of its fate, but the victims are someone else. It is strong, very strong, but its behavior is making everyone else vulnerable. And so, shorn of all other justifications for its behavior, Israel and its supporters today fall back with increasing shrillness upon the oldest claim of all: Israel is a Jewish state and that is why people criticize it. This - the charge that criticism of Israel is implicitly anti-Semitic - is regarded in Israel and the United States as Israel's trump card. If it has been played more insistently and aggressively in recent years, that is because it is now the only card left. |
From Tanya Reinhart (a well known Israeli dissident): http://www.tamilnation.org/books/Conflict%20Resolution/tanya.htm
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| In the present political atmosphere in the US and Europe, anybody who expresses criticism of Israel�s policies is immediately silenced as an anti-Semite. Part of the reason why the pro-Israel lobbies have been so successful in their use of this accusation is the massive lack of knowledge about what is really happening in Israel-Palestine. Without the facts, the dominant narrative remains that Israel is struggling to defend its very existence. Attention focuses mainly on the horrible, despicable Palestinian terror; hence critics of Israel are often accused of justifying terror. |
From Uri Avnery (well known Israeli journalist and peace activist): http://gush-shalom.org/archives/article286.html
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Is everybody who criticizes Israel an anti-Semite?
Absolutely not. Somebody who criticizes Israel for certain of our actions cannot be accused of anti-Semitism for that. But somebody who hates Israel because it is a Jewish state, like the Hungarian in the joke, is an anti-Semite. It is not always easy to distinguish between the two kinds, because shrewd anti-Semites pose as bona fide critics of Israel's actions. But presenting all critics of Israel as anti-Semites is wrong and counter-productive, it damages the fight against anti-Semitism.
Many deeply moral persons, the cream of humanity, criticize our behavior in the occupied territories. It is stupid to accuse them of anti-Semitism. |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2007 6:56 pm Post subject: |
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Hang on you say, some of you might say, but I'm appalled at what's going on in the occupied terroritories, and I'm jewish? Well then, you're not an anti-semite, but rather a self-loathing jew.
Well, British 'self-loathing jews' have lately hit back on this score. Tired of the perception that all jews support Israeli's harsh policies towards the Palestinians, they have founded a new organisation.
British Jews break away from 'pro-Israeli' Board of Deputies
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A new organisation to represent British Jews is to be launched today in response to a perceived pro-Israeli bias in existing Jewish bodies in the UK.
The founders of Independent Jewish Voices, IJV, which will include such luminaries as the Nobel Prize-winning playwright Harold Pinter and the historian Eric Hobsbawm, say that the group is being established as a counter-balance to the uncritical support for Israeli policies offered by established bodies such as the Board of Deputies of British Jews.
More than 100 high-profile British Jews have already signed the group's founding declaration: "Those who claim to speak on behalf of Jews in Britain and other countries consistently put support for the policies of an occupying power above the human rights of the occupied people."
Other signatories include the film director Mike Leigh, human rights lawyer Geoffrey Bindman, fashion designer Nicole Farhi and the actors Stephen Fry and Zoe Wanamaker. The initiative was born out of frustration with the assumption by non-Jews that Jewish opinion in the UK is monolithic in its support for Israel's policies.
Professor Hobsbawm told The Independent: "It is important for non-Jews to know that there are Jews ... who do not agree with the apparent consensus within the Jewish community that the only good Jew is one who supports Israel." |
Who speaks for Jews in Britain?
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| We will not accept the vilification of those who protest at injustices carried out in the name of the Jewish people. |
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As the situation in the Middle East deteriorates yearly, more and more Jews watch with dismay from afar. Dismay turns to anguish when innocent civilians - Palestinians and Israelis - suffer injury and death because of the continuing conflict. Anguish turns to outrage when the human rights of a population under occupation are repeatedly violated in the name of the Jewish people.
