Is Corbyn an antisemite?

I’m only stating the obvious: freedom of speech is arguably the very basis of democracy. The right to speak one’s mind freely is a fundamental human right.

Sounds like a cliché, doesn’t it?  That’s because these concepts are so often used, misused and abused in modern political discourse.  We are so often bashed on the head with the term ‘human rights’ (often by dictators for whom the term has no real meaning) that we’ve come to accept it without question.  In fact, not everything we feel entitled to do is a ‘human right’; and even when it is, that does not mean that such right is unconstrained.

Our unquestioned human right ends where it impinges on another human right.  At that point, the two clashing rights need to be balanced; which is just another way of saying they need to be curtailed.

Freedom of speech is no different.  A fundamental right it may be, but it is far from absolute.  In fact, it is strictly curtailed, even in a democracy.  Because words have consequences.  In fact, words can kill.  The Talmud sages put that observation in a statement that loosely translates as

"Life and death by the power of the tongue."

In modern political thought, the textbook example is shouting ‘Fire!’ in a crowded theatre.  That ‘freedom’ is prohibited, because the ensuing stampede impinges on the right to live – and to live free of bodily harm.  For the same reason, incitement to violence (and not just the violence itself) is proscribed.

But the line is not drawn at bodily harm.  UK statutes outlaw speech that stirs up racial hatred (the so-called ‘hate speech’), even when the words did not actually result in violence.  That’s in recognition of the fact that not just people’s body needs to be protected, but also their spirit and dignity.  This is also why the UK has laws against defamation.

In both cases (hate speech and defamation), the law does not require proof of intent.  It is not concerned with the motivations behind the act, but with its (potential) consequences.

***

Having established that, let us now go to the (by now famous) fact that the UK Labour Party, while ostensibly agreeing with the Definition of Antisemitism published by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), has deliberately not adopted the part which describes as antisemitic

"Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis."

Instead, Labour’s ruling body (the National Executive Committee – NEC) has introduced in its Code of Conduct the following statement:

"Discourse about international politics often employs metaphors drawn from examples of historic misconduct.  It is not antisemitism to criticise the conduct or policies of the Israeli state by reference to such examples unless there is evidence of antisemitic intent.  Chakrabarti [inquiry into antisemitism] recommended that Labour members should resist the use of Hitler, Nazi and Holocaust metaphors, distortions and comparisons in debates about Israel-Palestine in particular.  In this sensitive area, such language carries a strong risk of being regarded as prejudicial or grossly detrimental to the Party within Clause 2.I.8."

Contrary to what some Party spokespersons claim, the Labour Code of Conduct’s statement does not ‘expand’ the Definition – at least not in this respect; in fact, it clearly contradicts the Definition: where the IHRA Definition declares the Israeli-Nazi analogy a “[c]ontemporary example of antisemitism in public life”, the Code of Conduct says that “[i]t is not antisemitism […] unless there is evidence of antisemitic intent”.  That’s not saying much: surely anything is antisemitism if there is evidence of antisemitic intent.  But I struggle to understand what such evidence would be and how it could be obtained.  And why would the Labour Code suddenly become concerned with intent, rather than the consequences of the act?

So, is the Israel-Nazi analogy (or “metaphor”, as the Code of Conduct so poetically calls it) antisemitism, or is it not?

To avoid being accused of circular logic, I will deliberately not rely on the IHRA Definition.  Instead, I will use a definition of antisemitism proclaimed not by a supporter, but by a critic of the IHRA Definition. Former Court of Appeal judge Stephen Sedley defined antisemitism as follows:

"Shorn of philosophical and political refinements, anti-Semitism is hostility towards Jews as Jews. Where it manifests itself in discriminatory acts or inflammatory speech it is generally illegal, lying beyond the bounds of freedom of speech and of action."

Sedley, who is currently a Visiting Professor at Oxford University, is right to distinguish between immoral prejudice (“hostility”) and illegal acts, such as discrimination and hate speech.  But the fact that the former is allowed by law (i.e. it is within “the bounds of freedom of speech”) does not mean that it is acceptable.  Antisemitism is racism; profoundly immoral and therefore abhorrent.  If I were to use the ‘n-word’, I would not be imprisoned; but I would rightly be called a racist by every person of good character.

Neither the IHRA Definition, nor the Labour Code of Conduct deal with criminal offences; they are concerned with ethics, not law.

