[Peace-discuss] Column in DI & Letter to DI

[David Green]

It's not Jew, it's me  The fanatical conflation of anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism  Lally Gartel  Posted: 2/8/07  There are several things that are discouraged on this page of The Daily Illini. We're cautioned against writing about Chief Illiniwek, the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, sports and a handful of other overplayed or otherwise addressed issues. But one issue surrounding Israel is one which, until now, has barely been addressed by the mainstream media.

Last week, the New York Times came out with an article chronicling the American Jewish Council's newest essay concerning the liberal Jewry. In it, author Alvin H. Rosenfeld discusses something that non-Jews probably didn't realize existed: Jew-on-Jew accusations of anti-Semitism. In particular, it seems that the Zionist element of the Jewish community has finally decided to conflate anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism.

Well, I'm not surprised. As a leftist non-religious Jew, I've been having these conversations for ages, and one thing is always constant: fanatical people are fanatical people. Jews, Arabs, Christians, Muslims and Swedes all become unreasonable when they become fanatical. And the Zionist movement, comprising both ultra-religious, ultra-nationalist and even some more moderate members, is just that: fanatical.

Mr. Rosenfeld is not the first to accuse Jews that are critical of Israel of anti-Semitism. Two years ago, the Chicago Reader described Harvard Professor Alan Dershowitz's calling for the firing of DePaul University's Norman Finklestein for "anti-Semitism," among other things. He claimed, moreover, that Finklestein couldn't be protected by the fact that he was Jewish for much longer. Dershowitz, by the way, is a Zionist Jew. Finklestein, as you may have guessed, is not. His position, in part for which Mr. Dershowitz called for his firing, was that Jewish elites use the Holocaust as a way to silence critics of Israel or themselves. He's right.

It seems that the contemporary Zionist has a convenient way to shield herself from criticism; if Zionism is just Judaism, then anyone who is a political opponent of Zionism is also an opponent of Judaism and the Jewry (and is thus an anti-Semite). One of Mr. Rosenfeld's targets in his essay is the New York University Historian Tony Judt, who himself agrees with the existence of Israel as a binational (with equal rights for all Jews and Arabs) state. He is, however, critical of Israeli politics and believes that the real aim of those like Rosenfeld is to stifle any criticism of Israeli policy towards Palestinians and their self-determination. He is not far off; it seems that the pro-Israel element of the Jewish community has an almost foolproof intellectual defense. Israel is a Jewish state, and if you don't support it or don't want it to be a Jewish state, you are against the Jews. Even if you are Jewish.

It seems that this entire intra-Jewish debacle is borne of fanaticism and dishonest political maneuvering. Political discussions are political discussions, and the question of Israel's legitimacy and the legitimacy of its military actions are political questions first and ethnic questions only secondly. Figures such as Rosenfeld are attempting to frame the debate about Israel into a forum on and trial of the liberal Jewry, a group which has a right to hold political opinions without being accused of sabotaging their own people.

My views on Israel are not complicated, though the situation itself is delicate and nuanced. As a Jew, I regret and mourn the centuries of anti-Semitism that Jews have lived through and ultimately triumphed in. But I don't think that gives us the right to trample on the human and political rights of any other group, no matter how much we've suffered or experienced. A binational state is the only viable solution for today's Israel, and if believing that Palestinians should have a say in the direction their nation is headed makes me a bad Jew, then I am a bad Jew. But I am not an anti-Semite. I am an atheist member of a long-standing ethnic diaspora, one which has lived and survived without a state for centuries, and which now seems in its majority to want to impose the same fate on another group.   
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  © Copyright 2007 The Daily Illini 
   
   
  Partly in response to Lally Gartel’s perceptive column on Israel, I would like to offer a portion of the question that I submitted, upon request, to the organizers of the Feb. 1 forum at Foellinger:
   
  Until recently, as much if not more attention has been given to the problem of "anti-Semitism" on this campus than those of racism against Black, Hispanics, or Native-Americans.
   
  
  Yet anti-Semitism has been almost completely identified with criticism of Israel. As we see now, even a former President who brokered a peace agreement between Israel and Egypt is not exempt from such charges if he criticizes the blatant reality of Israeli apartheid. In 2004 a Muslim student-journalist was slandered in a local Jewish publication with the active consent of professors and administrators on this campus who are Jewish. Also in 2004, a Zionist columnist at the Daily Illini called for the murder of Yassir Arafat.
   
  
  The Program for Jewish Culture and Society is identified with and promotes state policies of Israel. No other state--including the U.S. itself, is represented in this way by any campus unit. Many Arab and Muslim students, as well as many others, understandably define Israel's policies as racist. It is a fact that they have been defined by the International Criminal Court as illegal, and are defined as immoral by conscientious people around the world.
   
  
  What would you propose to do to make the U of I a place where all students--Arab, Muslim, Jewish, and others, can engage in honest and scholarly research and debate about Israel and Palestine, as well as the U.S. and Israel's role in the Arab and Muslim world, in an atmosphere that is free of fear, intimidation, and self-censorship? And why do you allow local Jewish leaders to prevent this from happening?
   
  David Green
  

 
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