Recently, the New York Times carried a piece by one of its regular opinion writers, Charles Blow, titled “ The Question of Antizionism and Antisemitism.”
This has been a genre in recent years—is anti-Zionism antisemitic? The more liberal types conclude that they need not be the same but could be, while the hardline Zionists say they are equivalent. Mr. Blow’s piece is an example of the first.
Missing from the mainstream debate is the exact equivalent on the other side— the question of Zionism and anti-Palestinian racism. This question is taboo in mainstream circles and, in fact, is probably seen as antisemitic even to raise. There was once a UN resolution which identified Zionism as racism. It was rescinded, and in the West, that was the end of it.
In his article, Charles Blow seems perplexed that anti-Zionists will not give a straight yes or no answer to the question, “Does Israel have a right to exist?” The problem with the question is the subtext— what is it actually asking? Is it asking if you support a state that places the rights of Jews over the rights of Palestinians? Is it asking whether Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish state by way of ethnic cleansing? If you can only have a Jewish state by expelling Palestinians, and you endorse that notion either openly or tacitly, then that is clearly racism, yet you are not supposed to say it. So the question here seems to be asked in bad faith.
A good-faith question would first acknowledge the injustice built into Israel’s founding and then ask how to resolve that injustice in a fair, or as close to fair, way as possible to all involved. But Zionists don’t ask the question that way.
In addition, if someone defends, denies, or ignores Israeli atrocities while condemning Palestinian atrocities, it would seem clear they have a racist double standard. None of this is difficult to understand. And none of this is allowed to be said.
Mr. Blow tells Jonathan Greenblatt that no one would answer the existence question with a straight “ yes” and —
“he said that was ‘almost indescribably offensive’ because he connects any hesitation on the question to historical antisemitism and a denial of the Jewish people’s right to self-determination.”
This is because Mr Greenblatt believes —
“‘Zionism is fundamental to Judaism.’ He believes that claiming to be anti-Zionist but not antisemitic is like someone saying in 1963 that ‘I’m against the civil rights movement, but I’m also against racism.’”
So, Mr. Greenblatt makes Zionism central to his identity and his religion. Given that fact, he cannot question the morality of Israel’s founding, and furthermore, anyone else who does so is indescribably offensive. He can choose to believe this if he wants, but nobody else should feel any obligation to accept it. We do not have to believe that Palestinians have no right to live in their own homeland simply because of Greenblatt’s belief system. In fact, since his beliefs imply that the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians was justified, we should not agree with him unless we also have racist contempt for Palestinians.
Now, Greenblatt says he is willing to criticize Israel, but he sets very clear boundaries on what sort of criticism is acceptable. One cannot question the basic injustice of Israel’s founding.
What is interesting about Mr. Blow’s piece is not just what Mr. Greenblatt says but the fact that it goes unchallenged. But why? The standard cliche, the one that everyone knows, is that there is a conflict between two peoples who both claim the same land. So why are we supposed to give extra consideration to Greenblatt’s perspective that it is completely illegitimate to qualify “Israel’s right to exist?” Why does Greenblatt get away with this?
Greenblatt might not be a racist with respect to Palestinians as individuals. He is likely bothered by the shootings in Vermont. But he cannot abide any hint that they have a right to live in their own homeland. His Zionism cannot coexist with the right of Palestinians to live in their own homeland.
The NYT published letters in response to this column. One was by Rebecca Rose of the Combat Antisemitism Movement. She cites the IHRA as proof that anti-Zionism is antisemitic and says:
“How ironic that in this day and age in the United States, where every minority is protected and words matter more than ever, it is somehow acceptable to define oneself as anti-Zionist, even if Jewish. It is offensive, absurd and deeply antisemitic.”
Her letter does not contain a single reference to Palestinians, which is as it should be. In her view, they clearly have no claim to live in the land from which they were expelled, and their existence is simply irrelevant to her point, which transcends whatever petty concerns they might have. Even bringing up their point of view would probably be offensive, absurd, and deeply antisemitic.
One could give countless examples like this. The odd thing about this issue in the U.S. is that we are only supposed to notice antisemitism, some of it real and some not, but the blindingly obvious bias against Palestinians is never discussed, except when someone actually murders a Palestinian, or a former government official (WHO WORKED ON THE PALESTINIAN ISSUE) launches his own private insanely racist crusade against a Muslim hot dog vendor.
The more genteel racism takes two forms. First, there is, of course, the neverending apologetics for Israeli atrocities, broken only by a few token acknowledgments that the occupation is something that should end someday. But second, there is the constant racist use of the false charge of antisemitism to shout down any serious criticism of Israel or Zionism. One side, and one side only, is presumed to have the moral high ground and the right to make charges of bigotry against the other, and if the charges are false, no matter. The pro-Palestinian side is always on trial, and anti-Zionism might be antisemitic, but Zionism can never be racist in any way.
