As I read the news surrounding developments in Palestine/Israel I’m astonished at how quickly the political landscape has changed and continues to change, and the future of Palestine/Israel is as unclear as ever. Making predictions about the future is risky business, and I don’t presume to know enough to do so. But one feature of this changing landscape will impact that future and it merits discussion. Israel, the primary project of the Zionist movement, is being steadily delegitimized as a political entity. More and more people are beginning to question the right of Zionist Israel to exist. In short, Zionism is becoming a dirty word.
What sort of political arrangement can possibly emerge in Palestine/Israel when the actors and ‘facts on the ground’ change and multiply so quickly? There was a time not too long ago when many reasonable people insisted that endgame meant two states for two peoples in Palestine/Israel. The Jews have a historic attachment to Palestine, they explained. The Holocaust has shown what happens to Jews among the gentiles, they argued. Furthermore, enmity between two longtime antagonists had reached levels that required ethnic partition. Implicitly, they argued that acquisition of territory through war was admissible. So, forget about international law. Forget about your right of return and the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory through war and a top-down, brutally executed ethnic cleansing program. Israel has a right to exist and that right is underlined by the near universal Western acceptance of Zionism – the principle of racially pure colonial Jewish statehood – as a credible political program for Jews and non-Jews.
It is worth pausing here for a moment to review what Zionism is. Many Jewish and non-Jewish people see justice in the idea of a Jewish state, inhabited by a demographic majority of Jewish people. That sentiment is informed by an attachment to the spiritual homeland of the Jews – Palestine. So Zionism is the fusion of tribalism and territory, which is a very common phenomenon in the world today. In many ways, Zionism is just Jewish nationalism. Zionism differs from other forms of nationalism in one important respect, however. The territory claimed by Jewish nationalists was inhabited by non-Jews. Early Zionists were confronted by the problem of wrong-raced people living in the places that they hoped to populate with Jews. For people like my maternal grandfather, Khaled Edwan, that meant loading his possessions on the back of a donkey, and trekking by foot to the tented refugee camp in the Gaza Strip with other villagers from Barbara, a Palestinian village located near where modern day Ashkelon stands today.
Early Zionists appreciated the importance of narrative in the national imagination. Ethnic cleansing and heroic redemption of the land are two incongruous themes, so for the sake of consistency, Barbara was razed to the ground by Zionist bulldozers. A national forest was planted in its place. When young American Jews in the fifties donated pennies and nickels to the Jewish National Fund to plant a tree in Israel, they were oftentimes erasing Palestine.
I had a conversation with a Zionist in New York several months ago who conceded that Palestinians had been ethnically cleansed from Israel to make room for Jews. Despite that, he couldn’t understand my attachment to Palestine – to places I’ve never been in Israel proper – that my grandfathers and their families had been forcibly removed from. It was incomprehensible to him that I should want to return to places lost sixty years ago. He insisted that Palestinians should make the best of things in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, America, Canada or wherever. I replied that the Jews lost their country thousands of years ago, and haven’t forgotten it. We lost ours only sixty years ago. He seemed to get it after that.
The Zionists were successful in ethically cleansing Palestine. But they didn’t succeed in eliminating the Palestinian nation. They refused to acknowledge the injustice that permeated the existence of their state, and instead agreed to the principle of two states for two peoples. They even managed to convince some Palestinians to accept the ‘two-state solution’ – to join the Zionist fold. Logically, any Palestinian who endorses the ‘two-state solution’ is self-identifying as a Zionist. Some of these Palestinians support two states because they believe it is the most pragmatic, or possible, solution at this time. But this approach sacrifices the rights of Palestinian refugees, and possibly the rights of Palestinian citizens of Israel, in exchange for an ill-defined state built on the steadily dwindling 22% of the country Palestinians lost in 1948. The quiescence of these Palestinians may win them entry into the most rarefied circles. They may publish articles in prominent magazines and visit with the American president.
Many Palestinians will bristle at the charge; in Palestine, Zionism is a dirty word. Not many people are comfortable with being called racists. White supremacists and separatists in the United States sometimes argue that their movement is misunderstood. Theirs is a quest to safeguard white culture in the face of a multicultural onslaught. White literature, music, art and soul are subordinated to, and infected, maligned and corrupted by intermixing with other races. Bernard Avishai made the same argument recently in an email exchange with Philip Weiss. In a nutshell, the Jewish state exists so that Mr. Avishai can more fully appreciate Jewish poetry. This is no coincidence. One can make a convincing analogy between white supremacists and Zionists – both are would-be saviors and protectors of the race. Both are racists.
