I think it’s inherently risky to lob accusations of anti-semitism at people who wholeheartedly support Israel’s right to exist but criticize their policies. If people fear that support for Israel as a “Jewish state” will dry up if it is seen as an “apartheid state,” then they should take the advice of their critics and get out of the West Bank and work on creating a two-state solution. Yelling at everyone who criticizes them threatens to lose them critical support, especially on the left. I can handle being called an anti-semite since I am secure in my own beliefs and know that my support of Israel is sincere. But being smeared with nasty slurs doesn’t exactly create good will. It’s kind of natural for people to turn against folks who are seeking to tarnish their reputation.
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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Lord knows I have been guilty of it myself, but it seems beginning with insults is endemic among conservatives. And then they wonder -sincerely, it seems- why no one wants to engage with them.
Heck, just yesterday my polite response about why public defenders matter was met with “typical liberal, big mouth little dick” and “faggot”.
I can’t work with someone that starts out like that.
Well Brendan,
THIS “typical liberal, big mouth little dick” and “faggot”, is ready to agree with you. While I consider my self the most liberal person I know( I have never called myself a Progressive; I aint ashamed of LIBERAL; it IS a Beautiful word) I am none of the above descriptions!
What I am is “The Bad Jew”. I am the Jew that is proud of who he is, and what the Jewish tradition stands for, including the democratic way our religious leaders are selected, but I don’t think it is my responsibility to ‘brag’ about my religion.
That said:
” then they should take the advice of their critics and get out of the West Bank and work on creating a two-state solution.
I agree 100%!. If things continue biologically( birth rates), the “minority” will soon be the “majority”, and current policy would be looked upon by
Most of the rest of the world as apartheid ( I KNOW the word is flameable), because
the “minority” would be wagging the “majority”, as happened in South Africa, and SOUTHERN REPUBLICAN Politicians are trying to wag MY country!
A 2 state solution is the ONLY solution when you have 2 different Religious factions that dislike( too wimpy a word)each other extremely, especially when it comes to the name of God.
My name for her is RHONDA, as in “Help me Rhonda, help, help me Rhonda”, with proper accredidation to those west coast surfers who discovered HER!
And one final, MAJOR point about Republican Conservatives: The ONLY reason they give a POOP about Israel is the Bible( which I am Not ashamed to admit I have barely read)0 says some where that Jesus will only come back as long as the Jews run Jerusalem, not because Jews and Conservatives “think” alike and value the same goals in life!
“not because Jews and Conservatives “think” alike and value the same goals in life!”
There IS a reason why their is only 1 Jewish Congressman:
Every religion and political party has it’s own WHORES,and in My Humble Opinion, Eric Cantor is my religion’s WHORE!. Other than that, I have nothing NICE to say about Eric.
These terms tend to be hurled at anyone who disagrees – I have heard certain gays referred to as “homophobic” and I have heard certain Jews referred to as “antisemitic” so it’s more about ad hominem than anything substantive.
Well there are some homophobic gays and antisemitic Jews.
In some ways Andrew Sullivan is homophobic because he hates gay culture and just wants gays to drop their queerness. And Gilad Atzmon is an antisemitic Jew.
I will say though that these words — especially anti-semite in the West — do “tend” to be hurled at anyone who disagrees. So I don’t really disagree with what you said in general.
Sullivan is most certainly not an anti-semite.
In my view those ho hurl the epithet anti-semite at any who disagree with pro-zionist policies are themselves undermining the right of Israel to exist as a distinct state. Not only are they being ethnically illiterate – the Palestinians, too, are a semitic people – but their support for a sectarian Jewish state and anti-Palestinian policies means that no self respecting liberal democrat can support them – as liberal democracy is predicated on a secular state and equality before the law for all.
In the wake of the holocaust, I can understand why “the West” supported a separate Jewish state despite the terrorist atrocities of the Stern gang et al and the systematic ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their own land. But now 70 years have elapsed and “Israelis” have done nothing to suggest they are worthy of a state of their own and so what legitimacy Zionism had has long lapsed. Israel now deserves to be treated as a pariah state shunned by the rest of civilisation until such time they grant all Palestinians the right of return, equality before the law, and the full rights of citizenship.
For me, now, to support Israel is tantamount to supporting a shariah state like the Taleban controlled Afghanistan. I know their are deep roots and close family ties between Israelis and Americans, but really nothing can excuse their treatment of Palestinians, or US complicity in that slow burning Holocaust.
