Antisemitism is OK – so long as you support Israel!
JVL Introduction
This Opinion piece focuses mainly on the US but also provides many worrying examples from elsewhere. We can add our own experience: the Campaign Against Antisemitism that organised the “march against antisemitism” in London (28th November 2023) calls JVL “sham Jews and antisemitism deniers”. JVL’s twitter feed is deluged with accusations we, and the other often observant Jews we march with, are not Jews or are false-Jews or using Nazi terminology like ‘kapo’ to demean us. Of course, this is hurtful but much much more importantly, it detracts attention from the (at least) 75 years lived experience of the Palestinian people; lived experience of monumental and persistent injustices. The use of the IHRA “definition” of antisemitism is a blunt tool that elides anti-Zionism with antisemitism and, indeed, according to The Chief Rabbi and many others, it is impossible to separate Judaism from Zionism. But things go beyond that, so that support for Israel has become so important that it trumps countering antisemitism, which is why we see Israel and so many of its supporters happily working alongside people with known antisemitic views.
This leads to a dangerous situation for Palestinians and, indeed, for Jews, as Wolfson here concludes: …” we are now reaching an illogical conclusion where organisations supposed to protect Jewish rights turn a blind eye to antipathy towards Jews as long as proponents support Israel. This does not make Jews safer. It does not even make sense.”
LL
This article was originally published by Guardian on Mon 27 Nov 2023. Read the original here.
Antisemites supporting Israel is weird. Jewish support of them is even weirder
Jewish organizations are embracing public figures who have circulated antisemitic tropes – because they support Israel.
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It’s obvious why these reprehensible people gang together, they all believe in some sort of apartheid. Whether it’s Israeli apartheid against Palestinians, British apartheid against non-white British or US apartheid against non-white evangelicals. They all have a supremacist basis for hating others.
I have in the past sent e mails , asking for JVL to do a piece on the difference between Judaism and Zionism . Many very honest and sincere people are under the assumption that the two are very much the same . This means that the Zionists are winning . They have a front to hide behind . I enclose this link to a piece by Rabbi Yaakov Shapiro . It does a good job in doing so . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5T_Qu12ACs
doi’kayt is not antisemitic – it is a proud Yiddish tradition.
Over the years I have received a huge amount of personal abuse on my social media outlets for my opposition to Israel’s Palestinian policies, just as I am sure has every other Jew who has spoken up. (The strangest thing that has been said to me – I assume others have heard this too – is ‘You’re not a Jew just because you’re born from a Jewish vagina’, the silliest piece of sophistry I have ever come across.)
This has all been nerve-wrackingly frightening at times, a daily barrage of hatred aimed at my character and my personality a true test of my own power not to give way to intimidation.
But in the last few years, beginning with the world-wide response to operation Protective Edge, it is becoming increasingly clear that the general abuse thrown at Jews like me is proving to be irrelevant at best and counter-productive at worst as round the world more and more communities of Jews are forming who are strongly articulating their opposition to Israel’s 75-year assault on Palestine, despite the various kinds of intimidation, of which personal abuse is only one, they are having to confront.
I wonder if the hysterically paranoid response to Jewish dissent is not actually a sign of weakness, a product of the great fear that the pro-Israelis feel that the time may come when the world cannot fail to notice that Jews are learning to reject both Israel and Zionism.
Of course, there are some who may give way to the pressure; that’s to be expected, a perfectly human response if you are vulnerable in some way. But it does seem that the polarisation between the Jews who do and those who don’t support Israel is growing, and that the balance is beginning to swing towards those who don’t.
Panic is the key-word here I think; and panic is never rational.
Magneto is not entirely cast as ‘evil’ in the Marvel universe but instead believes in fighting oppression with violence. The Mutant characters are supposedly metaphors for the hated and marginalised.
His opponent Professor Xavier believes in peaceful engagment. This calibration of the characters has often been likened to a Malcolm X vs Martin Luther King rivialry.
But this explanation does not ofset all the other things that Musk says that are clearly wrong.
This is a really important article. It essential to challenge the idea that criticism of Israel is antisemitic. This convergence has become the defining characteristic of Starmer’s Labour and the Labour Friends of Israel.
Yes.. funny how Sam Wolfson’s own paper the Guardian completely concealed and denied these issues until Corbyn’s leadership had been destroyed, Was Wolfson actually on the staff at that time? If so, shame on him
I am being prevented from posting this on twitter??