The difference is that Zionism has been legitimized by Western leaders. Western culture embraced the Zionist cause and narrative in the post-War period. I wonder how many American youths were captivated by Paul Newman’s brave and hale Zionist in the Hollywood film Exodus. How many baby boomers today subconsciously associate Paul Newman’s brand of salad dressing, whose profits are donated to philanthropic causes, with Zionism? Marilyn Monroe famously celebrated Israel’s eighth anniversary in 1956 alongside John F. Kennedy in Yankee Stadium. One can imagine how the image of America’s premier starlet and handsome young politician must have appeared to many ordinary Americans. Today, the American actress Natalie Portman helps Alan Dershowitz write ‘The Case for Israel’ while performers Madonna and Lady Gaga parade around the Holy Land singing Zionist praises. The end result is that many non-Jews in America identify with Jewish supremacy; there are many non-Jewish Zionists. The process of inuring gentiles to Jewish racism has resulted in some glaring contradictions and confused sentiments. President Jimmy Carter – whose integrity is unimpeachable, and who deservedly won the Nobel Peace Prize for his prodigious humanitarian undertakings – still writes in his books that Israel must remain the Jewish state, and that Jewish apartheid is restricted to the occupied West Bank. As someone who greatly admires President Carter – I hesitate to levy the criticism, but humanitarianism and ethnic cleansing are mutually exclusive. And apartheid exists within Israel proper as well.
The truth about the legacies and consequences of Zionism is emerging in America. I outlined in a previous essay some of the reasons why Zionism is becoming a dirty word. Student BDS movements are proliferating on American campuses and gaining greater ground in their struggle for equal rights in Palestine/Israel. Indeed, the recent BDS conference that took place at Hampshire College is a heartening sign of things to come. But while it was once enough to oppose the occupation of Palestine, the bar must be raised. It is clear that the ‘two-state solution’ is not a solution. Besides, it is unworkable and impossible – Mr. Obama cannot transfer 500,000 Jewish settlers from the West Bank. The reality of an apartheid state in all of Palestine/Israel has raised the bar. Practically, what does it mean to end the occupation? What about the security of settlers? Who will enforce the Jew-only road rules? Ending the occupation of Palestine doesn’t mean anything; the egg is scrambled.
Reality requires that we reevaluate our goals. The aim should be to discredit the entire system of inequality in Palestine/Israel. Boycotting Israeli goods manufactured in the settlements is an important first step, but the Zionist colonial settlement program is engineered by the Zionist government of Israel. Jewish supremacists do not only inhabit Ariel and Kiryat Arba. They live in Tel Aviv and Netanya. The brilliant Zionist technician working for Intel Israel also partakes in the systemic suppression of another peoples’ human rights. His economic activity strengthens a repressive political regime, while his democratic vote empowers chauvinists. It is a fact that more than 90% of the voting Israeli public supported the recent Gaza massacre. I should clarify that not all Israelis are Zionists. There are Israelis who recognize that something is rotten in the state of Israel.
The project to undermine Zionism cannot be motivated by vindictive, retributive impulses. On the contrary, the project to undo Zionist Israel must be inspired by an overarching commitment to humanity and equal rights. While Zionists ought to be challenged anywhere, it must be clearly understood and forcefully declared that Jews have a right to live in the Holy Land, but only as equals, and not cloaked in a Master Race theology. This is not a new idea. Once accepted by a majority of the people – Palestine/Israel, or Israel/Palestine, or whatever it may be called – will enact normal immigration and naturalization laws. That process will begin with an unbending commitment to the nonviolent pursuit of justice at all costs. This may seem like a radical position to take, but justice is a radical principle.
I will not venture to predict the future. But I can outline my hopes for the future. I look forward to a time when academics, policy makers and analysts, pundits, and ordinary people are unencumbered by a poorly considered attachment to Zionism. I hope that I will see the day when Zionists will be forced into the closet alongside all the other racial supremacists who share their pathology. Zionism is a dirty word. I look forward to the day humanity reacts to it that way.