Not clear that “the West” supported a separate Jewish state after WWII and the holocaust. Possibly more appealing to anti-Semites as a means for Jews to self-deport than liberals that were horrified by the holocaust and appreciated the collective duty for some form of reparations.
The Zionists should probably have been told to go pound sand after the assassinations of Folke Bernadotte and Andre Serot, who was mistaken for Dr. Ralph Bunche.
I agree than initial support for Zionism was patchy at best, but by now it has become an orthodoxy of the “West” as defined by its elites. A “West” Israel claims to be part of, whilst in reality, it is its biggest embarrassment and political problem.
Only became an “orthodoxy of the west” when the “Christians” accepted Israel’s existence as necessary to fulfill their delusional New Testament chapter and the “Christians” were impressed with Israel kicking butt in the Six Day War.
Israel is partly to blame for this because they have lauded themselves as “the only democracy in the Middle East” since their inception as a state. But it is not necessary for Israel to be a liberal democracy that is religion-blind or ethnicity-blind.
There are many countries that don’t pass that test. Look at Japan. Look at Saudi Arabia.
We might want Israel to be a simple democracy like Italy or Denmark, but the place is a refuge for Jews who want a country of their own for completely justifiable reasons.
I would completely understand if the Kurds or Tibetans did the same thing.
The problem with Israel isn’t that they want to be an essentially Jewish state. The problem is that demography gets in the way of that. Not only do they have plenty of non-Jewish citizens, but there are many more that are insisting on their right to return to Israel and be full citizens. They can’t allow that.
However, they can avoid making their problem worse, which is what they are doing by settling all over land that the international community says does not belong to them.
I don’t think anyone (other than the Bush family) would hold Saudi Arabia up as a paragon of democratic virtue, but unlike Israel they make no claims to be one. That is also what undermined the Apartheid regime – it’s claims to be a Christian democracy. That is a claim no Christian or liberal democrat can accept without accepting the legitimacy of the racism and bigotry both states embodied – and by extension accepting racism and bigotry in their own societies as well.
I am not aware of Japan ethnically cleansing a large proportion of its indigenous population, or of denying them the full rights of citizenship, so that comparison is, I suggest, not exactly apt.
That said, I’m sure you can find examples of despotic, racist and bigoted regimes elsewhere (I chose Taliban led Afghanistan). But is that a reason why we should support them? I believe the US justified it’s invasion and occupation of Afghanistan largely on those grounds. Or is it a case of “our racists and bigots, ok, yours are worth of liberation by bomb, bullet and drone”?
I think he means that their immigration policies are extremely preferential to Japanese ethnics and quite hostile to, say, Koreans.
I don’t see the comparison as apt, however, because as far as I know there aren’t “Japanese only” roads, for example; plus the reasons you stated.
I’d also like clarification on what was meant in invoking Japan.
My problem with Israel is not that it has strict immigration criteria for (say) Spaniards. It is with how it treats it’s own indigenous populations.
And unlike Boo, I no longer see a two state solution as viable – Israel has been too successful in making a patchwork of Palestinian territories economically and politically unviable. I really don’t see any alternative to a single secular Jewish/Palestinian state, partly because the Zionists have made it so.
Horror of horrors, that would require Jews and Palestinians to live side by side as neighbours and equal citizens. Now when did that ideal stop being part of the essential core of Western civilization?
I agree, I was just trying to suss out what he was saying.
Frank, it’s a little much to kill six million Jews and then get on their case about not living up to our standards. In the century leading up to the Holocaust, many Jews tried their hardest to assimilate into European society. It aroused more resentment than acceptance. So, once Europeans tried to exterminate them, they justly concluded that the standards of Western Civilization were fucked. In fact, the prescient ones were already trying to build a home in Palestine before Europe started their killing machine.
So, while I agree that Israel doesn’t live up to my standards for what a modern, pluralistic, non-sectarian, secular society should look like, I also don’t expect Israel to be that kind of society. That’s not what it was created to be. And if we hadn’t persecuted them and tried to blot them out of existence, it would never have occurred to them that they should go a completely different way and create a place where they could be in charge of themselves.