On the other hand, it is clear that in Professor Sedley’s view, discrimination and hate speech (whether they reach the legal threshold or not) are manifestations of antisemitism.  And therefore, they are in themselves evidence of antisemitism.

Those who insist that drawing the analogy is not antisemitic do so based on the assertion that Israel does similar things to those perpetrated by the Nazis.  For instance, Israel ‘occupies’ – and so did the Nazis; Israel ‘kills’ – and so did the Nazis; Israel ‘discriminates’, Israel ‘ethnically cleanses’, etc.

UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn compared the Israeli blockade of Gaza Strip with the Nazi sieges of Stalingrad and Leningrad, which killed millions of people.

Let us move away from the debate of whether Israel actually does those things and whether some or all of them are justified in the circumstances.  Such debate would not only be endless, but also irrelevant.  Personally, I do believe that many of the accusations against Israel are at best distortions and at worst amount to hate speech.  However, that’s not my point here; my point is that, even if everything that Corbyn claims Israel does were true, the Nazi analogy would still constitute antisemitism – because it is employed in an incendiary and discriminatory fashion.

Because what is clear is that Israel is hardly the only country that perpetrates those things.  There are many territories that are ‘occupied’; more Palestinians have been killed by other Arabs than by Israel; extensive ethnical cleansing occurred in ex-Yugoslavia, Cyprus and in many other conflicts, etc.  Not one thing that Israel did and does is really unique; similar (and much worse) acts have been committed by other nations.

Yet the Nazi analogy is almost never employed in relation to other nations.  EU member state Croatia has an incontestable history of collaboration with the Nazi regime that far exceeds even Ken Livingston’s most outrageous accusations against ‘the Zionists’.  The establishment of modern Croatia involved war and the forced expulsion or flight of most of the Serbian population of that territory.  Yet Croatia is not accused of ‘behaving like the Nazis’ – not by Corbyn and not with his support, anyway.

In practice, Israel is the only entity against which that particular analogy is so often and so vigorously deployed.  It is hardly ever used with regard to Assad (who has butchered hundreds of thousands of people, including using chemical and incendiary weapons); or even with regard to Islamic State – a supremacist ‘Caliphate’ with global ambitions, guilty of exterminating entire populations.

Whatever one chooses to accuse Israel of ‘committing’ – the fact of discrimination remains: Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters are more exercised about Israel than about any other topic in international politics – bar none; and the Nazi analogy is the obvious expression of that unparalleled hostility.

Why Nazis, though?  Of course, Nazis are themselves a “metaphor” of ultimate evil.  But it’s more than that.  It is not by chance that the event that Jeremy Corbyn facilitated in 2010 in the Houses of Parliament took place on Holocaust Memorial Day; it is not by chance that Jeremy Corbyn and his best mate John McDonnell also wanted to take out the term ‘Holocaust’ from the ‘Holocaust Memorial Day’.  This is not ‘just’ about the Nazis in 1930s – it’s of course about the Holocaust.  The Israel-Nazi analogy is employed not despite, but because Jews were the Nazis’ quintessential victims.  Israelis are compared to Nazis because they are Jews.

This has two subliminal motivations:

Firstly, for antisemites, the Holocaust has always been the ultimate reproach, the pointing finger exclaiming ‘this is what you did!’ and causing some nagging feelings of guilt.  The Israel-Nazi analogy is an attempt to push back against that guilt.  If Jews (or at least ‘some Jews’) can be shown to be ‘just like the Nazis’, then there is less of a reason to feel bad for harbouring feelings of hostility against them.

Secondly, the accusation of ‘behaving just like Nazis’ is likely to be more painful for Jews than for anyone else.  Being called a Nazi is a grave insult for any normal person; but for Jews, who lost a third of their number to Nazi crimes, it is devastating.  Arguably no other accusation can be equally shocking for a Jew.  Those who use that particular analogy do so knowing that it causes the ultimate, most unbearable type of pain and distress.

***

Jeremy Corbyn is an antisemite; the Labour Party – with its current membership – is riddled with antisemites, including at its highest levels; the Code of Conduct condones antisemitic prejudice, even while paying lip service to anti-racism.

