It’s almost too crazy to believe, but the newest attack on progressivism seems to be coming from those who purport to love Israel, but who seem to want to prevent any genuine and unhaltered criticism of Israel! This phenomenon is discussed in wikipedia .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_antisemitism
I’ve recently also seen a couple of examples at Daily Kos.
This one is by Nonpartisan:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/6/6/155/31823
I see Nonpartisan’s piece, published yesterday, as a monstrous exercise in bigotry so extreme it’s hard to read through (though, admittedly, it is – in a sick way – funny):
I’ll quote just a bit:
“Jews Eat Babies
Yeah, you heard that right. They eat babies. Moreover, they eat Christian babies. And Muslim babies too. The jury is still out on whether they eat Jewish babies, but I wouldn’t be surprised.
In addition, it should be noted that Jews are directly responsible for the destruction of our environment. Every carbon dioxide atom that is contributing to global warming today was exhaled by a Jew. The rest of our exhalations are absorbed by plants or something.
Israel is directly responsible for the reelection of George W. Bush, because they made some Arabs really, really mad, which made some other Arabs reall, really mad, who decided to blow up the World Trade Center, which caused Americans to decide that terrorists were the single worst problem facing America today, which made Bush really popular, which made other Americans decide Howard Dean was too wimpy, and John Kerry was too wimpy too, to beat Bush, which made Bush win. Still with me? Shorter version: it’s all the Jews’ fault.
Ok, so he’s making fun of the extremes that people sometimes go to in criticizing the Jews or Israel. I get that and it makes sense to me. But NOWHERE in the piece does he lampoon similar tendencies to blame Muslims or Palestinians, or Illegal Immigrants, or anyone else, for everything from shark attacks to dingleberries.
His take home message? It seems me that his take home message is that criticizing jews or Israel is always extremism, but criticizing muslims or palestinians (or anyone else) is ok.
Jews and Israel are to be exempt from unrestrained criticism.
That’s bigotry, is it not? Bigotry is intolerance, particularly intolerance of criticism.
Nonpartisan uses an absurdist approach. Dhonig tries to be more subtle. His argument is that if you write anything critical of jews, or of Israel, that resembles some of the smears used against them in the past, you are antisemitic.
Dhonig claims that he is not accusing anyone in particular of antisemitism – and that’s hard to deny, since his piece is about general principles, not so much about specific instances. But his opening lays out very clearly that he isn’t just talking about APPEARANCES of antisemitism; he’s talking about actual antisemitism, about it being hidden. He’s saying, ‘if it quacks, it’s a duck’:
… I am going to write about the “dog whistles” of anti-Semitism.
A dog whistle is a whistle used to train dogs- it works in a frequency inaudible to human ears.
“Dog Whistle Politics” plays on the term, defining words in speeches intended only for a limited crowd, words that just slip by everybody else. Gorge W. Bush (or his speechwriters, to be exact) is a master of dog whistle politics when addressing the nation but speaking to his “base.” His mention of the Dred Scott decision in the ’04 State of the Union Address is a perfect example- most people just said “Whaaaat?,” but the anti-choice crowd heard If elected to another term, I promise that I will nominate Supreme Court Justices who will overturn Roe v. Wade.
:
Curiously, the concept of the dog whistle, in a negative use, can explain both how anti-Semitism can be hidden within apparently legitimate debate , and how those who can’t hear in the right frequency INSIST that it’s just not there.There are really four classic anti-Semitic themes that have been for centuries to justify mass murder, mass expulsion, or both. They are that Jews have control the world’s media, that Jews have an international conspiracy to control the world’s money, that Jews join national governments and undermine them from within for their own purposes, and the “blood libel,” a claim that Jews use the blood of Gentiles, usually children, to bake their Passover matzoh.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/5/29/23814/2452
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See, what dhonig saying here is that folks using criticisms of Israel or of jews that resemble classic anti-semitic themes, are hiding ongoing anti-semitism. But those themes he mentions are so broad and cover so many possible criticisms, that taking them as a guide makes any serious criticism close to impossible. Allegation of broad media control, or financial control, just for starters, are the bread and butter of progressive criticism. Take them away and how do you have progressive criticism at all?