No one has the authority to speak for the Jewish people. Yet during Israel's war with Lebanon last summer, Ehud Olmert, the prime minister, told an American audience: "I believe that this is a war that is fought by all the Jews." His belief is not based on evidence: it is an article of faith, a corollary of the doctrine that Israel represents Jewry as a whole - in Britain included.
This is a fallacy; and, moreover, a dangerous one, since it tars all Jews with the same brush. Yet this misconception is reinforced here by those who, claiming to speak for British Jews collectively or allowing that impression to go unchallenged, only ever reflect one position on the Middle East. On its own account, the Board of Deputies of British Jews (which calls itself "the voice of British Jewry") devotes much of the time and resources of its international division to "the defence of Israel". When a "solidarity rally" was held in London last July in the midst of the conflict with Lebanon, it was the board that organised it.
All of which suggests that British Jewry, speaking with one voice, stands solidly behind the Israeli government and its military operations.
Two things are wrong with this suggestion. First, it's false. |
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VanIslander
Joined: 18 Aug 2003
Location: Geoje, Hadong, Tongyeong,... now in a small coastal island town outside Gyeongsangnamdo!
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| Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2007 8:03 pm Post subject: |
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Jew=Israeli ? No.
interests of Jews = interests of Israelis ? Maybe. Maybe not.
Most jews were NOT Zionists prior to the Second World War. |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2007 10:41 pm Post subject: |
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Here is the website of the new jewish organisation IJV:
And here is the link to the organisation's declaration:
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We are guided by the following principles:
1. Human rights are universal and indivisible and should be upheld without exception. This is as applicable in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories as it is elsewhere.
2. Palestinians and Israelis alike have the right to peaceful and secure lives.
3. Peace and stability require the willingness of all parties to the conflict to comply with international law.
4. There is no justification for any form of racism, including anti-Semitism, anti-Arab racism or Islamophobia, in any circumstance.
5. The battle against anti-Semitism is vital and is undermined whenever opposition to Israeli government policies is automatically branded as anti-Semitic.
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For those posters here who shamelessly cry 'anti-semite' at anyone questioning the policies and (often illegal) actions of successive Israeli governments with regard to the occupation, please take good note of number 5 on the above list. |
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Adventurer
Joined: 28 Jan 2006
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| Posted: Sat Feb 10, 2007 6:23 pm Post subject: |
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| This is a problem among both Jews and Arabs, though it is often associated with Jews by people in the West. Both have reason to have this gut reaction that someone is being prejudiced. There are historical and cultural reasons for this, and they do both crack down somewhat on community dissent and many people are kind of scared to criticize certain political groups, figures, but there are massive cracks in both communities with people diverging with the notable example of Noam Chomsky, Norman Finkelstein on the Left and Jews in the centre from England, America, and Canada and among the Arabs you have the reasonable moderates like Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, Mahmoud Abbas. Both communities are diverse and people often try to downplay the diversity and that is not fair. Both groups sometimes annoy me, but I think they have both made progress despite the veneer of negativity. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Sat Feb 10, 2007 6:28 pm Post subject: |
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| It is interesting that European Leftists identify so much with Palestine. What do they get out of their involvement in this proxy war? |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Sat Feb 10, 2007 6:42 pm Post subject: |
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| Kuros wrote: |
| It is interesting that European Leftists identify so much with Palestine. What do they get out of their involvement in this proxy war? |
What is interesting is how so many in the US identify with the oppressors and not the oppressed. |
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Adventurer
Joined: 28 Jan 2006
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| Posted: Sat Feb 10, 2007 6:55 pm Post subject: |
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| Big_Bird wrote: |
| Kuros wrote: |
| It is interesting that European Leftists identify so much with Palestine. What do they get out of their involvement in this proxy war? |
What is interesting is how so many in the US identify with the oppressors and not the oppressed. |
Kuros, the Palestinians are largely a displaced people who ended up as refugees. Some conservatives also relate to their plight like Patrick Buchanan. So it is not necessary a Left versus Right thing in all cases.
There are plenty on the right who also have reservations about Israel including those who don't really like the Palestinians.
