[Peace-discuss] Two relevant articles on anti-Semitism

[David Green]

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ZNet Commentary
Is anti-semitism an issue for the Left?
by Judy Rebick
http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2003-01/03rebick.cfm

Last week end in Canada, a respected native leader and
a former 
National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, David
Ahenakew, gave a speech 
in which he made racist attacks against a whole series
of minorities in 
Canada. Following the speech, he told a reporter that
he thought Hitler 
was right to "fry" the Jews since otherwise they would
today be owning 
everything today.

Response from aboriginal and other community leaders
was swift. A 
chorus of denunciation was heard across the land.
Nevertheless, the fact 
that a well-respected elder of the aboriginal
community would publicly 
support the slaughter of six million Jews, something
that not even 
Neo-Nazis have dared to do, creates a familiar fear
about the rise of 
anti-semitism.

I am the first generation of Canadian Jews not to
experience 
discrimination because of my religion. My father had
to fight his way to school 
every day against gangs of boys calling him dirty Jew.
In his day, he 
used to tell me, signs on Sunnyside beach on the
Lakeshore in Toronto 
said, "No dogs or Jews allowed." 

McGill University, which I attended, lifted its quota
limiting the 
attendance of Jews just a few years before I began my
degree. Nevertheless, 
for me, being Jewish was never a barrier to what I
wanted to do. Being 
a woman was a much greater barrier. 

I have experienced anti-Semitism, of course, but in
the form of hatred, 
not in the form of discrimination. During the intense
struggle for 
freedom of choice on abortion, the anti-Semitism of
some of the 
anti-abortion forces was intense. From cartoons of Dr.
Henry Morgentaler looking 
like a Nazi caricature of a Jew, to comments from
drivers yelling at the 
Morgentaler clinic, "Why don't you kill Jewish babies
in there!" 

There has been more discussion of anti-Semitism in
Canada in the last 
month than I can remember in my adult life. Earlier
this month, three 
respected men on the left accused the left of
anti-Semitism. for its 
focus on criticizing Israeli policy without
simultaneously criticizing Arab 
countries. At Concordia University, the Students'
Union has been 
accused of anti-Semitism for opposing a visit by far
right-wing Israeli 
politician Benjamin Netanyahu. 

Even that tireless human rights fighter, NDP Member of
Parliament Svend 
Robinson has faced charges of anti-Semitism for his
outspoken views on 
the Middle East.

Anti-Semitism is a peculiar kind of ethnic hatred
because it is not 
based on thinking a group is inferior but rather based
on resenting the 
achievements, privileges or power, imagined or real,
of an ethnic group. 
Hitler played on those resentments to come to power in
Germany and then 
took them further than anyone could have imagined in
their worst 
nightmares. 

The horror of the Holocaust cleansed our society of
anti-Semitism at 
the official level but the simmering resentment of a
group that is 
different, that maintains its identity, that has been
pilloried throughout 
history by religious and political leaders remains. At
times of political 
polarization, it gets stronger. 

A few months after the events of September 11, 2001,
an airport taxi 
driver was talking to me about his terrible working
conditions and how 
the owner of the taxi company was ripping him off.
Then he said, "Of 
course, my boss is a Jew." 

"I am a Jew too," I said to him. "What does his being
Jewish have to do 
with his ripping you off? You know a lot of people
think that all 
brown-skinned men are terrorists." 

"You are right," he answered. "I'm sorry. I am from
India. What do I 
know about Jews?" 

I knew then that anti-Semitism was on the rise. If a
taxi driver feels 
comfortable talking to his customer like that, you
know that there is a 
lot of open anti-Semitic talk going on. Similarly with
the vile remarks 
of Ahenakew. Obviously, he has held these views for
some time but now 
feels able to express them publicly. 

Jews in North America do not face discrimination. They
are well 
represented in the corridors of power whether
political, economic or social. 
This is why it is hard for people on the left who
generally identify 
with those without power in the society to identify
with the struggle 
against anti-Semitism. It is an abstraction. 

But any kind of bigotry is immoral and unacceptable.
Anti-Semitism has 
always been a tool in the hands of reaction. The left
has been on the 
front lines of fighting neo-Nazis, but anti-Semitism
can also take more 
subtle forms and these too must be opposed, even when
they come from an 
oppressed group. The most terrible thing about the
Ahenakew affair is 
that a representative of the most oppressed,
persecuted people in North 
America is taking out his frustration on the Jews. 

