Peter Beinart: Debunking the myth that anti-Zionism is antisemitic
All over the world, it
is an alarming time to be Jewish – but conflating anti-Zionism with Jew-hatred
is a tragic mistake. It is a bewildering
and alarming time to be a Jew, both because antisemitism is rising and because
so many politicians are responding to it not by protecting Jews but by
victimising Palestinians. On 16 February,
members of France’s yellow vest protest movement hurled antisemitic insults at
the distinguished French Jewish philosopher Alain Finkielkraut. On 19 February, swastikas were found on 80
gravestones in Alsace. Two days later, the French president, Emmanuel Macron,
after announcing that Europe was “facing a resurgence of antisemitism unseen
since World War II”,
unveiled new measures to fight it.
Some information for Israelis (and the rest of us)
Ilhan Omar and the weaponisation of antisemitism: Joshua Leifer: ..what she said was not antisemitic: on the contrary, the full text of Omar’s remarks shows that she was careful not to conflate the pro-Israel lobby (which is also comprised of non-Jewish evangelical Zionists) or the state of Israel with all Jews, nor did she employ the dual loyalty canard..
Abhiruchi Ranjan and Chitra Adkar - Phobia of 'Islamophobia': Politics of offence in JNU
Among them was a new official definition of antisemitism. That definition, produced by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance in 2016, includes among its “contemporary examples” of antisemitism “denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination”. In other words, anti-Zionism is Jew hatred. In so doing, Macron joined Germany, Britain, the United States and roughly 30 other governments. And like them, he made a tragic mistake.
Anti-Zionism is not
inherently antisemitic – and claiming it is uses Jewish suffering to erase the
Palestinian experience. Yes, antisemitism is growing. Yes, world leaders must
fight it fiercely. But in the words of a great Zionist thinker, “This is not the way”. The argument that anti-Zionism is inherently
antisemitic rests on three pillars. The first is that opposing Zionism is
antisemitic because it denies to Jews what every other people enjoys: a state
of its own. “The idea that all other peoples can seek and defend their right to
self-determination but Jews cannot,” declared US Senate minority leader Chuck
Schumer in 2017, “is antisemitism.”.. read more:
see also
More posts on anti-semitism
Javed Anand: Islam’s reform: Can passages of the Quran be cherry-picked - to embrace what is appealing and to skirt around what is not?