As far as the U.S. government, it has often identified with dictators and oppressors when it was felt that it served its interests. France and England have done the same in the past. Empires are sometimes like that. As far as the American people, many find it easier to relate to Israel because there are many prominent Jews who support Israel
who articulate themselves well and some Christians believe it is their duty to support Israel so that the good Messiah returns.
Anyway, the story is not so simple. I suppose it is never boring, I suppose. |
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Sincinnatislink
Joined: 30 Jan 2007
Location: Top secret.
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| Posted: Sat Feb 10, 2007 7:45 pm Post subject: |
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| VanIslander wrote: |
interests of Jews = interests of Israelis ? Maybe. Maybe not.
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Could you possibly explain to me how Jews generally rely on the fate of Israel? |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Sat Feb 10, 2007 8:58 pm Post subject: |
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| Adventurer wrote: |
| Big_Bird wrote: |
| Kuros wrote: |
| It is interesting that European Leftists identify so much with Palestine. What do they get out of their involvement in this proxy war? |
What is interesting is how so many in the US identify with the oppressors and not the oppressed. |
Kuros, the Palestinians are largely a displaced people who ended up as refugees. Some conservatives also relate to their plight like Patrick Buchanan. So it is not necessary a Left versus Right thing in all cases.
There are plenty on the right who also have reservations about Israel including those who don't really like the Palestinians.
As far as the U.S. government, it has often identified with dictators and oppressors when it was felt that it served its interests. France and England have done the same in the past. Empires are sometimes like that. As far as the American people, many find it easier to relate to Israel because there are many prominent Jews who support Israel
who articulate themselves well and some Christians believe it is their duty to support Israel so that the good Messiah returns.
Anyway, the story is not so simple. I suppose it is never boring, I suppose. |
I am quite familiar with the US' failures and indiscretions. Neither am I a cheerleader for Israeli warcrimes.
The whole Israeli-Palestinian situation is done to death. My question really is about European Leftists. Why is it that the Palestinian State is so important?
I thought BB's answer was pretty lame. |
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Adventurer
Joined: 28 Jan 2006
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| Posted: Sat Feb 10, 2007 11:08 pm Post subject: |
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| Kuros wrote: |
| Adventurer wrote: |
| Big_Bird wrote: |
| Kuros wrote: |
| It is interesting that European Leftists identify so much with Palestine. What do they get out of their involvement in this proxy war? |
What is interesting is how so many in the US identify with the oppressors and not the oppressed. |
Kuros, the Palestinians are largely a displaced people who ended up as refugees. Some conservatives also relate to their plight like Patrick Buchanan. So it is not necessary a Left versus Right thing in all cases.
There are plenty on the right who also have reservations about Israel including those who don't really like the Palestinians.
As far as the U.S. government, it has often identified with dictators and oppressors when it was felt that it served its interests. France and England have done the same in the past. Empires are sometimes like that. As far as the American people, many find it easier to relate to Israel because there are many prominent Jews who support Israel
who articulate themselves well and some Christians believe it is their duty to support Israel so that the good Messiah returns.
Anyway, the story is not so simple. I suppose it is never boring, I suppose. |
I am quite familiar with the US' failures and indiscretions. Neither am I a cheerleader for Israeli warcrimes.
The whole Israeli-Palestinian situation is done to death. My question really is about European Leftists. Why is it that the Palestinian State is so important?
I thought BB's answer was pretty lame. |
I think BB is a nice person. Her reaction to your question was perhaps due to her assumption that she thought you only cared for the suffering of one side. I personally am alarmed by the hard times both sides are facing due to their behaviour.
The Europeans feel guilty about how the Palestinians were simply left as some spoils of European conquest to be done with as Israel pleases.
France was for a long time an ally of Israel until 1967. People say France supports the Palestinians because they have a large North African population. This is not the reason because in 1967 the North Africans were not so significant in terms of their voice or population. De Gaulle was angry with Israel, because he told them not launch the 1967 war, and they ignored their allies insistence, and the French then switched sides.
