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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
My question to you is: what criteria do you use to judge whether or not someone is anti-Semitic?
This is a great and complex question, and you seem to be asking it genuinely (unlike many who pooh-pooh the very notion that real anti-Semitism might be mixed in with Israeli criticism).
To understand anti-Semitism you have to go back and read the great anti-Semitic smears of history.
It starts about a thousand years ago with the notion that Jews were complicit in the death of Jesus and therefore responsible for "killing God." The notion of Jews as ethics-free persecutors who "kill the innocent" carried through many of the Crusades and in conspiracy theories like the Blood Libel (google it, too complex to get into here). Jews are historically accused of spreading plagues, shifty and duplicitious money practices, secret behind-closed-doors plotting against the "homeland," "tribalist" loyalties above and beyond love of country (as it sadly gets used on this board and by Glenn), and then with the rise of global media, global conspiracies.
The right believes Jews are Communists, the left believes Jews are Neo-Con facsists. The classic anti-Semite seeks to "reveal" Jews to prove this point (witness the Rahm Emannuel "outing" a few posts back). Jews must be more loyal to their "tribe" simply by virtue of being Jewish.
Never mind the most voracious critics of Israel are often Jews. For the anti-Semite, anecdote proves all.
Bernie Madoff proves Jews are on Wall Street funneling money through corrupt channels to an anti-Semite.
An anti-Semite on the left sees Joe Lieberman and Bill Kristol as proof that Jews are behind the Iraq war. An anti-Semite on the right sees George Soros and the Jews in Hollywood (and, of course, the Jewish Karl Marx) as proof that "liberal Jews" are out to destroy conservative Christian values.
Greenwald sees AIPAC and Abe Foxman working with conservatives to use Jewishness to silence critics of Israel and force monpolithic thought. Bill O'Reilly sees a "war on Christmas" in which "coastal elites" in the ACLU (aka Jews like Ruth Bader Ginsberg) are working to use Jewishness to silence Christianity and fracture national identity.
Jews to the left of me, Jews to the right, here I am, stuck in the middle with you.
Anti-Semites seek to find Jews to prove their predetermined conclusions. When Israel does anything, Israel becomes the national manifest of these same conclusions.
None of this means you can't criticize Israel. It just means you can't criticize Israel without being aware of the overlap with those who criticize Israel for the same reasons they shouted at Goldstein in 1984.
What are Palestinian anti-semites like?
I'm actually starting to think that you're not Jewish, but an anti-semite getting his rocks off on secretly insulting the intelligence of Jewish people.
They don't even know the first, primary rule of Hasbara! Which is, for God's sake, never let the Arab or anti-Zionist appear to be more moderate than you. If you've done that, you've lost the game. Now, if you let that happen, you can try to make up ground by doing the extreme characterisng thing on your adversary ('You want to kill all the Jews'.) Or playing the anti-semetism game.
As a Hasbarist, these guys stink!
Palestinians are tragic pawns, caught in the middle. No one gives a shit about the Palestinians. Not the neighboring Arab countries, not the Israelis, and, frankly, not very many of people on this board, either.
Sure they claim to. But how many actually care? Egypt closed the border on Gaza. Bin Laden? His lip service to the plight of Palestine is laughable. The Saudis? Please.
No one cares about Palestinians, except in their ability to cover their hate for Israel. No one certainly cared about the Palestinians before 1948.
Tragically, real Palestinians are dying. But with so many countries consumed by anti-Semitism, the ridiculous United Nations that Glenn wants us to turn to as unbiaed arbiter, and the Jew haters ranting away in much of Europe, Israel is on its own, and so are the Palestinians.
What Glenn fails to consider in terms of the United States unanimous support for Israel exists in global context. American government officials realize America has to act as counter-balance to the anti-Israel rage of the rest of the world. As such, American officials are very reticent to criticize Israel not because Israel doesn't deserve criticism at times, but because of the very global context Glenn denies.
What the god damn hell does that have to do with Israel committing slow-mo genocide today?
You choose not to argue that the Palestinians are the guilty party in the thousand year long antisemitism that you see. If they are not guilty, then why are they the ones paying the price?
Finkelstein and Sand, working separately, have told a story that is amazing. If you read both scholars, there was never any bondage in Egypt, or any great kingdom of David or Solomon. It was all written as propaganda around the 3rd century BCE.
Sand tells us that the Jews stayed in Palestine! There was never a Diaspora caused by the Romans! Israel is killing Jewish farmers whose families converted centuries ago.
Now, both scholars are working in Israel. How can these Jews think such things? What if they are right? Have you read them?
It just means you can't criticize Israel without being aware of the overlap with those who criticize Israel for the same reasons they shouted at Goldstein in 1984.
How do you define "being aware?" And how do you determine whether or not people have this "awareness?"
To understand anti-Semitism you have to go back and read the great anti-Semitic smears of history.
Absolutely necessary! Because if you say to yourself, "how have I encountered anti-semitism, and what form did it take, and what was its effect on me, and to what extent does it degrade my life as a Jew and a person"?, well, if you did that, why who knows what the hell would happen? But nothing good, I'm sure.
And no, I am not talking about ignoring anti-semitism as it affects other Jews, a simple humanitarian concern takes care of that, and anti-everyone else-ism, too.
If you are proposing that You think Israel is a country which simply is beyond criticism for any who would call themselves decent human beings, please say th...oh, never mind, I think you already have.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
