"If anti-Semitism is repugnant to humanity, then it is no less repugnant to single out one country for your hatred, to hate it beyond reason and against evidence, to deny it any understanding and - most odious of all - to seek to silence its voices"
"[I]t is a false syllogism which goes Criticism of Israel is not anti-Semitic; I am a critic of Israel; therefore I am not an anti-Semite. Zeaoltry aquaints us with strange bedfellows, and in their loathing of Israel some without a grain of anti-Semitism in their bodies lie down with others who are composed of almost nothing else."
"The war that changed our world" is how this newspaper has fairly described the Six Day War. But if the war changed us, we have, in our turn, changed the war. Compare what was said about it at the time with what is said about it now and it is hard to believe it is the same event. No one then, not even memeber of the far Left who, if anything, rather favoured Israel, both for its being progressive and the underdog, would have recognised today's version - an expansionist adbventure carried out by a barberously racist Neo-Colonial power which should never have existed in the first place."If you get a chance to grab a copy it is a very powerful essay which at its core exposes the bizarre twist that the Left has taken over the past 40 years. Those commentators on the Left that have decided to challenge the Left for the way it is betraying its own positions (see Livingstone, Galloway et al) deserve praise.
Update: It's online now
7 comments:
I've found dropping 'that's funny, you don't look anti-semitic' into conversation where necessary has quite an impact.
Israel was just fine with the left when the backbone of the country was the socialist Kibbutz. It's a amusing system (I've worked in one).
Incidently Jacobson uses a straw-man:
Criticism of Israel is not anti-Semitic; I am a critic of Israel; therefore I am not an anti-Semite.
is ridiculous. The real argument is obviously:
Criticism of Israel is not in itself anti-Semitic; I am a critic of Israel; but I am not an anti-Semite.
since many Jews are also critics of Israel, without being the 'self-hating' sort.
This acedemic boycott thingie. It is a bit like the sanctions against Iraq: it will not affect directly the "proper target".
While I show my disgust for Israel’s current and continuing attack on Gaza, many have been thowing the same old "Anti-Semitic" label at me. The reality is that they do not know the meaning of the word, just as I do not fear such a label.
Semite: A member of a group of Semitic-speaking peoples of the Middle East and northern Africa.
Semetic: A description of Middle East peoples that trace their origin from the biblical Noah and his son Shem; these include Jews and Arabs.
Therefore "semetic" and "semite" does not only refer to Jews, but if they want to continue to call us Anti-Semetic for opposing Jewish/Zionist opression of Palestine then I agree with the following via Ziopedia.
"An ‘Anti-Semite’ in today’s use of the term in the media and public debate is no longer someone who hates Jews, but - the otherway round - someone the Jews hate.
Anybody criticising how the IDF is treating Palestinians, the rampant use of torture and extra-judicial killings, the bulldozing of Palestinian homes and orchards, the daily harassment by Jewish settlers of Palestinian kids on the way to school and farmers on their way to their fields, the use of army check points and illegal ’security walls’ making life in the occupied territories virtually impossible, the conversion of Gaza - one of the world’s most populated areas - into a giant concentration camp without food, water, electricity and medical supplies, the killing of hundreds of Palestinians - most of them children and teenagers - each year, the killing of over 1000 civilians and dropping of over a million cluster bombs onto civilian areas in the recent Lebanon assault, is an Anti-Semite.
In other words, being Anti-Semitic is a good thing. We should all wear this label with pride. In fact, we should all wear badges saying ‘I’m an Anti-Semite- All decent people are.’"
It is important to understand that Anti-Zionist does not equal Anti-Jew.
http://radicalmuslim.blogsome.com/2007/05/20/being-anti-semitic/
"It is important to understand that Anti-Zionist does not equal Anti-Jew."
Agreed, the latter irrationally hates a particular group of people, whilst the former irrationally hates and see no legitimacy in the existence of a nation state for the aforementioned group of people.
The irony of course of the "anti-Zionist" (like yourself) is that you bang on about the dispossessed whilst arguing in favour of the dispossession of Israelis.
Frankly, I think anti-semites and anti-zionist are eqal in the fact that they're irrational tits. Thanks for dropping buy and explaining you're bizarre logic though.
In the chronology of boycotts against Israel contained in Jacobson's article, I'm struck at the seemingly impossible (it defies logic, surely) fact that, "anxious to protect business with the Arab world, many companies choose to break [US] law rather than the boycott" against Israel.
Wait a minute. You mean someone can actually participate in a boycott for principles that have nothing to do with hating Jews? Is that possible?!!!
If so, it would seem that, just as it is possible to boycott Israel for the sake of profits, it is equally as possible to boycott Israel in protest of its policies.
But I guess it's not healthy to think too much when discussing the country that can do no wrong.
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