The orthodox anti-Zionist group Neturei Karta is often kept at arms length by the left because of its socially conservative views. Filmmaker Heather Tenzer reached out to Neturei Karta for her upcoming documentary, The Rabbis’ Intifada, and shows how the group has been able to build bridges with conservative religious Muslims, thereby offering a challenge to our ideas about activism.
The firing of Marc Lamont Hill by CNN for espousing Palestinian human rights shows the historical commitment by western institutions to Zionism as the answer to Jewish insecurity in the west. But now Zionism is in crisis, and Hill sought to bear witness to the actual conditions in Israel/Palestine– and was labeled an anti-Semite.
Bari Weiss, an opinion editor at the New York Times, asserts that the three heads of the “dragon” of anti-Semitism are white nationalists, Islamists and leftwing anti-Semites who masquerade as anti-Zionists. As if leftwingers who support Palestinian human rights are just as dangerous as neo-Nazis who kill Jews.
The demands for Marc Lamont Hill’s head from supporters of Israel that evidently led to his firing by CNN as well as expressions of solidarity from Palestinian supporters show that the end of the two-state-solution is bringing about open ideological conflict in the U.S. establishment, with supporters of Palestinians being accused of anti-Semitism, much as they are in the U.K.
CNN fires commentator Marc Lamont Hill for saying Palestine should be free “from river to sea,” but it allowed Israeli official Michael Oren to tell former AIPAC aide Wolf Blitzer to say that Palestinians fabricated video that children were killed by Israeli soldiers, even as an executive at CNN’s parent company was writing speeches for Benjamin Netanyahu, no problem.
Donald Trump sought to defuse criticism of the Khashoggi murder by saying that Israel has an interest in the US and Saudi Arabia remaining friends, and Russia will be hurt. If Russia and Sheldon Adelson both bought Trump in 2016, Adelson came away with the prize. Not that the U.S. media is noticing.
US writers in intellectual journals bash Zionism. “It is anathema to say so,” Nathan Goldman writes in the Baffler, but Zionism is ethnonationalism, which is the opposite of liberal democracy; while Molly Crabapple writes in the New York Review of Books, “Jewish ethno-nationalism is a poison like all ethno-nationalisms.”
Bari Weiss’s said last night “you better believe” that the insurgent leftwing non-Zionist Jewish group IfNotNow welcomed rightwing Israeli officials flying in to Pittsburgh to express condolences in the wake of the Oct. 27 massacre at the synagogue because they were expressing the spirit of “Am Yisrael,” the people of Israel. Nothing could be further from the case.
After the latest violence in Gaza, the New York Times once again slants its coverage to humanize Israel and demonize Palestinians. None of the 7 victims in Gaza is named, while the 1 victim in Israel is. And the “staggering bombardment” of missiles from Gaza is described in harsh language while the Israeli bombing of Gaza is underplayed.
This morning a billboard outside Boston celebrating Palestinian medic Razan al-Najjar, who was slain in Gaza in June, was taken down under political pressure. The billboard is aimed at undermining negative stereotypes about Palestinian society.