We won’t have truthful discussions about Zionism in this country until people are honest about the fact that anti-Palestinian racism permeates our political culture. This is why it has become axiomatic in U.S. discourse that Hamas must be destroyed because of its crimes, but nobody says that anyone in the Israeli or U.S. governments should be held accountable for the massive civilian death toll in Gaza. As always, only one side is evil, only one side’s crimes have to be punished, only one side’s leaders are seen as beyond the pale, and only pro-Palestinian supporters can be bigoted.
Not only is this racist– it’s frankly just stupid.
Re the anti-Palestinian racism built into the very DNA of Israel: Remember that petition that was circulating a few months ago, “The Elephant in the Room”? ** Omer Bartov, Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Brown University, was one of the people who started it. In this essay in the Guardian, he touches on the inherent racism of the Israeli government:
On 7 October, this repressed reality literally exploded in the country’s face. This was an event waiting to happen. If you keep over 2 million people under siege for 16 years, cramped in a narrow strip of land, without enough work, proper sanitation, food, water, energy and education, with no hope or future prospects, you cannot but expect outbreaks of ever more desperate and brutal violence, inexcusable as those atrocities were….Denying the deeper causes of the current crisis only makes things worse. Israel has presented itself as the only democracy in the Middle East, yet this applies only to its 7 million Jewish residents. Israel’s 2 million internal Palestinian citizens have never enjoyed full democratic rights; the 3 million Palestinians living under a 56-year-long Israeli occupation in the West Bank have almost no rights at all, and almost half of Palestinians in Gaza have lived their entire lives under an Israeli siege. It is because of the denial of this reality that Israel is currently balanced over a precipice….Many other members of the Israeli government, parliament and military would like to see the Palestinian people, as such, disappear from the map and from consciousness.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/nov/29/israel-gaza-settlement-palestine-end-occupation
** https://sites.google.com/view/israel-elephant-in-the-room/aug-23-elephant-in-the-room-petition
I am going to criticize my own piece. The point it is making is valid, but I also think we need to be fair to people even when we think they are wrong.
It is entirely understandable that people in the first half of the 20th century believed that there had to be a Jewish state. There had been the pogroms under the Czars, massive pogroms in Ukraine during the Russian Civil War and then there was the Holocaust.
But it was wrong to create a Jewish state at the expense of the Palestinians.
It is also entirely understandable for people to live the country where they were born and for Jews outside of Israel to be concerned about terrorism. The racism comes in when they are making excuses for the far larger atrocities of Israel against Palestinians.
i should have said something like that in my piece above before getting into the racism.
I’ve never been impressed with Charles Blow, in general. Whatever take he has on any issue, it’s always one that has been written earlier, and better, by someone else.
Mr. Blow does quote from a response by Marc Lamont Hill to his question, “Do you believe that Israel has a right to exist?” Hill has a good answer that is quoted in the column. But you’re right, he doesn’t challenge Greenblatt to address what Hill brings up in his answer.
When people talk to me about “Israel’s right to exist“, I like to ask them about this concept of a state’s “right to exist“: Did the USSR ever have this right, or lose this right? What about the Islamic Republic of Iran? The United Kingdom (where the elected leaders of Scotland are open in their desire to end it)? Kosovo? Palestine? It becomes clear that people who tout Israel’s right to exist have never thought about any other state’s right to exist. And this may be a stretch, but I’d say that it’s no coincidence that in the American context, the idea of “states’ rights” has long been a justification for the suppression of humans’ rights by states.
By the way, Peter Beinart deserves credit for publicizing the problem mentioned here:
“It’s Time to Name Anti-Palestinian Bigotry: Anti-Palestinianism is as ubiquitous as it is invisible” (July 16, 2021).
https://jewishcurrents.org/its-time-to-name-anti-palestinian-bigotry
The problem with using the term “anti-Zionism” and then going on to equating it with anti-semitism, is that the meaning of Zionism itself has changed drastically in the last 100 years.
The goal posts have been shifted dramatically since Israel’s founding, and the Zionism of today doesn’t even square with Israel’s own Declaration of Independence. The “Zionism” of today would have you believe that its goals were to always have a Jewish, and ONLY Jewish state, no matter what and that anything else would be to call for the destruction of the Jewish people everywhere. Which is not just supremacist and bigoted, but also nothing even close to the vision of Herzl.
No, the Zionism of today is a totally different beast, and should be refer to Neo-Zionism rather than the more innocent original yearning to live free in a Jewish homeland.
Does Israel have “a right to exist”? NO! Nation states do not have that “right.” Does the USSR have a right to exist? Czechoslovakia? Yugoslavia? The American Confederacy? Nations do exist when recognized internationally as sovereign states in a given territory. It’s not a question of how good or bad they are.So Israel does actually exist in terms of international law. So does Saudi Arabia and a host of other awful nation states.
On the other hand, people have a “right” to exist and to exercise self-determination where they live. So any people within a recognized state have a right to struggle for the nature of that state or to change it. The nature of their governments or regimes is legitimately up for contestation. Apartheid South Africa, for example.