But it’s more than that: the Israel-Nazi analogy is not ‘just’ antisemitism; it is in fact Holocaust inversion – the ultimate, most pernicious form of Holocaust denial.  It does not deny that the Holocaust actually happened; but, by pretending that the victims can just as well be the perpetrators, it robs it of any moral significance; it kicks the Holocaust into the swamp of moral relativism, there to sink among other ordinary (and debatable) historical episodes.  Changing the name of the Memorial Day is part of the same pattern: the Holocaust thus becomes just a (non-particular) genocide in an ocean of genocides.

Jackie Walker (a devoted Corbyn friend and supporter)
claims that the Jews were responsible for the
Atlantic slave trade and for the ‘African holocaust’.

All this is not ‘just’ an attack on Israel, or an assault on Jews’ connection to the Jewish state; it is not even an ‘intellectual’ pogrom à la Bruno Bauer or Karl Marx.  No, it’s more than that: it is an attack on what it means to be Jewish in the 21 century; an onslaught upon the very soul of the Jewish people.

A BeLaboured Inquiry into Anti-Semitism

In response to a string of anti-Semitic incidents involving prominent members of his party, British Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has reluctantly established a commission of inquiry.  Members and supporters of the Labour Party and members of relevant communities have been invited to submit evidence.

Shami Chakrabarti, Chair of Labour Antisemitism Inquiry
and former Director of ‘Liberty’, speaking against new anti-terror legislation

Let me be very clear: I have zero confidence in this inquiry.  And not just because Mr. Corbyn’s past actions (such as calling members of terrorist organisations ‘friends’, sharing platforms with Holocaust deniers, patronage of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign) are questionable to say the least.  No, a desire to whitewash, rather than shed light, is obvious from the choice of the inquiry panel.

Mr. Corbyn has called the inquiry ‘independent’ — but it is anything but.  It’s Chair, Ms. Shami Chakrabarti, is an enthusiastic member of the Labour Party.  In her own words

"I share the values of the Labour Party constitution and will seek to promote those values in any recommendations and findings […] not just in the Labour Party but in the world.”

Ms. Chakrabarti can claim no particular expertise on the subject of anti-Semitism.  She formerly headed the campaigning organisation ‘Liberty’, a body that militates – among other things – for unrestricted freedom of speech, including the freedom to publish vile racist rants.

The inquiry’s Vice Chair, on the other hand, can certainly claim to be an expert on anti-Semitism.  Corbyn’s appointment for this position is Prof. David Feldman, Director of the Pears Institute for the Study of Anti-Semitism.  But, while his expertise in historical anti-Semitism is not in doubt, Prof. Feldman’s positions on contemporary anti-Semitism are – to use a typical British understatement – ‘controversial‘.  As are his views on Zionism and Israel.  Prof. Feldman does not see anything wrong with singling out the Jewish state for disproportionate criticism.  He does not think that likening Israeli Jews to Nazis is anti-Semitic.

Vice Chair of the Inquiry, Prof David Feldman, shared a platform
with Shlomo Sand, author of a “The Invention of the Jewish People”,
which claims that modern Jews descend from Khazars, a Turkic population.
Prof. Feldman thanked Sand for writing the book.

Even more interestingly, the good professor is a member of Independent Jewish Voices (IJV), a group who has stated its opinion before the inquiry even started:

"allegations of pervasive antisemitism within the Labour Party […] are, in our view, baseless and disingenuous [and] deployed politically – whether by the press, the Conservative Party, opponents of Corbyn’s leadership within Labour, or by those seeking to counter criticism of the actions of the Israeli government.”

In its own submission to the inquiry, IJV claims that

"Today, Zionism follows the path of maximalist nationalism and settler colonialism, driven largely by right-wing politicians, rabbis and settlers pursuing an ethnoreligious, messianic and exclusionary agenda. […] This maximalist Zionism is the only form of Zionism that has any political agency or power today. All the constructions of Zionism by those who propagate ‘new antisemitism’ theory are designed to spread the net of the ‘new antisemitism’ ever more widely in such a way as to outlaw recognition of this basic reality.  To Palestinians it means the ongoing denial of their civil, political and human rights and the impossibility of achieving Palestinian national self-determination.”

Clearly, some of Mr. Corbyn’s best friends are Jews.  No wonder that he has appointed as Vice Chair a ‘good Jew’ – rather than, for instance, the President of the Board of Deputies (the elected representatives of British Jewry).  The Far Labour leadership is happy to listen to ‘Jewish Voices’, as long as they are properly ‘independent’, not excessively ‘Jewish’ and voice the correct opinions.