Sorting out the real rise in anti-Semitism from the
false charges is 
not easy. As a Jew who opposes the cruel occupation of
the Palestinian 
territories by Israel, I do not believe for a minute
that the opposition 
of much of the left to Israel is based in
anti-Semitism. But I do 
understand why many Jews perceive it that way. 

The story of the Holocaust that every Jew knows so
well is that the 
German Jews were the most integrated in their society.
They felt safe when 
the Nazis began to gain support. These brown-shirt
thugs were at first 
almost laughable. We've learned that lesson -- any
sign of 
anti-Semitism has to be stopped before it spreads. On
this I agree. 

The problem is that the Israeli leadership has
skilfully woven the myth 
that opposing their policies is opposing the Jewish
people, that 
criticism of Israel is, in and of itself,
anti-Semitic. It is my view that 
Israel's actions in the West Bank and the Gaza strip
are a betrayal of 
the history of the Jewish people. I speak out against
them because I 
cannot accept that my people, who have been so
persecuted over centuries 
can persecute another people. 

Hopefully, the selection of a Labour Party leader who
is against the 
occupation will give a higher profile to the critics
within Israel and 
thus give lie to the idea that criticism of Israel is
anti-Semitism. 

Discussion of the rise of anti-Semitism today without
talking about the 
even more serious rise of racism, particularly against
Muslims and 
Arabs after September 11 feeds into the unwillingness
of the left to take 
anti-Semitism seriously. 

Hopefully, critics of Israeli policy inside the Jewish
community will 
find more courage to speak out despite the intense
pressure not to do 
so. One impact of the rise of anti-Semitism in the
society is for Jewish 
communities to close ranks against any and all
opposition. This is the 
worse response we could possibly have. Tribalism feeds
bigotry. 

Jews who oppose Israel's persecution of the
Palestinian people must 
speak out, as must Muslims and Arabs who oppose
suicide bombers. It is not 
easy in either case, but if we are going to find a way
to work together 
across difference, those of us on the left have to
break with those in 
our own communities who are promoting violence and
hatred. 

As George Erasmus President of the Aboriginal Healing
Foundation and 
himself a former Chief of the Assembly of First
Nations, so eloquently 
put it in his letter to the editor in the Globe and
Mailrecently.

"It is my hope that the people respond to the spirit
of hate, wherever 
it appears, by renewing their commitment to the long
and difficult task 
of healing and reconciliation. We have seen, endured
and overcome much. 
But when the minds and spirits of our own peoples are
conquered, we are 
lost." 



Judy Rebick is the publisher of www.rabble.ca, where
this article first 
appeared.





ZNet Commentary
Anti-Semitism And Anti-Colonialism
by Justin Podur
http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2003-01/04podur.cfm

When Judy Rebick, in her recent Znet Commentary ("Is
anti-semitism an
issue for the left?") told this story:

"My father had to fight his way to school every day
against gangs of
boys calling him dirty Jew. In his day, he used to
tell me, signs on
Sunnyside beach on the Lakeshore in Toronto said, "No
dogs or Jews
allowed.""

I couldn't help but remember the signs that I had
heard of that were up
in colonial India saying 'No dogs or Hindus allowed',
or in
Japanese-occupied Shanghai that said 'No dogs or
Chinese allowed'.  And
since Judy's piece was prompted by the words of David
Ahenakew, an
indigenous man, it seems fitting to mention that
around the Sun Peaks
resort in British Colombia, Canada, the site of a
bitter struggle
between a multinational resort corporation and the
Secwempec indigenous
who that corporation is trying to displace, there are
reports of signs
that say 'No Indians allowed by order of the BC
government'.

The Holocaust was the most horrific event in a long,
continuous history
of European anti-semitism.  In the rules of that
anti-semitism, Jews
were confined to ghettos.  They were not allowed to
farm or own land.
They were restricted to a small number of occupations,
one of which was
moneylending (which also happened to be taboo to
Christians) and then
resented for it, and periodically dispossessed when
those they had
loaned money were wealthy and powerful.  Whenever
Europe got ready to 
go
on Crusade, against external infidels in the Muslim
world, the Jewish
ghettos would be the first to suffer pogroms, riots,
and massacres.
After the last kingdom in Muslim Spain-- where
Muslims, Jews, and
Christians had coexisted-was conquered by Europe in
1492, Muslims and
Jews were given the option of conversion to
Christianity or expulsion.
Many chose to convert so they could keep their
lands-but the Holy
Inquisition was founded to root out those converts who
were secretly
still practicing Islam or Judaism, burn them at the
stake, and, of
course, take their land.  