Related posts:
- American group gives couple moving to Israel $8000, couple moving to West Bank $30,000
- Juan Cole Wants to Give Emanuel a Break. I Say, Not So Fast
- Liberal Zionism and self-determination are on a collision course
- Two-state solution needed, and fast– for U.S. and Israel!
- ‘You Are Intolerant of Those Who Value Jewish Peoplehood’
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A very poignant article. Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us.
For me, it was Uris’s book, not the movie. Took a long time to erase all that from my brain.
Another book, or movie, or song that caught on like that, for the Palestinian cause, could do a whole lot.
Yeah, fat chance we will get that from Hollywood. Too bad most Americans never see
some of the Israeli films about daily live between Jews and Arabs in the Israeli controlled lands. That might help a bit, but most Americans don’t go to sub script films, even if they know about them, which is rarely.
This is the kind of article that drives Zionists into conniption fits.
Oy, such relief! At last there is hope for me, in my dark struggle! Finally an organisation which knows what I am going through, and what to do about it:
http://jonahweb.org/index.php
So what am I supposed to think? Are the right-wing Jews imitating American Christians, or is it the other way round?
Oh well, whatever is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, as long as you are not boiling the kid in its mother’s milk. And even that has overtones of homoeroticism!
I’m gonna call JONAH right now. I’ll call Jonah Goldberg later. Maybe he wants to go to a metting.
Sorry for the OT comment, but that link does deserve a look. It’s precious in a really icky way.
“it must be clearly understood and forcefully declared that Jews have a right to live in the Holy Land, but only as equals,”
Well played, Mr. Moor, nicely done! Asking a Zionist to live as an equal among Palestinians is like asking him, or a pig, to fly. Sure, there may be Jews willing, or even eager, to live in the Holy Land as an equal, but you won’t find them among Zionists.
Inviting Zionists to live as equals is the same as inviting them to leave.
And, BTW, those who have committed crimes or murders are never equals, they are simply unprosecuted criminals, and no-one’s purposes, not the Palestinians for sure, is served by letting them run free.
But I’ll let Witty explain why giving Israeli criminals an amnesty in return for two or one-statehood is a necessity, and anything else, anti-Semitism.
“White literature, music, art and soul are…”
White soul? Like Hall and Oates?
White soul is like Jewish nationalism, if you ask me, Mr. Moor concedes way, way too much to the Zionists. It speaks well of him, maybe, but he’ll be sorry.
All the “Jewish ” stuff he seems to fell entitles Jews to live in the Holy Land (as equals) are canards used for the purpose of allowing, and forcing the toleration of Jewish Supremacy in the Holy Land. It has no other purpose, and can’t be used any other way. If you concede it to them, the Zionists will kill you with it.
How about like the original Guthrie? Or is he not worthy of the title “White Soul?”
If not, better tell Dylan.
Citizen, from now on when I make a joke, I’ll e-mail you in advance.
And as far as Woody (my Aunt Edith Tiger, Vice-Pres. ECLU, I believe, knew him, and the Lamplighters, and Dylan, who she described as “a very irritating young man”) Guthrie goes, did he ever play, or use a Hammond organ in his music? Hah! Case closed!
Don’t bother, Mooser. We both know that Hall & Oates were fluff, and that
Guthrie was a hick tool with a very limited romantic view of everything–like a good child. He could play the guitar and draw really bad drawings and liked
the looks of his exotic (to him) second (ballet) wife. That’s about it, right? The devils always in the details and your “jokes” intentionally conceal at least as much as they Ha-ha reveal.
And of course Dylan was very irritating; more so, he was just a copycat.
“The project to undermine Zionism cannot be motivated by vindictive, retributive impulses.”
How the hell else do you “undermine” anything?
What is so awful is that Richard Witty could have, and has, written that same sentence.
The Zionists and Israelis have not earned retribution? Retribution is not persecution.
That Zionists are always calling for “the Palestinian Ghandi” is awful enough, but that anyone would vye for the position just reaches the province of surrealist humor.
Hey did did the Jesus character undermine anything by vindictive, retributive impulse? I thought that novel was novel because it said the contrary, something
to it? Now, Saul (St Paul), another story, a regression to the classical?
“I look forward to a time when academics, policy makers and analysts, pundits, and ordinary people are unencumbered by a poorly considered attachment to Zionism.”