Antony Lerman, who prepared the Independent Jewish Voices submission,
complained in an interview about “the Israel Lobby”.

The second Vice Chair, by the way, is Baroness Royall, a Labour Party peer who has already completed an investigation into antisemitism at the Oxford University Labour Club.  Folding that inquiry into the larger one and appointing Baroness Royall as Vice Chair gave Corbyn the excusenot to publish her report in full and not to implement its recommendations.

In light of all this manoeuvring and of its composition, it is clear that the ‘independent inquiry’ is nothing but a cover-up operation.  Its report might as well have been written in advance.  It will no doubt exonerate the Party and its new, hard-left leadership (as well as some if not all of the individuals accused of antisemitism) of any systematic and pervasive racist inclinations; it will take great pains to emphasise the difference between antisemitism and ‘anti-Zionism’; it will claim instead that anti-Jewish prejudice and anti-Jewish State ‘criticism’ (however obsessive) are two completely different kettles of fish: one rotten, the other smelling of roses.

Some may say, therefore, that submitting anything to such ‘independent inquiry’ is a useless endeavour, a complete waste of time.  Well, I happen to disagree.  True, those submissions won’t change the panel’s ‘findings’, conclusions and recommendations.  But they will deny the ‘inquiry’, in historical perspective, any excuse or plea of ignorance.  As the three sign off the report, they will not just be submitting it; they will also submit to the judgment of posterity.  And that posterity will deliver a harsher verdict, in the context of submissions like the one below.

Text of my submission

Dear Ms. Chakrabarti,

In relation to the inquiry into antisemitism in the Labour Party, I would like to submit the following:

I am a member of the Jewish community and a former member of the Executive Committee for the Coventry Reform Jewish Community.  I am not a member of any political party – my vote is driven by what I consider each time to be in the best interest of the nation, rather than by any ideological inclination.

I cannot speak for the entire British Jewish community – that is the job of the Board of Deputies.  However, all the Jews I personally know have been greatly offended and worried by the anti-Semitic outbursts that came – of all places! – from the ranks of the Labour Party, a political party that claims to be fundamentally anti-racist.  The issue has become a subject of constant concern in our homes, around the dinner table and in our communities.  There is also a sense of betrayal among many Jews who have always seen themselves as Labour voters and supporters.

The opinions below are my own, but they have crystallised through many a discussion I had with fellow Jews.  To better understand the issues, I have also read submissions to the inquiry from other quarters, for instance those posted here.

Jews, Judaism, Jewishness

I apologise if the concepts below are obvious to you, but I do believe that they are complex and need to be defined from the perspective of the Jews themselves.  I think you will find that the vast majority (though by no means all!) of Jews in this country will agree with these definitions.

While Judaism is a monotheistic religion like Islam and Christianity, Jews are not ‘a religion’.  We are a people, i.e. an ethno-religious and cultural community bound together by a sense of common identity and solidarity.

Although in principle converts to Judaism are considered Jews, such conversions are rare.  Judaism is not a proselytising religion; the vast majority of Jews have acquired that identity through birth, rather than through conversion.

People can simultaneously have multiple identities and Jewishness is one of the identities that British Jews hold.  One can be a Jew, a British national, a socialist, a vegan, a believer in animal rights, etc.  Many people of Jewish descent manifest a very strong sense of Jewish identity; for others it is weak or almost nonexistent in comparison to their other identities.

Clearly, it is not sufficient to be ‘of Jewish descent’ to be a Jew from the point of view of the sense of identity.  However, it is difficult to precisely define at which point a person of Jewish descent should no longer be considered ‘a Jew’.  Most Jews would consider a person of Jewish descent to be a Jew if s/he maintains some level of religious and cultural affiliation, even if s/he does not believe in God and/or does not strictly observe the precepts of Judaism.  There is a small number of ritual items that the vast majority of Jews (whether religious or not) perform at set times in their lives and consider essential to their identity: circumcision of male children, bar-mitzvah (the religious rite of passage to maturity), wedding, burial.  Most Jews also celebrate Jewish festivals (especially the Jewish New Year and Passover) and mark the Day of Atonement.  Most British Jews would consider a person of Jewish descent who does not perform those minimal items as ‘alienated’ or ‘estranged’ from his/her Jewish identity.  The vast majority of Jews see conversion to another religion as the definite loss of a person’s Jewish identity.

