“The “anti-Semitism” claim about criticism of Israel’s actual behavior – not its identity, not its religion, not its ethnicity, but its actual behavior – is precisely parallel with someone’s having claimed that criticism of the Soviet Union – and we all know there was a great deal, both at home and abroad, to criticize in the practices of the Soviet Union – was the same thing as hating Russians, what today we would call “Russophobia.”
Anyone can understand the absurdity of that.”
I don’t. If your argumrnt was valid, how come “Jewish Bolshevism” is widely considered as an anti-semitic canard? If the Jews had nothing to do with it, that leaves the Russians? And that’s ok?
Russian leaders, regardless of their ethnicity or gender, have been denounced as tyrants for centuries. Some exceptions apply, like FDR calling the worst of them, the non-Russian Stalin, a democrat, even though he knew better.
Putin is Russian. Demonized beyond reason. McCain dismissed Russia as a gas station with a country wrapped around it. A bonmot based on the old Prussian stereotype (gas station = military), more reasonably applied to Saudi Arabia, A country named after one single family.
The stereotype of the brute Russian has been around for a long time and has nothing to do with Soviet or any other Russia.
There is no factual grounds for painting Russia or Russians darker than the white washed empires of the so-called democratic West
Peter Unterweger
November 16, 2018 9:38 pm
@Antidote – while I wholly agree that there is a lot of biased criticism of Russia (and Putin), criticizing Russia (or the Soviet Union, which is actually referred to in the quote) is not the point. What the quote says is that it is absurd to interpret criticism of a state as hatred of its people. Of course, this conclusion still accepts the false notion that Israel represents all Jews.
James Canning
November 17, 2018 1:48 pm
Surely it is a bad thing for Israel, not to receive robust criticism where such criticism is warranted. The effort to suppress such criticism in fact is harming Israel’s own true best interests.
MHughes976
November 17, 2018 1:54 pm
The Soviet example is a bit confusing because the Soviet system was imposed on the Russians and its Russian nature was not the reason for objecting to it. The fundamental fault was disfranchisement and this fault was widely shared with other regimes. Those countries, Western ones included, that do enfranchise those subject to their sovereign power are doing the right thing, those that don’t a bad thing. That is at the heart of what’s wrong with the Israeli system.
Those who rightly denounced Soviet crimes were not immune from getting some things wildly wrong themselves because their anger against the Soviet system ran right away with them. I clearly remember the super anti-communist Bernard Levin’s writing quite passionately in support of the CIA version of the Gary Powers. The likes of us may sometimes, I suppose, be carried a step too far by our dismay at what goes on in Palestine. On the other hand it is wrong to remain totally calm and dispassionate in the face of terrible things.
I should hope so.
This conflation of criticism of Israel and anti-Semitism is genuinely evil.
Here is my brief definitive argument on the topic:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/10/01/john-chuckman-comment-my-definitive-points-against-the-ongoing-shabby-effort-to-conflate-criticism-of-israels-behavior-with-the-prejudice-of-anti-semitism-those-two-things-are-no-more-the-same-th/
“The “anti-Semitism” claim about criticism of Israel’s actual behavior – not its identity, not its religion, not its ethnicity, but its actual behavior – is precisely parallel with someone’s having claimed that criticism of the Soviet Union – and we all know there was a great deal, both at home and abroad, to criticize in the practices of the Soviet Union – was the same thing as hating Russians, what today we would call “Russophobia.”
Anyone can understand the absurdity of that.”
I don’t. If your argumrnt was valid, how come “Jewish Bolshevism” is widely considered as an anti-semitic canard? If the Jews had nothing to do with it, that leaves the Russians? And that’s ok?
Russian leaders, regardless of their ethnicity or gender, have been denounced as tyrants for centuries. Some exceptions apply, like FDR calling the worst of them, the non-Russian Stalin, a democrat, even though he knew better.
Putin is Russian. Demonized beyond reason. McCain dismissed Russia as a gas station with a country wrapped around it. A bonmot based on the old Prussian stereotype (gas station = military), more reasonably applied to Saudi Arabia, A country named after one single family.
The stereotype of the brute Russian has been around for a long time and has nothing to do with Soviet or any other Russia.
There is no factual grounds for painting Russia or Russians darker than the white washed empires of the so-called democratic West
@Antidote – while I wholly agree that there is a lot of biased criticism of Russia (and Putin), criticizing Russia (or the Soviet Union, which is actually referred to in the quote) is not the point. What the quote says is that it is absurd to interpret criticism of a state as hatred of its people. Of course, this conclusion still accepts the false notion that Israel represents all Jews.
Surely it is a bad thing for Israel, not to receive robust criticism where such criticism is warranted. The effort to suppress such criticism in fact is harming Israel’s own true best interests.
The Soviet example is a bit confusing because the Soviet system was imposed on the Russians and its Russian nature was not the reason for objecting to it. The fundamental fault was disfranchisement and this fault was widely shared with other regimes. Those countries, Western ones included, that do enfranchise those subject to their sovereign power are doing the right thing, those that don’t a bad thing. That is at the heart of what’s wrong with the Israeli system.
Those who rightly denounced Soviet crimes were not immune from getting some things wildly wrong themselves because their anger against the Soviet system ran right away with them. I clearly remember the super anti-communist Bernard Levin’s writing quite passionately in support of the CIA version of the Gary Powers. The likes of us may sometimes, I suppose, be carried a step too far by our dismay at what goes on in Palestine. On the other hand it is wrong to remain totally calm and dispassionate in the face of terrible things.