That’s really too bad, because those are the people who will hang on to it hardest. After all, it costs them nothing, and makes them feel good, nor must they commit its crimes.
And those who have are far beyond the reach of moral suasion, self preservation and avoiding an accounting are their primary aims if primacy can’t be maintained.
Shame on you for profiling Dick Witty! You know, the guy who said he could have easily married a shiksa?
Cit, would you please find out what “shicksa” means and then consider if you want to keep on using that derogatory, demeaning term? When I found out the actual meaning of the word, I expunged it from my vocabulary, and you can do no better.
I have also stopped using “Goyim” (substituting the more equitable “Gentile”) and “schwartze”, also a demeaning term.
There are two other words I have stopped using, one is swell, and the other lousy, but I forget what they are right now.
No, seriously, Citizen, look at it this way: If Witty gets one of those mail-order ordinations he can marry whoever he wants. But will he?
Mooser, why on earth would you think I don’t know the meaning of shicksa, shaggot (sic), goyhim, or schwartze? I spent a long time (decades) among the yiddish speaking jews of Chicago, both the old ones with a real grasp, and the young ones who only had the usual inherited categorical ethnic slurs. It was interesting; they never knew that if one knew the German language , it was easy to decipher
Yiddish. I was called all the usual yiddish derogatory names, of course. No biggee.
You really do need to get away from your image of yourself as the only American with the scoop. And, again, your jokes stink and are really labored
to anyone who has not led a sheltered life.
I hesitate (but not much) to interrupt Mooser’s stream of consciousness (which I much appreciate, by the way) to say:
Ahmed Moor – Is this a pen name or a real one? I used to visit Spain (Majorca) for half of each year, where the very positive results of the ‘Moor’ portion of the island’s history is still very visible after their absence for 700 years – in agriculture, irrigation, hill terracing, and building design, amongst other more subtle influences. The islanders still conduct annual ritual mock battles of Christians vs Moros (that the Moros always must lose).
Now I live in the Philippines, where the Muslim Moros (in Mindanao and the Sulu Islands) are a major target of the (northern Tagalog-speaking) Roman Catholic government in Manila, who have invited US and Australian ‘Special Forces’ to help ‘govern’ that territory, which is disputed,as it should be.
something I heard from my filipino friend: there were Muslims in the south BEFORE the spanish colonial era. so in a sense, they are still resisting occupation.
Yes, there were Muslims in the south before the Spanish occupation, which they resisted, for some 400 years, so much so that it took the Americans to ‘liberate’ them in the early 20thC, and they did not do a very good job, although they conducted a few massacres and war crimes, as usual.
It took the American ‘liberation’ of the Philippines in the early 2oth century to subject them to rule from Manila. I can’t find it at the moment, due to various computer crashes, but the ‘Swish of the Kris’ written in 1935, tells the story
Well, more like a stream-of-unconsciousness, actually. The essay was confusing to me in many ways, although I got no beef at all with the humanity and the aspirations which animate the essay.
I’m always very sensitive to allowing Israel to steal the respect due a religion to cover for the actions of a state.
Thanks, Richard. Apropos, especially given recent events in Mindanao (which, of course, my tax money funds…)
http://www.usapan.org/
This piece is absolutely wonderful. Of course, this is the only sane way to look at Israel/Palestine, but Moor’s clear thinking is all-too-uncommon.
The goal of a “Jewish state” — whether that means Jewish control of, and/or a Jewish majority within the state — necessarily motivates ethnic cleansing or the disenfranchisement of non-Jews. The history of Israel is filled continuously with both.
Moor is right. It’s past time to confront the real problem: the racist, colonial ideology and institutions of Israel. However powerful those may be.
Robin, how do you effectually confront such colonialism when no other colonialism can fall back on something like the Shoah as its rational? So far, the fact that the Palestinians had nothing to do with the Shoah has not stopped that ultimate rational, that is, we Jews need a safe haven where we are in charge over everyone in our domain because we never want to have no piece of land again where we are not so?
‘Israel’ must be one of the last colonialist enterprises to creep into the 21st century, and as such, deserves extermination (to mis-quote Ahmin-Nejad).
Where Zionism is defined as the right of the Jewish people to self-govern, anti-Zionism is equally racism.
And, THAT is the story of the Jewish people prior to the establishment of Israel.
The question is at least not simplistic as “colonialism”.