I’m not saying you don’t have an argument, just that I choose to differ. In my view its a bit much for you to tar us all with the Nazi brush. A world war was fought partly to end that racist demagoguery. And I’m also not saying that most western societies didn’t have varying degrees of antisemitism, just that those injustices then don’t justify Israeli antisemitism (against Palestinians) now. In fact the really sad part of all of this is that Zionists now are doing precisely what they rightly accused “the West” of doing earlier.
And it’s not a case of me trying to impose my standards on Israelis. It is they who claim to live up to the highest standards of western democracy. Iran probably comes as close to those standards as Israel.
Finally, I’m not saying that Zionism didn’t have understandable (and supportable) historical origins. Merely that the reality of the Zionist state over the past 66 years has fatally undermined that case. It wasn’t the Palestinians who caused the Holocaust, even if some of them (at least rhetorically) supported it..
yeah, I understand your point of view. If your feelings are hurt that I included all of Europe as culpable in the Holocaust, I’m really talking about Western Civilization, which includes America. Sure, you can be very specific about who gave the orders during the Holocaust, but it was just a more virulent form of something that was commonplace though out Western Civilization, and even far to the East. My point isn’t to place blame on the Irish for the Holocaust, but to point out that Western Civilization not only failed the Jews but almost exterminated them. As a result, you shouldn’t expect Israel to be a model European country, even if they claim to be just that. Sure, they overplay their hand as a model democratic country, but they also are going around insisting that everyone accept them as a Jewish State.
I’ve always accepted them as a Jewish State. The problem is that I don’t recognize their right to land that was never ceded to them by the United Nations.
I am somewhat forgiving of many of Israel’s pathologies, too, considering that they’ve fought three major wars and endured two intifadas. It’s not like I expect them to not be hyper-vigilant or lacking in bellicosity.
I think Israel is a tragic experiment, both for the Israelis and for the Palestinians. But I don’t think the problem is that Israel wants to ethnic/religious state. I may not like those kinds of states, but I don’t think we’ve earned the trust or the right to tell the Jewish people that they can’t have a place of their own.
It’s not a question of hurt feelings, but of recognising that many Europeans and Americans gave their lives trying to end Nazi atrocities and that “the West” as we now understand it emerged from the Allied (and Soviet) victory in WWII over the Nazis and Fascists and that you cannot include the Nazis in any sane definition of the West any more than you can include Stalinism in that definition.
The West emerged as a concept once the Nazis were defeated and the Iron curtain was drawn against the USSR. As such it includes a degree of anti-semitism of varying virulence in varying societies – as you have documented in Princeton – but hardly the legacy of Nazism or Stalinism. (Incidently that western anti-semitism was as much against Palestinians and Arabs in general, as it was against Jews, and the western anti-semitism against Arabs has lingered far more strongly than that against Jews).
One can understand Jews wanting the security of their own state in the aftermath of the Holocaust without giving them a pass on anti-semitism against Palestinians out of some misplaced sense of western guilt or complicity in the Holocaust. Indeed I would argue that it is Zionist anti-semitism against Palestinians which partially caused the three wars you mentioned, and certainly the two intifadas you also instanced.
So my argument is that Zionism solved one problem at the cost of creating an ongoing one, and that in consequence Jews are less secure in Israel today than they are in Europe and the USA. “The West” is doing Jews no favours whatsoever by turning a blind eye to Zionist anti-semitism, and indeed it is putting at risk the legitimacy of its own democracies – which are firmly founded on the basis of non-discrimination on the basis of religion and race. (That is not to claim that prejudice does not persist, merely that western societies cannot be founded on it.)
If we accept the Israeli claim that it is ok to discriminate against Palestinians Semites, how can we argue against discrimination against Jewish Semites in the west? Israel is putting the foundation of western society at risk by claiming it is ok to discriminate against Palestinians. That is why the Israeli cause has been taken up by racists everywhere who want to overthrow the non-discrimination cornerstone of western societies. Zionism and tea party racism are two sides of the same coin.
I fully agree with your post, except for the very last sentence.
Most comparisons are lame, especially this one.
White supremiscism and Zionism share the sense of “a chosen people”, “a shining city on the hill” and a “master race” – the sense that one’s race is innately superior to all others because of God’s will or some manifest historical destiny. I suggest it is this American exceptionalism which makes Americans much more sympathetic to Zionism than most Europeans. Europeans have suffered at the hands of a self described master race far more than the general American population have, and thus recoil from such ideologies in a much more visceral manner. In some ways I see US white supremacists as unreconstructed Nazis, but sadly, American exceptionalist dogma is also unquestioned in much of the US progressive blogosphere.