The Left has viewed Israel as being too expansionary. The Left prefers to be associated with those trying to be liberated. Europe and the Middle East have been always connected and I am referring to the Mediterranean Arabs more than the North African part. This view is found among the Jewish Left as well.
Of course, it is not cut and dried. It is not simply Palestinians are victims and Jewish Israelis are oppressors. The terroristic response makes victims of the Jewish targets, but the occupation of Palestinians puts formerly second class citizens of Europe i.e. European Jewry in the seat of colonial masters. That makes people in the Left and many Jews uncomfortable. The Zionist left has to deal with that. Regardless,
the Jews of today cannot pay for what their ancestors did while running from the holocaust. It happened. However, work can be done on both sides to build cantilevers, bridges to bring Jewish and Palestinian cousins together and cooperating. The same can be done with the Mediterranean Cypriots and Turks.
The European Left supports Palestinian liberation, but firmly rejects
anti-Israeli positions and groups that won't recognize Israel such as Hamas. Hamas must recognize past agreements with Israel. |
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Gamecock
Joined: 26 Nov 2003
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| Posted: Sun Feb 11, 2007 12:07 am Post subject: |
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| Can we just start a Jewish/Arab discussion forum already... |
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bucheon bum
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Sun Feb 11, 2007 12:11 am Post subject: |
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word. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Sun Feb 11, 2007 4:19 am Post subject: |
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| Of course, it is not cut and dried. It is not simply Palestinians are victims and Jewish Israelis are oppressors. The terroristic response makes victims of the Jewish targets, but the occupation of Palestinians puts formerly second class citizens of Europe i.e. European Jewry in the seat of colonial masters. That makes people in the Left and many Jews uncomfortable. |
Yes.
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The European Left supports Palestinian liberation, but firmly rejects
anti-Israeli positions and groups that won't recognize Israel such as Hamas. Hamas must recognize past agreements with Israel. |
That's good news, because one of my friends back in the States used to talk about this Spanish guy who made art to glorify the 'freedom-fighters' who would blow themselves up in Israeli cafes, and then send some of the proceeds to the Palestinian Authority.
Just to pre-empt BB, there's nothing wrong with giving money to the Palestinian Authority per se.
I always wondered why some Europeans weren't a little more conditional in their support for Palestine, but from what I hear on American college campuses, its not a purely European phenomenon. |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Sun Feb 11, 2007 11:10 pm Post subject: |
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| Kuros wrote: |
I thought BB's answer was pretty lame. |
And I thought your question was pretty lame. First, who are the European Left? Are 'the left' one big homogenous mass? I know people who consider themselves 'a bit lefty' but who are very pro-Israeli. And the European left? Europe is made of many different countries. The average person in some of those countries seem to have more sympathy for the Palestinian plight than in others. The French, for example, tend to sympathise with the Palestinians more than the Germans do.
Much of the literature that champions the Palestinian cause that I'm aware of, has come from the American left - usually jews in fact (such as Chomsky, Finklestein, etc). There's also a lot coming from Israelis themselves, notable the group Gush Shalom. Frankly, I haven't seen much of it coming from Europe (but that might be because its published in French and Finnish).
Next, just in talking to people who sympathise with the Palestinian cause, I can say it almost always goes along some variation of this:
"I used to feel so sorry for the Israelis. I couldn't understand why the Arabs caused them so much trouble. But then I started to find out what was really going on. The more I learned about the occupation, and the Israeli treatment of Palestinians, the more I began to sympathise with the Palestinians. I'd had no idea! It's so awful - really shocking. Why don't the newspapers tell us about this? Why does our government not oppose this? etc etc. "
I've heard it time and time again.
Lastly, it's no surprise that people aligned with 'the left' would sympathise with the poor and powerless and increasingly dispossessed, and not the rich and militarily powerful side which is illegally annexing more and more territory and resources. |
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