Last night I posted an LA Times piece called "What Is Anti-Semitism?" that accepts a Daniel Jonah Goldhagen test of anti-Semitism: Does the speaker harp on Israel's faults and not consider other countries' faults? (I wonder if Goldhagen even thinks Israel has faults!) A smart friend has this extremely-helpful response:
To the question on which the leveling or lifting of a charge of anti-Semitism is said to depend–namely, Does the critic of Israel pay equal attention to the faults of other countries or does he seem to single out Israel?–the question is falsely put, and is calculated to sow confusion.
The truth is, Israel has already been singled out for positive treatment and a unique connection with the United States–singled out by its own will, and by the entirely unique terms of our recent and extraordinary ties. Every year the U.S. gives $2.5 billion to Israel. If Obama gets his request, this will rise to $3 billion a year for the coming decade. The contribution is overwhelmingly for military purposes and given with no strings attached. Since Arab and absentee Jewish citizens derive no benefits from such a donation, it comes to roughly $700 a year for every Jewish citizen at present residing in Israel.
No other country in the world receives anything approaching such a subsidy from the United States with no strings attached. And since the attacks of 2001, and earlier and later terrorist attacks on U.S. possessions, are widely understood to have been "blowback" from Arab resentment of Israeli actions in Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon, any refusal by an American to criticize Israel with particular force and singular consideration (since Israel's actions may have caused singular harm to our own country), can have as its cause only ignorance or intimidation in the face of predictable censure.
Does China have a worse record on human rights than Israel? Very likely. Does China receive U.S. aid, with no strings attached, comparable to what the U.S. gives to Israel? It does not. It is unimaginable that it ever would. Nor is the U.S. held to account for the faults or crimes of the government of China in the way it is held to account for those of Israel.
So long as one's mind is fixed on the United States and its security, and so long as Israel's policy is as enmeshed as it has become with American power–enjoying open American support in the form of tax dollars as well as moral and political backing at the U.N. and elsewhere–close attention to all that Israel does with our support would seem to be a civic duty of Americans. The form of the required attention is "special" because the relationship is special. The time for Israel to be subjected to no closer scrutiny than any other country will have come when Israel and the U.S. agree on the mutual benefit of giving up an often apparently dangerous "special relationship."