“Extermination”? (And, you have the right to post here)
No, Witty, anti-Zionism is oppostion to ethnic cleansing and massacres against civilians, and the theft of land by European migrants. You can keep calling it racism but in practical terms, defending Zionism means you are defending crimes against humanity.
I agree with Witty here; see my prior post where I asked Robin to address his concern.
How do you address the borrowed historical angst Jews like Witty have (although he’s lived privileged his entire life in the USA, suffering none of the bad things, but getting all of the good things since his birth, and not at his expense), that Jews feel the need for a safe haven to run to, grounded in the earth?
Citizen, I think this should answer your question.
But really Citizen, I have no doubt your second-hand right-wing beliefs will integrate perfectly with Zionism. After all, the quicker you can get us out of America, where we get everything we don’t deserve at everybody else’s expense, the better of you’ll be, and the quicker you can return to a Bobby Zimmerman-free American culture.
And how do you know, Citizen, that Witty did not work his way up, hanging from his own bootstraps, from the dark depths of the middle-class to the haven of allrightnikness?
Citizen, one of the members of “The Litvaks” (my all-Jewish sport-bike posse, all-male, of course. Women ride separately, with “The Bitchin’ Baleboostehs”) took a spill, and after we ascertained his bike was alright, we sat by him to wait for the ambulance. “David”, I asked him, “it may be awhile, are you comfortable?”
Of course, he replied: “Confortable? Well, I make a living”
And Richard Witty, I’m sure, would say the same!
Adam Sandler is a twerp, a manipulator of the really ignorant. So Witty’s angst about the impending pogrom is calmed by Sandler singing his cloying Hanakkah song? What next, you gonna send me a video clip of Jerry Lewis? Sandler arrived at SNL, just another version of Hee-Haw when you consider SNL’s much more inflated pretensions. Gonna send me a flock of photos of tow-headed kids the endearing Sandler played daddy to in the movies? Thanks for lumping yourself in with Dick Witty as you did–what else is a MOT for after all? G-D forbid a Gentile say anything about any Jew because
there’s Mooser there to set that Gentile straight! You’re like your very own redneck bar. And what’s a Bobby Zimmerman-free American culture? You don’t like hillbilly clones? Nor even original country music? Neither inspire me either.
BTW, can I borrow your thumbed copy of Eddie Fisher’s autobiography?
I will pay you for it now, with a video clip of Rachel Maddow’s take on the Gaza turkey shoot as it was happening:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpP6o7-beNc
Hey, and how do you know, Mooser, who I know had boots, let alone bootstraps? And, after all, Mooser, “the dark depths of the middle-class” is
still middle class, no? Further, your Litvaks sound like nerds to me–a satirical spoof is as often an unintended slur on the spoofers–hoisted by their own petards, as it were. Of course they never know it. Glad to see you and Dick Witty are bonding in your own Beaver world.
Where Zionism is defined as the right of the Jewish people to self-govern, anti-Zionism is equally racism.
Your definition of Zionism, unfortunately for everyone, exists only in your (and other like-minded moderate Zionists) hopes and dreams. The reality on the ground is that by far and away the most dominant expression of Zionism is colonial racism with incarceration, torture, and death for even peaceful protesters. Substitution of a realistic definition of Zionism into your if-then logic might yield the opposite result: Zionism is racism.
How has your dream turned into everyone else’s nightmare, and what can be done to salvage it, and more importantly, non-Zionist Jewish standing in America and the rest of the world? Jews as a people and Judaism as a religion don’t deserve to be tarnished for the crimes of Zionists.
I second Colin’s statement that the definition of Zionism exists only in your head, Witty. Here’s some other food for thought for you from an article you should read in its entirety: http://z.pe/t9m
Now this is just amazing. For Christ’s fucking sake, Witty, Jews (since the Diaspora) have never wanted to “self-govern”, this “self-government” you speak of was forced on us, by restriction to ghettoes and denial of civil rights, idiot.
And bye-the-bye, what was the result of the “Jewish self-government”? Were Jewish ghettoes shing examplars of disinterested and rational government? I sorta think not.