Israel

The term ‘Jew’ was initially an exonym derived from the Greek Ἰουδαῖος, through the Latin Judaeus (meaning Judean, or inhabitant of Judea).  ‘Israel’ was the endonym for ‘the Jewish people’.  The Old Testament, for instance, refers to Jews as בני ישראל (B’nei Israel, Children of Israel), עם ישראל (‘Am Israel, People of Israel), or simply ישראל (Israel, see for instance 2 Samuel 7:23-24).  In the Qur’an, Jews are called بَنُو اِسرَائِيل (Banū Isrāʼīl, the Children of Israel).

The Jewish homeland was traditionally called ‘Eretz Israel’ (The Land of Israel) and it is from there that the name of the modern state comes, in the same way in which Finland means ‘Land of the Finns’.

The vast majority of British Jews (as evidenced by several opinion polls, see for instance this) view Israel as central to their Jewish identity.

Strong connection with a different place/country is not unique to Jews, it exists among other minority ethnic communities in Britain (see, for instance, this).

However, in the case of Jews the connection is most likely stronger, for two reasons:

1. A religious reason: the centrality of the Land of Israel in Judaism;

Judaism never attained the status of ‘global religion’, but remained an ethnic or ‘tribal’ faith.  This implies a stronger geographic element.  In Judaism, the Land of Israel (also called Eretz HaKodesh – the Holy Land) acquired a sacred character, which was bequeathed to a certain extent to both Christianity and Islam.  Jerusalem (‘Ir HaKodesh, the Holy City) is seen as the sacred centre of the Holy Land; the Temple Mount (which became identified with Mount Zion) is seen as the epicentre of holiness, the half-celestial-half-earthly residence of the Divine Presence.  Wherever they are, Jews pray facing towards Jerusalem.  The importance of the Land of Israel and of Jerusalem suffuses Judaic scriptures and ritual.

2. A national reason: 2,000 years of statelessness;

One of the main reasons states exist is to provide their citizens with security.  As an exiled, stateless people persecuted through much of their history, Jews were particularly in need of such security.  From our point of view, statelessness came at a horrific price, culminating with the lack of protection and refuge during the Holocaust.  Throughout history, the Jew’s status of perennial ‘refugee’ (the ‘Wandering Jew’) has generated contempt and has reinforced antisemitic sentiment among ‘host peoples’. 

Zionism

Most definitions of Zionism (see for instance this) call it ‘a political movement’ or ‘an ideology’ and mention that it ’emerged towards the end of the 19th century’.  Most such definitions add attributes like ‘European’, ‘Jewish’, ‘nationalist’ and ‘secular’.  Many mention that it emerged ‘as a result of antisemitism’.

Such definitions are reductionist in the extreme.  They usually serve anti-Zionist political aims: if Zionism is ‘European’, ‘Jewish’, ‘nationalist’ and ‘secular’; if it ’emerged at the end of the 19^th century’, then it follows that it has nothing to do with the Middle East, with Judaism or with ancestral aspirations.

But the Chief Rabbi of Britain, Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis appears to contradict that thesis.  Recently, he called Zionism

“a noble and integral part of Judaism. Zionism is a belief in the right to Jewish self-determination in a land that has been at the centre of the Jewish world for more than 3,000 years. One can no more separate it from Judaism than separate the City of London from Great Britain.”

Rabbi Mirvis is supposed to know a thing or two about Judaism.  But he does not require his opinion to be taken on faith; rather, he goes on to write:

“Open a Jewish daily prayer book used in any part of the world and Zionism will leap out at you. The innumerable references to the land of Israel are inescapable and demonstrative.”

Judaism’s main prayer book is called the Siddur.  Amidah is arguably Siddur’s centre-piece prayer – it is recited (standing up, rather than sitting) as part of every synagogue service.  It includes the following supplication (translation from Hebrew):

“Sound the great Shofar [an ancient trumpet-like instrument made from the horn of a ram] for our freedom; raise a banner to gather our Diasporas, and bring us swiftly together from the four corners of the Earth into our Land.  Blessed are You Lord, Who gathers the exiles of His people Israel.”