To call “Europe” responsible for the ghettos and extermination of Jews in the concentration camps. So incredibly wrong in your statement, there is no fact in history that supports this. I find it troubling and offensive.
I’m glad the Israeli nation offers a different opinion for everyone to see, witness and learn about the horror of the Shoah.
Really? You want to defend Europe’s treatment of the Jews?
Do you have in mind the Italians? The French? The Poles? The Hungarians? The Romanians? The Ukrainians? How many European groups are you going to let slide for their participation in the Holocaust?
And, while the Brits and Americans turned out to be good friends in the end, they didn’t start out that way. And Russia? Yes, Russia has always been so welcoming.
Please, Oui. Don’t try to make it all the Germans’ fault that many Jews came up with Zionism as a reaction to persecution.
Try Vienna (Austria), Paris and the Ukraine. The birth of Zionism in Europe.
○ Theodor Herzl
○ British mandate of Palestine [Zionist version]
○ British mandate of Palestine [Wikipedia version]
○ Moskowitz-Kahane Prize for Settler Zionism
○ David Ben-Gurion Interview In Sinai – 1956 by Edward R. Murrow
Idealism has long been replaced by fascism in Israel, a corrupt state with little freedom of expression.
The British were expelled from the Palestinian territory by Zionist terror gangs as Frank Schnittger has mentioned. The Zionists threatened bombing of civilian targets in London after the end of WWII. The British had no stomach for administering Palestine any longer as the Empire was crumbling globally.
WTFU
From your fp story about selective admissions at American universities …
○ Enrollment of Jews at Princeton Drops by 40 Percent in 15 Years
In Japan, ethnicity is a central factor in how people are treated. They even resort to dramatic contortions to keep ethnically clean, like importing Brazilians of Japanese descent and then paying them to leave when their labor isn’t needed anymore.
But I hear almost no one complain about Japan’s obsession with racial purity.
I compared them to Israel because they both want to be countries where ethnicity/religious heritage are protected, and where pluralism and multiculturalism is not embraced.
It’s inconsistent with American values, but there’s a place for it in this world.
Partly because all states control immigration (with varying criteria and strictness in enforcement). Immigration control is an accepted core function and right of any state – including liberal democratic ones like the US and EU States. The EU may allow internal migration, but has quite strict controls on migration from non-EU states.
Generally speaking the strength of immigration controls is linked to economic needs (for a workforce, markets) and social cohesion. In some ways the relative openness to immigration of countries like the US, Canada and Australia is atypical and probably not unrelated to their huge natural resources, economic growth, lebensraum, and need for workers. The population density and cultural factors results in different attitudes in Japan.
Either way, I can see no relevance in this argument to the Israeli treatment of indigenous Palestinians.
Or are you implying that indigenous Palestinians should be treated as immigrants in their own land?
○ Israel’s Historic Disregard for Lives and Rights of Negev Bedouin
○ Expelling African refugees from Israel
○ ‘So you’re opposed to immigration. Great, when are you leaving?’
○ African Refugees Protest Detainment in Israel – ‘concentration’ camps in Sinai
This is problematical on several levels:
There’s no shortage of cultural/ethnic/religious groups that “want a country of their own” and all claim “completely justifiable reasons.” (Cliven Bundy is one of those not quite fully tamed from his tribe. And he’s not alone.)
Question #1: Is the demand driven by a significant majority of indigenous people? (That would be a yes in the case of Tibet.)
Question #2: Does fulfilling that desire require the elimination (deportation, killing, or some non-person status) of other peoples living on the chosen land?
(The Israeli propaganda of “a land with no people for a people with no land” was effective.)
It’s entirely possible for peoples to choose separation or unification peaceably. Czechoslavia demonstrated the former and Vietnam would have been in the latter group if not the Ike and the US MIC. War and violence tends to be the preferred method when powerful interest groups (often with no direct vested interest in the disputed lands) don’t get their way. A shame we remain so primitive.
I won’t pretend to understand what is going on with the Israelis and Palestinians. It’s been over a decade since I paid any close attention. But I have some sense of the long 10,000 foot history and where the trends are pointing for the future.
I have no serious qualms with Sullivan’s first paragraph in the disputed article, but Sullivan was foolish to conclude it with “None of this is in dispute.” That made me chuckle. EVERYTHING is in dispute. Outright lying is employed frequently by both sides. Harsanyi may have some legitimate complaints about that line as well as the rest of Sullivan’s article, but I really don’t give a s**t anymore about these discussions.