Yeah, Witty, I can just hear the Gentiles :”If only I was Jewish and could live in the Ghetto where they have a decent form of representative government”
And so, Witty, gosh, what happened? I mean, we came to the Goldenah Medina, where we were free and had to bow to no man. And we immediately did pretty damn well, too. How come we never, ever, even tried to set up a “Jewish self-government” here in America? Not in any way, not once, did we ever try to do that, beyond whatever voluntary obesiance any particular Jew decided to give to Jewish law (such as it is).
Self-government has never, ever been an aim of the Jews, beyond the same degree of individual choices and community tradition any other ethnic group might enjoy.
How angering it is, and what a sham it makes of Witty’s pretensions to Judaism, that he immediately throws his Judaism into the fire to excuse Israel’s transgressions. It’s just a tool for him, simply a way of borrowing the respect for religion and empathy for Jewish suffering felt by decent people to cover for crimes. It is the most disgusting thing about Zionism, as I experience it in America.
Except that AIPAC et al has made the USA a government asking the JDL question:
Is it good for the Jews? No problem, except the USA is only 2% Jewish, which suggests a tad of disproportion when viewing what’s good for the USA?
What makes you, Mooser, a better Jew than Witty; haven’t you both worked your way up in USA from the “dark depths of the middle class?” Regular
street kids you both were, living off your wits. And now you both have the American Dream. Isn’t that the same as the Israeli Dream? Don’t be so hard on your fellow MOT because he only has a scooter and you have a big Harley.
Mooser, would you say that there is any common/majority set of political goals of Jews in America? If so, how would you say those goals affect, and mix with the goals of the 98% of non-Jewish Americans?
If one said that there was something exceptional about Jews that denied them the right to self-determination that others have that might be a form of anti-Semitism. But I don’t think that anyone would say, or that Jews would claim for others, the right for any group that considers itself racially or religiously distinct to carve out a territory for itself from existing political structures: which would presuppose that the right of any government to exercise sovereignty was dependent on the government’s being of the same race or religion as those who are governed; which would delegitimate all government. What Jews have is the right to be protected, wherever they are, by the sovereign power on the same terms as anyone else. So do Muslims, of course. At this rate, I don’t see that anti-Zionism implies anti-Semitism.
So far so good. However, I have to face the fact that the great majority among Jewish people strongly supports Zionism and Zionist ideas of self-determination, though in my opinion there is no argument that justifies this claim.
So can I deny that I am but a short step from the proposition that the morality prevalent among Jews is mistaken on serious matters – mistaken in a way that brings consequences dangerous to the whole world. But this proposition seems to be the core proposition of anti-Semitism.
I do not think in essentialist terms or insist that Jewish people have always been and/or always will be committed to the same moral positions. I could presumably fill a book with ideas advocated by Alfred Rosenberg or Julius Streicher but not treated with the remotest seriousness by me. I do not think that Jews caused World War I, that they lie in wait for innocent virgins, that they have a bad smell. I am not an obsessed Wagner-style intellectual, not a raucous demagogue. I accept that there have been many major contributions to all the arts and sciences from Jewish sources. I can say all this until I am blue in the face but that core proposition still remains. If we heard of someone in the World War II era who said that he thought the morality prevalent among Jews was mistaken and dangerous, but that he was not an anti-Semite, we would probably laugh in his hypocritical face.
So far, not so good. Have I any alternative but to go back over the arguments for Zionism and the legitimacy of Israel looking for my mistake in not finding a valid argument in their favour? And to suggest the same to Ahmed and his Moors?
Yeah, it’s really hard to separate Nazi thinking from Zionist thinking. The only difference seems to be (1) it’s now post Nuremberg Trials, and (2) while Weimar Germany existed before Nazi Germany, Israel did not exist before 1948–unless you go back to the biblical times and assume ancient Israelites are the ancestors of
the modern Israelis.
According the Bible, the children of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord when they turned repeatedly to idolatry. This would seem to be essentially the proposition that the morality prevalent among them was mistaken on serious matters. Was the Lord, then, an anti-Semite when he pointed this out and punished them?
Zionism is a contemporary form of idolatry, only a flag is now the golden calf on the altar of most synagogues.
Maybe I won’t presume to speak for the Lord Himself, but I would say that the writers who give this story such very forceful expression exemplify a form of something that can be found in any kind of nationalism, that is rejection by nationalists of the nation for not responding with enough conviction or determination to the mission of the nation as given by God or by prophets and thinkers who speak on God’s behalf. So yes, this would be a kind of anti-Semitism on the part of committed believers in the Israelite mission. And you show from this example, I think, that there can be a kind of anti-Semitism that is not, from the point of view of those believers, wrong, which is philosophically interesting. But from that same point of view the kind of anti-Semitism of which I would be accused is very, very wrong.
