[Imc] Thoughts on IMC Switzerland

[David Gehrig]

This is going to be a long note, but this Swiss IMC stuff intersects a
number of my interests, and I wanted to give my perspective.  The
nexus of Zionism/antisemitism/Nazism/racism is a tough one to
navigate, and I want to put down some principles.  Forgive me if a lot
of it is blitheringly obvious; just trying to stake out the turf.

Disclaimer: if you know me at all, you know that (a) I'm a Zionist and
(b) that I would personally dig a hole to Hell if I knew that Ariel
Sharon would fall into it.

I could give some lengthy sermons on the topics of the
Holocaust and antisemitism, but I'll keep it down to just two points.

1) Everybody's familiar with the figure of six million.  What's not as
   well known is that the global pre-war Jewish population was only
   about twenty million.  Do the math: that's almost a third of the
   world's Jews wiped out in half a decade.  So if you're wondering
   whether Jews have a right to be pretty sensitive about rhetorical
   uses of the Holocaust, the answer is _hell yes_.

   Especially when the rhetorical gist is a cheap-shot attempt to
   equate -- however tenuously -- Jews with Nazis.  In the note Sascha
   passed along, Anna notes that Germans generally consider the "Jew =
   Nazi" comparison offensive and objectionable.  Well, it's not only
   Germans who think that.  To call anybody a Nazi is an insult; to
   call a Jew a Nazi is especially hurtful.  (If Zionists really
   followed Nazi policy, we wouldn't be arguing about the Palestinians
   fifty years later, because there wouldn't _be_ any Palestinians.)

   (And, yes, the same comment about rhetoric goes for Jews who use
   the Holocaust as an excuse to expand settlements in the West Bank
   or to argue for the expulsion of Israeli Arabs.  Feh!)

2) Anybody who thinks that "anti-Zionism" isn't used, and used
   frequently, as a fig leaf for antisemitism didn't follow the
   anti-racism conference in Durban very carefully.  Among the highly
   informative works of sociology you could buy at the exhibition
   booth: _Protocols of the Elders of Zion_, courtesy of a
   pro-Palestinian NGO.  And among the charmingly respectful things
   being used to shout down Israeli speakers there: "Jew!  Jew!  Jew!"

   So the AKDH isn't wrong to be alarmed by Latuff's cartoon.  One of
   the responses posted on UCIMC, the one from machination.org, tried
   its damnedest to make it sound like the AKDH was only a right-wing
   Zionist front trying to exploit anti-hate laws to protect Sharon
   from criticism.  Yet, from what little German I have, it appears
   from their website that the AKDH is an anti-racist organization
   active against neo-Nazism and other right-wing extremism on the
   net.  The Machination posting never even considered the question of
   whether the criticism of the cartoon was justified -- instead, it
   rushed to the barricades in full armor and called the criticism a
   "conservative uproar," a conclusion both reductionist and
   inaccurate (who you callin' "conservative," asshole!)

IMC vs AKDH is one of those tough cases where both sides deserve great
sympathy.  But ultimately I have to side with the IMC on this.
Fighting antisemitism on the net is a topic near and dear to me (as my
half-decade of posts in 'alt.revisionism' demonstrate), but I don't
think that a suit against IMC Switzerland will do anything except
trigger more misinformation of the "Look, the Wicked Zionistas are
shutting down the IMC" variety.  The cartoon will continue to be
available online on US sites, cheek-by-jowl with Bobby Meade's Tinfoil
Theater.  Pursuing the lawsuit will be needlessly divisive, using
money both IMC Switzerland _and_ AKDH could better use elsewhere.  And
I certainly don't see how the AKDH could benefit from shutting down
the Swiss IMC.

I think it is in the best interests of all parties -- IMC, AKDH, and
the Whole Freakin' World -- that the AKDH be persuaded to drop the
suit, while the IMCs acknowledge and confirm the legitimacy of their
concerns.  It would help, I think, to have a statement from various
IMCs deploring the use of racist or antisemitic rhetoric as
irreconcilable with the respectful, free discourse the IMC sites bring
the world.

A public statement from Latuff showing a new-found reservoir of
cluefulhood would also help.  It needs to be made clear to him that
the controversy comes not because he criticized Israel, not because he
supported Palestinian self-determination, not because he's roguishly
tweaked the Big Bad Zionist nose and is being martyred for it, but
because the cartoon in question was morally skanky.  It was like
telling Yoko Ono that she's just like the man who shot her husband
four times in the back; a mensch just doesn't _do_ stuff like that.
Let him call Israel the New Evil Empire; let him call Sharon a madman
and Peres a Panglossian idiot; let him call Arafat a geopolitical
whiz-bang unmatched since Alexander the Great.  But let him morally
evolve past the "Jew = Nazi" comparison, which does nothing but offend
both Jews and Germans needlessly and which therefore obfuscates his
real point, which is the suffering of the Palestinians.

End of rant.  Carry on.

@%<