A progressive might say, for example, that the reason for the way the recent election in France turned out was the control of the media by a handful of financial powerhouses. If those powerhouses turned out also to be associated with Jews, however likely or unlikely that is (I have no idea, since I’ve not particularly studied French finances), would we have to immediately ditch that line of progressive criticism? I think dhonig and Nonpartisan and their fans would insist that we do so.
Dhonig’s piece was intensely popular at Daily Kos, one of the most popular diaries I’ve seen there. I find that frightening. Apparently a large percentage of people at Daily Kos (probably the most popular quasi-progressive site on the internet), are willing, if not eager, to submit criticisms they might have of Israel or of jews to dhonig’s historical litmus test. That’s bigotry. That’s intolerance for open and uncensored criticism.
There IS a litmus test that works for antisemitism as it does for any other kind of prejudice. When someone expresses a criticsm of a group that is based on qualities supposedly inherent to that group that are categorically not inherent to that group, then we can safely call it prejudice. Jews are greedy. Blacks are lazy. Blonds are slutty.
Prejudice can be positive too, and it’s just as destructive when it’s positive. Chinese are smart. Irish are good fighters.
Yes, sometimes finding the prejudice in a criticism takes some analysis, but the basic principle is simple. Elaborate litmus tests are not needed. They are more like bigoted barriers to honest criticism than barriers to prejudice.
Where is there a progressive movement that is willing to discard, with revulsion, such bigotry? If Daily Kos has indeed accepted the idea that criticism of Israel must pass the muster offered by people like dhonig, then I wonder what is to stop Israel from rolling right over what remains of Palestine, from bombing Lebanon back to the Stone Age for the third time, or even from bombing Iran, as Cheney supposedly wants Israel to do. By the time we are done having our criticisms checked by the pro-Israel criticism gatekeepers, there’ll be nothing left of them, and whatever Israel wanted to do will be a fait accompi anyway.
At this point, I can only pray that there is a progressive movement in Israel that can put to shame the pro-Israel bigotry manifested by Dhonig and Nonpartisan and others, if there is no progressive movement in the US and elsewhere that will do it.
Or perhaps the deeper truth is that folks like Nonpartisan and dhonig and those at Daily Kos and elsewhere would like us to forget is that transnational progressivism is a growing force that cares about the fates and needs of all people, and not just one country. Even in Israel, acccording to Wikipedia, anyway, such a movement is taking shape:
In Israel, a “post-Zionist” intelligentsia has proposed that Israel consider itself multicultural and deconstruct its identity as a Jewish state. Even Israeli foreign minister Shimon Peres sounded the post-Zionist trumpet in his 1993 book , in which he deemphasized “sovereignty” and called for regional “elected central bodies,” a type of Middle Eastern EU.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transnational_progressivism
Have Nonpartisan and dhonig and others at Daily Kos and in the American progressive movement considered that much of the pro-Israel bigotry they seem to support stems not from Jews even, but from the extreme religious right in America? Have they considered that they may be carrying water for the extreme religious right?
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Chris Hedges says this at Znet:
The Israeli lobby in the United States is captive to the far right of Israeli politics. It exerts influence not on behalf of the Jewish state but an ideological strain within Israel that believes it can crush Palestinian aspirations through force. The self-defeating policies of the Bush administration are mirrored in the self-defeating policies championed by the hard-right administration of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in Jerusalem. Israel flouts international law and dismisses Security Council resolutions to respect the integrity of Palestinian territory. It has instead trapped Palestinians in squalid, barricaded ghettos where they barely survive. It is not in Israel’s interest-or our own-to continue to fuel increased Palestinian strife and rising militancy.
What I wonder is how much is the Israel Lobby in fact captive to the far right of AMERICAN politics? Here is James Hagee at AIPAC:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lt5Urh7Ctzw
He speaks of 15 million evangelicals joining in with 5 million Jews in Israel, in supporting Israel. He talks about a huge evangelical organization supporting “the map of Israel” and about the importance of Jerusalem itself. Quoting Churchill he implies that the only choice for Israel is “victory” if it is to survive.
So WHO is driving the militancy, the warmongering and the apartheid of the current regime in Israel? WHO are we progressive supporting when we label other progressives antisemites for insisting that the Palestinians too be regarded as human and that Israel cannot be above criticism, or cannot be insulated from honest and candid criticsm?
First published: http://windfarm-fillip.blogspot.com/