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Originally Posted by Willravel
A group of anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian protesters on France has been arrested and apparently faces charges on incitement of racial hatred due to their outspoken rebuke of Israel's policies in relation to Gaza and the West Bank. The suggestion would seem to be that, at least for this French prosecutor, criticizing Israel is the same thing as anti-Semitism.
This isn't the first time this association has been made. A few years ago, Ken Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch (and a Jewish man himself, son of a Jewish man who fled Nazi Germany), openly criticized Israel for it's indiscriminate attacks on Lebanese civilians. The response to his criticism was fairly serious. The New York Sun suggested that Roth had a pro-Hezbollah bias and suggested that he was engaging in the de-legitimization of Judaism, which is the basis for anti-Semitism. Among those charged with anti-Semitism for criticizing Israel or voicing support for Palestine are Jimmy Carter, Arch Bishop Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela, Bertrand Russell, Mahatma Gandhi, Arnold Toynbee, and George Orwell.
While I can imagine that criticizing Israel could be a politically correct way for an anti-Semite to vent their feelings about the Jewish people, I'm concerned that the labeling of Israel's critics as anti-Semites is ultimately dangerous. On the one hand, it's clearly an attempt at censorship. Being called anti-Semetic is one of the worst charges on can face in the court of public opinion, and people who want to criticize Israel's (Israel meaning the Israeli government and IDF, generally) policies could be silenced by the threat of such serious charges. In addition to that, mislabeling dissidents as anti-Semetic actually gives aid and comfort to real anti-Semites because as more people recognize the charge is being used incorrectly, the label will become less and less meaningful.
In his book, Necessary Illusions, Noam Chomsky wrote, "It is now necessary to identify criticism of Israeli policies as anti-Semitism – or in the case of Jews, as "self-hatred," so that all possible cases are covered." Noam Chomsky concluded that labeling dissidents as anti-Semetic is less about people being uninformed and more about essentially removing any criticism of the state of Israel from any discussion or debate.
Where do you come down on this question? Do you believe that some criticism of Israel is just masked anti-Semitism? Do you believe all criticism of Israel is anti-Semetic or borderline anti-Semetic? Are you at all concerned that labeling criticism of Israel as anti-Semetic may be censoring legitimate dissent? Could the use of the anti-Semite label actually cause the term to lose some of its meaning? |
Criticism of Israel's government, or the actions of its military leadership, does not, by any means, have to equal anti-Semitism. I have criticized both on a number of occasions, and I consider myself something of a religious Zionist. Most of my friends-- rabbis, Jewish scholars, and other Jewish professionals-- have criticized Israel's government or military actions at one time or another. It doesn't make them self-hating Jews.
Where things get tricky are two places. First of all, there is a very fine line between criticizing the actions of Israel's government or military, and criticizing Israel as a nation entire. The former is not necessarily problematic, but the latter tends to slide seamlessly into a rejection of Israel's right to exist-- and that is problematic.
The second place where things get tricky is that anti-Zionism is very frequently a genteel cover for anti-Semitism. It is not so 100% of the time, I grant you-- it is possible to be anti-Zionist but not anti-Semitic. But it seems to be extremely, extremely rare, and the one or two times I have encountered it, the individuals holding the opinions had a very intricate and complex constellation of beliefs at work leading them to that rather precarious balance of thought, but they did make it work. However, they seem to be the exception, rather than the rule.
The majority of Jewish criticizers of Israel (rather than criticizers of specific actions of Israel's government or military) that I've run into or seen are generally well-intentioned, but either ignorant of history, or naive about the sociopolitical realities of the situation, or they are blind idealists with major complexes about misplaced Eurocentric colonial guilt. Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor of Tikkun magazine, and many of his contributors all seem to fall into one or more of these category. But there are a small, vocal minority of Jewish anti-Zionists who truly are self-hating Jews of some sort, and have crossed the boundary into absolutely unacceptable behavior. Noam Chomsky and his ilk fall into this category, as do (on the other side of the religious spectrum) the Neturei Karta movement.
The Israel-Palestinian conflict has a remarkably propensity for bringing out the worst in the adherents of both sides. And for those of us who do take a side, but would not be among those to have the worst brought out in them, it is a continuous challenge to balance criticism of what is truly unacceptable behavior and restraining criticism of what may be understandably necessary in the behavior of one side or another. If we are not careful, generalizations, totalizations, and lack of empathy for one another can devolve into name-calling, de-legitimization, and even more unfortunate actions.
Which all goes to my general opinion that, concerning Israel and "the situation," it is better, if in doubt, to be cautious or refrain from public debating about it at all. I do my best to keep my opinions to myself, and so do most of my friends. It's just easier that way.