I remember reading of a German nationalist (I can’t remember who) in the early nineteenth century, pre-Bismarck, who cried ‘I am a stranger everywhere!’ because no one seemed to think as he did.
Jacqueline Rose in her ‘The Question of Zion’ (Princeton 2005 p.139; I can give references sometimes) quotes Ben-Gurion in 1939 saying ‘Call me an anti-Semite, but we do not belong to that Jewish people’ – the people that was being persecuted, to its own supposed shame, by Hitler. Well, I suppose that there always has been a streak of anti-Semitism within Zionism, but that fact does not – should it? – make me less hesitant about drawing what seems like an anti-Semitic conclusion from the anti-Zionist premises that seem compelling.
I can’t agree that the label “anti-Semitic” can be applied to such cases.
The essential element of anti-Semitism is the fallacy of composition, in which characteristics are attributed to a whole class of beings, in this case, Jews. To say, correctly, that Zionist Jews are committed to an immoral principle is a judgment upon a group of Jews, but not upon Jews. Or, as it is often expressed, “The Jews.”
It’s clear enough that I am morally at variance with non-Jews who are Zionists, and there are plenty of them, and morally at one with, indeed rather admiring of, Jewish people who are anti-Zionists. And of course there are many Jews, living and from history, whom I like and admire.
If someone said a lot of bad things about a particular group and then added ‘but they’re not all like that’, thus making exceptions and so avoiding the fallacy of composition would we not say that he was ‘anti’ that group? Does there have to be a logical error as well as a debatable moral proposition in order for an anti or miso attitude to be formed? I think that the moral component of a moral view has to be decisive in how we classify it.
Historically I would have thought that anti-Semitism began among non-Jews who seriously disapproved of some aspects of the Jewish religion but were prepared to welcome converts. Antiochus Epiphanes would presumably have been anxious to find Jews who would compromise with his views of religious/patriotic unity. So I would say that anti-Semitism was in some sense born making exceptions and drawing distinctions, though it did later take forms that refused to make exceptions and demanded purity of blood, Spanish Inquisition-style.
The same question really about those who praise a group to the skies and then add ‘but I know many of them have faults’ – don’t they really have a pro or philo attitude towards the group in question?
I flinch of course from calling myself an anti-Semite. If I were Jewish I’m sure I would flinch from calling myself self-hating. But I can’t see that I can spare myself simply by saying that Spinoza was a great philosopher or Felix Frankfurter a great lawyer or by remarking truly that I’ve enjoyed many social occasions with Jewish people or going on at much more length, however sincere, in that vein.
Zionism – or so I hope – can be regarded as a temporary aberration. Historically, most Jews have not been Zionists. Zionist Jews are merely a small subgroup of Jews, considered in this light. To avoid condeming an entire people because of the activity of a small subgroup is not making exceptions, it’s making the valid distinction between a subgroup with pernicious values and the rest of the group.
As I see it, the error involves making judgments about a group as a whole. I think it can move in both directions: from the wholesale condemnation of the entire group to the condemnation of its individual members – or making exceptions of a few individuals. Or in generalizing from some individuals to condemnation of the whole group.
In medieval times, when Jews held the monopoly on moneylending, individual moneylenders engaged in usurious practices and caused suffering to their debtors. These Jews were hated and reviled for what they did, but this is not in itself anti-Semitic. Other moneylenders have been hated and reviled, with cause. But because the medieval Jewish moneylenders belonged to an identifiable and alien group, the public generalized and condemned the whole group, many of whom had nothing to do with moneylending – and that was anti-Semitic.
Medieval Jewry were the only subjects allowed to charge interest and collect it in the King’s court; they were also the King’s tax collectors; they were also the only subjects
allowed to practice medicine; and the only subjects allowed to pass freely through any
toll gate as “the King’s property.”