If any one can point out a discussion based on good will that covers some main historical perspective and points of the two main sides, I would love to read it. But I doubt such a thing exists.
There are many of us liberal K-street Jews who find AIPAC and the Federation and most of establishment Judaism appalling. I’m also a Sufi. This is ironic in that Sufism is the mystical branch of Islam. So I’ve come to know many Muslims and really gotten to know them well. Their communities know a kind of kindness, politeness, openheartedness and generosity that is rare in Jewish circles.
One of my Palestinian friends asked a very good question. He said, “Why was Israel established in our homeland? Wouldn’t it have made more sense to give them Bavaria?”
My only answer was that it was far easier for the imperial powers to turn over land that was not occupied by white people because in those days everyone knew that brown people weren’t really people and their feelings, if they had any, didn’t count.
It’s unfortunate but true that a deep racism underpins the creation of the state of Israel. It remains in place today and has much to do with the far right’s passion for all things Israel and against all things Palestinian.
I am beginning to be intrigued at how the administration, forced so much to shut up on so many issues because of the media hissy fits, has begun to use “gaffes” to move policy.
Watching how this unfolds is more interesting than the howls that Kerry’s remark engendered.
In other news, a certification group of Jewish organizations black-balled J Street this week. The neo-con capturing of mainstream Jewish organizations proceeds apace in the name of Zionism.
And it was hilarious to watch Louis Gohmert attacking Kerry’s statement (likely to an empty House). Likely Goehmert was reflecting his pastor David Dykes’s position on Israel (related to the “end times”). Yet another politically connected Southern Baptist preacher.
It’s going to be very interesting watching the administration smoking out the hardliners on impunity for Israel. One notable one this time was Barbara Boxer.
But before Obama can get back to dealing with Israel, the US must “lose” in Ukraine.
Booman Tribune ~ Smearing Your Allies
I don’t understand how this helps. If anything a loss in the Ukraine would embolden the Neo-cons.
.
Sorry, but AS is a moron. A right-wing nut like Katie Pavlich doesn’t deserve any attention or going on the defensive due to her accusation.
Katie Pavlich @KatiePavlich
Townhall. Fox News – Co-host of Outnumbered 12 pm ET. Gunsite grad. Author of Assault & Flattery: The Truth About the Left and Their War on Women (July 8).
David Harsanyi rightly bemoans its absurdly broad brush. But then, rather than responding to the substance of my post on John Kerry’s truth-telling at the Trilateral Commission, he insinuates that I am also anti-Semitic and even links to the poisonous and deranged screed that Leon Wieseltier maliciously penned about me.
…
When you have hasbarists like these people, best is to either ignore their writings or use time and space to write about the injustices of the people running the state of Israel today.
○ Shabak Torture Drives Israeli Palestinian Lawyer to Suicide
○ Knesset Deputy Speaker Fundraises for Israeli Terror Group
○ FBI Accuses Israeli Police, Cabinet Minister of Sabotaging Congressional Corruption Investigation
Any dissent or pro-Palestinian views must be suppressed by any means possible. Non-responsive smearing is a natural tactic when you have neither facts, law or morality on your side.
Has Kerry “apologized” for his recent Apartheid reference?
Of course.
Jeebus, so now he can never utter the word again. So much for this approach as a considered tactic.
And exactly what did Kerry obtain for his apology? Nothing, of course.
The perpetual weakness is pretty hard to take.
I personally don’t see why I should support Israel any more strongly than I support Palestine. You might say that one actually exists and the other one doesn’t, but really they’re both hypothetical entities. The Israel that would be worth supporting is a mirage.
Personally I think our policy should be that they don’t get another dime from us until they either get the hell out of Palestine or grant all the Palestinians full citizenship. And I can handle being call an anti-semite because I know that Palestinians are Semites too.
He and his cronies at the Anti Defamation League have played a large role in defanging the term antisemite by using it so promiscuously that it now means “something I don’t like.” The charge now carries all the sting of ‘I stubbed my toe! Stupid antisemitic architect!’
So these days, when I point out that drone murdering Palestinian babies in their cribs is a counter productive policy I am free do shrug off cries of “Antisemite! You just hate Jews!” as if some child had just called me a poopyhead.