[Peace-discuss] On Holocaust Remembrance Day: A call to stop falsely accusing activists of anti-Semitism

[David Green]

>From Norman Finkelstein’s book Knowing too Much (2012):
“The accumulation of evidence casting Israel in a harsh
light has now reached critical mass. For a long while Israel attempted to
deflect and dilute the impact of these damning facts by wielding the twin
swords of The Holocaust and The New Ant-Semitism. It was claimed that Jews
could not be held to conventional moral-legal standards after the unique
suffering they endured during World War II and that criticism of Israeli policy
was motivated by ever-resurgent hatred of Jews. However, neither of these
weapons any longer intimidates.”
On Monday, April 28, 2014 8:08 AM, David Johnson <davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net> wrote:
  
 
>On Holocaust Remembrance Day: A call to stop falsely accusing activists of 
anti-Semitism  
>By DONNA NEVEL  
>04/27/2014 23:06  
>    
>inShare1  
>Select Language​▼ 
>Israeli government apologists shamelessly charge anti-Semitism as a 
means of discrediting those opposing its practices and behavior.  
>Protestors wave with Palestinian flags 
and shout slogans during a demonstration in Berlin Photo: REUTERS  
>Since I was a child, my family marked Holocaust Remembrance Day 
with reverence for the memory of the victims, vivid awareness of anti-Semitism 
and bigotry, and celebration of resistance and the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. I 
also had etched into my consciousness from an early age that in remembering the 
Holocaust and the history of anti-Semitism, we are obliged to re-affirm our 
commitment to fighting injustice in any form.
>
>With this in mind, as 
Holocaust Remembrance Day approaches, I can’t help but be appalled by the 
reckless charge of anti-Semitism directed at those who seek justice and who call 
out Israel for its human rights violations.
>
>When people criticize Israel 
(or any nation-state, for that matter), it is fair to challenge them – on the 
merits of the argument. However, Israeli government apologists instead 
shamelessly exploit the charge of anti-Semitism as a means of discrediting and 
obstructing those opposing its practices and behavior.
>
>These attacks, 
sometimes drawing upon classic anti-Semitic images as in Prime Minister Binyamin 
Netanyahu’s recent speech to AIPAC, have most recently focused on trying to 
thwart political organizing on college campuses, by both students and 
professors, in support of policies and time-honored strategies – like Boycott, 
Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) – intended to hold Israel accountable to 
international law and basic principles of human rights.
>
>Although this is 
certainly not a new phenomenon, these charges of anti-Semitism have become 
epidemic.
>
>There is a pattern: Israeli government behavior has gotten 
worse and worse, the movement to hold Israel accountable is getting stronger and 
stronger, and it appears the only way the Israeli government and its supporters 
think they can stop the momentum is to destroy the messengers, particularly 
since the facts of Israeli violations of human rights and the extent of its 
ongoing oppressive behavior against the Palestinian people are well-documented 
and pervasive.
>
>And these pro-Israeli government advocates know that there 
is no better way to shut people down and discredit them than by accusing them of 
anti-Semitism.
>
>These false calls of anti-Jewish hatred are an attempt to 
derail the movement for justice in Palestine/Israel and to destroy those 
supporting that movement. And, further, these trumped-up charges of 
anti-Semitism are particularly pernicious when directed at Palestinians or 
Muslims or others who already face extreme discrimination and 
racism.
>
>Calling criticism of the Israeli state anti-Semitic also makes a 
mockery of the term anti-Semitism and trivializes the memory of the Holocaust. 
Conflating anti-Semitism against the Jewish people with critiques of Israel as a 
state diminishes the seriousness of anti-Semitism when it occurs.
>
>As 
Holocaust Remembrance Day approaches, let us do justice to the memory of the 
Holocaust by recommitting ourselves to challenging injustice and to honoring, 
rather than demonizing and defaming, those who speak out and take action for 
peace and for justice in Palestine and Israel and anywhere across the 
globe.
>
>The author a community psychologist and educator, is a 
long-time organizer for peace and justice in Palestine/Israel.
>
>She was a 
co-coordinator of the 1989 landmark Road to Peace Conference that brought PLO 
officials and Knesset members together to the US for the first time. More 
recently, she was a founding member of Jews Say No!, is a member of the board of 
Jewish Voice for Peace, and is on the coordinating committee of the Nakba 
Education Project, US. 
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