How about the modern role? Here’s a quick sketch in the form of a recent book review: http://pulsemedia.org/2009/04/14/empire-and-agency/
It made the Jews easy to scapegoat, yeah. That was definitely a deliberate choice in European culture, to move from merely burning them at the stake to pushing them into the role of money handlers (which medieval Christians by and large considered a “dirty” practice that no one going to heaven should ever get involved in)
What baffles me is that Zionist Jews almost seem to revel in that stereotyped role, play it to the hilt and then turn indignant when anyone points that out. And honestly, I have to assume that’s as much of an embarrassment to most Jews as it is an embarrassment for me, as a Catholic, to see yahoos like Erik Prince reveling in his role as a self-styled Templar.
The last 5 or 6 posts are interesting, and I don’t understand the lengths some go to in order to convince themselves that they aren’t anti-Semites. I don’t see similar hand-wringing when criticizing other groups or cultures.
I can’t account for all people of any group, but I think it is pretty clear that organized Jewry is antagonistic towards traditional America. The issue is to what extent organized Jewish groups represent the Jewish community. My guess is that the major organized Jewish groups at least represent influential Jews very well. Why ignore the fact that groups have interests, and that many groups don’t fit together very well?
I’d also say that Zionism isn’t the only issue that causes friction between Jews and others. Whether Zionism is a popular outgrowth of the Jewish community, or not, isn’t the issue that some make it out to be. To me, the major issue is how well groups fit together.
Is anyone watching the C-span interview with Jeremy Ben-Ami? A caller mentioned the Israel lobby’s influence, entangling ties and the suppressed Sozhenitsyn book as negative aspects of Jewish influence, and all Ben-Ami could do is spin and throw out the accusation of anti-Semitism. A second caller mentioned AIPAC and entangling alliances, and all Ben-Ami could do is accuse the caller of not understanding how lobbying works, and make weak comparisons between AIPAC and the NRA and AARP–as if either group is an ethnic lobby working on behalf of their co-ethnics abroad, while spying and siphoning money from the U.S. economy. Ben-Ami also did the typical zionist excuse making for blowing money on Israel, when he went on to say that Israel provides jobs for the U.S. economy.Why should anyone view J-Street as anything other than AIPAC’s sister organization?
As if more evidence were needed that J Street is a big fat bust.
This was supposed to be the organization that so many people were hoping for, waiting for – and it turned out to be nothing of the sort. Anti-Zionists should write off J Street entirely.
The reasons for flinching from the label ‘anti-Semite’ are, I think
1. the desire to be humane in all one’s dealings
2. knowledge of how the least concession on anyone’s part to anti-Semitism would be exploited by Zionist propaganda
3 – most important, it’s not just Zionists or their propaganda. The overwhelming moral reaction in the whole Western world to World War II lay in the imperative ‘Never again!’ – meaning never again would we allow Nazi ideas, very much including anti-Semitism, to get the least grip upon us or to seem to have the least justification. This was all very reasonable and understandable. I once thought that I accepted this imperative without trouble. But I’m having trouble now with thinking that if Zionism enjoys massive support among Jews and if all the justifications for this morally prevalent attitude among Jews are mistaken then at least a little of the justification offered for anti-Semitism, that the morality prevalent among Jews is questionable, cannot be rejected out of hand. However moderately I try to put this the pain of breaking not just with Zionists but with post-war consensus that I have been accustomed to respect troubles me. So I keep looking for a way out.
There is certainly a good case, as you say, for regarding Zionism as aberration – indeed as an inauthentic aberration invented by eccentric Christians, (Piterberg, Returns of Zionism and Rose, The Qu. of Zion). Should we claim that anti-Zionists cannot be anti-Semites because Zionists cannot be authentic Jews? That the former group within humanity called the Jews has all but abolished itself, leaving only a few hardy, stubbornly authentic souls? I would be glad to justify my flinching from the term ‘anti-Semite’ in any way that worked, but I suppose that many would say that this claim is nothing but an abuse of language.
However, suppose we don’t make this claim and accept that Zionist morality is pretty strong among non-Jews but actually prevalent among Jews. I really don’t see how we can spare ourselves the term ‘anti-Semite’ just by insisting that we don’t perform logically invalid ‘from some to all’ inferences. There’s no avoiding a negative attitude towards a group whose morality troubles us and I can’t take much comfort from the fact that this attitude becomes manifest at the individual level in dealing with most, rather than with all, members of the group. And there must be some impact at the individual level, even if it works out no more dramatically than going to some pains to keep off certain topics in company where discussion might become confrontation, which is how I mainly experience it.
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