This is all Europe's history, the story of Europe's
cruelty to Jews 
whom
white supremacy has always seen as a foreign enemy no
better-and it is
important to emphasize this-no better than any of the
other black and
brown peoples of the world.

European colonialism is responsible for holocausts all
over the third
world.  Belgium's King Leopold ruled over the deaths
of perhaps 10
million in the Congo in the late 19th century. 
English colonialism
presided over the deaths of tens of millions to
famines in India.  The
European slave trade killed untold millions over
centuries in the Black
Holocaust.  The genocidal European conquest of the
Americas killed tens
of millions of indigenous-and was the model on which
Hitler explicitly
based his conquests.

The point in all this is that anti-semitism is part of
a larger story 
of
racism and white supremacy that spans the entire globe
and a history of
centuries.  That racism is interwoven through the
history of
governments, economies, and societies.  If
anti-semitism is peculiar, 
it
isn't because, as Judy argues, 'it is not based on
thinking a group is
inferior but rather based on resenting the
achievements, privileges or
power, imagined or real, of an ethnic group.'  This is
true of racism
against the Asian 'model minority' as well.  

Anti-semitism is instead peculiar, and poorly
understood, because Jews
are in some contexts treated to all the hatred that
racism has to 
offer,
and in other contexts become simply Europeans.

When Palestinians resist Israel's occupation of their
lands and 
Israel's
ethnic cleansing, they are following a certain
history, acting in a
certain tradition.  But this isn't the history of
European
anti-semitism. It is, instead, the history of struggle
of colonized and
oppressed people against European colonialism-of
Algerians against the
French occupation, or the North American indigenous
against the
colonists.  For people who have suffered from
colonialism, how could it
not be confusing when Jews, who so recently suffered
from racist
oppression themselves, become the implementers of
racist, colonial
policies?  

But this is how racism works.  For some of its
victims, sometimes, it
offers this deal: help us oppress those below you, and
you can rise.
Asian immigrants to North America know this deal well.
 We get to be
'model minorities', so long as we don't join Black,
indigenous, Latino
struggles for justice.  Just in case we forget our
place, hatred and
resentment can always be nursed, and stirred to
violence-the occasional
hate crime is enough to make sure we remember.   

And Zionism, for its part, is not an ideology of
liberation for a
colonized people.  It is, instead, the ideology of a
colonizer.
Dissident Jews like Norman Finkelstein and Tim Wise
point out that it 
is
a white supremacist ideology, springing right out of
colonial
Europe-like anti-Semitism did.  

Judy Rebick says "The most terrible thing about the
Ahenakew affair is
that a representative of the most oppressed,
persecuted people in North
America is taking out his frustration on the Jews." 
The same is true,
in a sense, about Israel.  The most terrible thing
about Israel's
ongoing ethnic cleansing in Palestine is that a people
historically
oppressed and persecuted by white supremacy and
colonialism is today
aggressively colonizing a people that has shared much
of its suffering
over the centuries.

But to talk about Israel's policies without talking
about the US's
active support, and sometimes design, of these
policies, is a mistake.
Israel has been encouraged to do what it has done in
the Middle East
because it has served the agenda of the US.  To frame
the issue in 
terms
of Jews and anti-semitism is to blind oneself to the
reality that 
Israel
is acting as part of the larger project of imperialism
and control over
the region. Both incidents of anti-semitism Judy
describes in her
commentary-the Ahenakew affair and the Indian cab
driver-occurred for
analogous reasons: people oppressed and discriminated
against see a
'Jewish conspiracy' where there is instead white
supremacy, racism, and
imperialism, and fail to see that the centers of power
are elsewhere.  

Anti-colonial struggles are at their best when the
colonized understand
what they are really facing, find each other, struggle
together, and
find and build solidarity.  Judy herself is
consistently critical of
Israel's
policies: "It is my view that Israel's actions in the
West Bank and the
Gaza strip are a betrayal of the history of the Jewish
people. I speak
out against them because I cannot accept that my
people, who have been
so
persecuted over centuries can persecute another
people."   Since
anti-semitism, racism, and zionism spring from the
same root, all are
welcome to the struggle against all three.


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