We didn’t need the New York Times quoting Saeb Erekat to tell us how racist Mitt Romney’s “gaffe” in Jerusalem on Monday was. He said, basically, that Palestinians are poor because they’re lazy, while the State of Israel is rich because it’s run by people who are industrious (and chosen). Talking about the “dramatically stark difference in economic vitality” between Israel and the PA, Romney said:
…culture makes all the difference. Culture makes all the difference. And as I come here and I look out over this city and consider the accomplishments of the people of this nation, I recognize the power of at least culture and a few other things. One, I recognize the hand of providence in selecting this place…There’s also something very unusual about the people of this place. [In Start-Up Nation, Dan Senor] described why it is Israel is the leading nation for start-ups in the world. And why businesses one after the other tend to start up in this place. And he goes through some of the cultural elements that have led Israel to become a nation that has begun so many businesses and so many enterprises and that is becomes so successful.
No mention of 64 years of occupation, dispossession, home demolitions, land theft, closures, and “administrative detention.” Since Romney made these remarks two days ago, a well-deserved critique of his racism has made the rounds from this blog to the paper of record.**
What hasn’t been pointed out much is the anti-Semitism of Romney’s statement: Israel’s such a smashing success because Jews are good with money. That’s just our culture. Seriously?
These comments might have been a bad PR move for Romney, but to call them a gaffe is to undersell the moment. It’s an excellent illumination of how tightly bound up anti-Jewish sentiment is with racism against Palestinians.
That Romney should say something anti-Jewish while supporting Israel is no surprise. Zionism itself is ambivalent about Jews. Since its emergence in Europe in the late 19th century, political Zionism has been about reinventing European Jews (and ignoring or oppressing other Jews, especially Arab Jews). It’s been about suppressing the embarrassing stereotype of the Yiddish-speaking, effeminate, near-sighted scholar hunched over a book in favor of the New Jew: a Hebrew-speaking, broad-shouldered, hyper-masculine soldier. For Theodor Herzl, Zionism was partially about solving Europe’s Jewish problem, getting rid of its pesky Jews so that liberal democracy could thrive in racially homogenous nation-states. That’s Zionism as anti-Semitism.
The racism of Romney’s take on the Palestinian economy and the anti-Semitism of his take on the Israeli economy are two heads of the same beast. Zionism needs both of these to exist. In the racial logic of Zionism, Jews are exceptional, canny, and unable to live among others, while Palestinians are lazy, irrelevant, and violent. Nobody wins here except Boeing and the Christian Right.
This is not to say that Jews should support Palestinian freedom and self-determination because 64 years of the Israeli occupation is bad for Jews. But we should. And it is.
—
**The critical response seems to be missing an analysis of Romney’s comparison of Israel/Palestine to U.S./Mexico — there, too, a lack of cultural vigor is apparently the reason for the gross inequity of resource distribution in North America. Some things Mexico and Palestine do have in common, of course, are a shared experience of neoliberal exploitation and intensive border policing funded by the U.S, as well as strong traditions of political resistance.
Christian Zionists when they hear the cultural argument seem to think they have the same cultural superiority as the Jews vis-a-vis how much money is made. The facts speak otherwise. From this chart the “superior” cultures are not Jews and Evangelical Christians and Mormons but Jews and Hindus.
http://awesome.good.is/transparency/web/1002/almighty-dollar/flat.html
The difference between Hindus and Jews is Hindus have a more robust middle class in addition to having a greater percentage of wealthier individuals. Both communities have a tendency to be insular. Where they differ is the Jews are the hedge fund managers while the Hindus tend to be small business owners.
Mormons are pretty average. Evangelical Christians and Muslims are below average. African American Christians are well below average.
The graph I showed above was mentioned in the following story in The Economist. If you want a good handle on conservative British economic thought this is the place to go. This shows that Romney has lost the entire political spectrum in Britain.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2012/07/mitt-romney-abroad
The income disparity in Israel/Palestine puts our own income disparity in sharper relief. Thanks Mitt for helping bring up this topic and reminding us why we shouldn’t be ruled by the 1% who were born on third base and think they hit a triple.
I guess I am too used to reading statements of jewish supremacy, on this site and others, to get too upset.
I would say there is just as much anti-semitism in the attitudes of some folks here, who make excuse after excuse for Israeli’s or American’s simply because they are jewish – Phil, his rabbi and the soda-stream maker, Phil and Beinart and so on. Phil talks about “rehabilitating his community” all the time, as if Jews are inherently at a deficit when it comes to their understanding of right and wrong and so on. THAT is anti-semitic, and, in my opinion, pretty offensive.
No comment other than that if Jews are so talented why can so few chosen people in Israel under 45 afford their own apartment ?
Oh please– there is no anti-Semitism here. Romney is as philo-Semitic as anyone could be. I’m sure he would agree with the chief rabininate in Israel that us gentiles are here just to serve you, Jews, as well as serving the Mormons, since it is well known that the Mormons think of themselves as one of the lost tribe of the Jews.
Please get off your high horse about anti-Semitism– most Israelis love Romney’s kind of philo-Semitism– the kind that maintains that they are the smartest ubermen on the planet, since they are arrogant and self-righteous and think the entire world belongs to them.
Stop with the identity politics– this is about Romney’s contempt for the poor, the dispossessed, those groups that history has left behind, and the Palestinians embody all of that, as do they people in places like West Virginia and Appalachia and Detroit and Mississippi– and besides Detroit, liberals like yourselves usually despise these type of Americans. I can’t really believe what I am reading when I read this crap about Romney being anti-semitic– calling Romney anti-semitic is about like calling Josef Goebels anti-German. It’s ridiculous.
Romney visited the Middle East, and he found that Israeli Jews are a lot wealthier than the impoverished Palestinians. Romney never entertained the thought that the wealth of Israeli Jews was made possible (in part) by the poverty of the Palestinians. There is a vast literature about the sacrifices made by the early Zionist pioneers, but it was the Palestinians who made the biggest sacrifice. And it was not voluntary.
Why does Romney not realize that in the Middle East, one nation is benefiting at the expense of another nation?
It’s probably the same reason that he doesn’t realize that, in the US, the ruling class is benefiting at the expense of everybody else. He’s just too busy counting his money in the Cayman Islands to worry about such things…