Amidah was not concocted (by either mythical ‘Elders of Zion’ or real-life Zionists) in the 19th century.  It dates from around the 2nd century CE.  Observant Jews everywhere have been reciting it three times a day ever since.  Less observant Jews like myself – whenever we happen to attend a synagogue service.

Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, Chief Rabbi of United Kingdom and the Commonwealth,
has not been invited to sit on the inquiry panel.  Nor has Jonathan Arkush,
the elected President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews.

Passover’s ritual Seder meal (one of those basic traditions that most non-observant Jews also perform) ends with the wish “Next year in Jerusalem”.  Again, this is a tradition that has been around for many hundreds of years.

Rabbi Mirvis went on to state:

“Throughout our collective history we have yearned for a chance to determine our own future, to revive an ancient language and return to rejoice in our love for this tiny sliver of land.”

For lack of space or of journalistic interest, his article did not explain that statement.  I take the liberty to do so, by listing here a selection of historical events which preceded the 19^th century:

66–73 CE:            ‘Great Jewish Revolt’ against Roman occupation.  After defeating it, the Romans demolish the Temple.  Jews are prohibited from entering Jerusalem and are gradually expelled from the Land of Israel.

115–117:              ‘Rebellion of the Exile’.  Exiled Jews in several corners of the Roman Empire rise against the Romans and return to the Land of Israel.  They are eventually defeated.

132–135:              ‘Bar Kokhba revolt’.  Jews rise against the Romans under the leadership of Bar Kokhba.  They regain Jerusalem, proclaim independence, even make coins with the text ‘To the freedom of Jerusalem’.  They are ultimately defeated by superior Roman forces.  Emperor Hadrian prohibits the practice of Judaism.  He prohibits the terms ‘Israel’ and ‘Judaea’ and re-names the country ‘Syria-Palaestina’ after the Philistines, the ancient enemies of the Jews.

351–352:              ‘Revolt against Gallus’.  Jewish revolt liberates Galilee, before being defeated.

362-572:               Several Samaritan revolts against Byzantine rule.  The Samaritan faith (a sect of Judaism which had survived in the Judean Hills) is outlawed.

602-628:               Persian Jews form an army, join forces with the Sassanids against the Byzantines and reconquer Jerusalem. A semi-autonomous Jewish state is declared, but is ultimately defeated in 628.

636:                       Arab conquest of ‘Syria’ (including the Land of Israel).  Jews are initially allowed back into Jerusalem, but are later prohibited again from entering.  The Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock are built on the site of the destroyed Jewish Temple.

1160:                     Revolt of Jews in Kurdistan. Failed attempt to reconquer the Land of Israel.

1198:                     Jews from Maghreb arrive and settle in Jerusalem.

1204:                     Moshe Ben Maimon (Maimonides) dies and is buried in Tiberias, on the shores of the Sea of Galilee.

1211:                     Around 300 Jews from England and France manage to reach the Land of Israel and settle in Jerusalem.  The majority are killed by the Crusaders in 1219.  The few remaining are exiled from Jerusalem and find refuge in Acre.

1217:                     Judah al-Harizi (rabbi, translator, poet and traveller who travelled from Spain to the Land of Israel) bemoans in his writings the state of the Temple Mount.

1260:                     Having settled in the Land of Israel, Yechiel of Paris (French rabbi) establishes a Talmudic academy in Acre.

1266:                     Jews banned from entering the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron.

1267:                     Nachmanides (leading medieval Jewish scholar from Catalonia) arrives in Jerusalem; Ramban synagogue established.

1286:                     Meir of Rothenburg (famous rabbi and poet from Germany) is incarcerated after attempting to emigrate to the Land of Israel.

1355:                     Physician and geographer Ishtori Haparchi (born in France and settled in the Land of Israel) dies in Bet She’an.

1428:                     Jews attempt to purchase the Tomb of David; the Pope issues a prohibition for ship captains to carry Jews to the Land of Israel.

1434:                     Elijah of Ferrara (famous Talmudist and traveller) settles in Jerusalem.

1441:                     Famine forces Jerusalem’s Jews to send emissaries to European Jews, asking for help.

1455:                     Failed large scale immigration attempt starting from Sicily.  The would-be immigrants are condemned to death, but the punishment is commuted to a heavy fine.

1474:                     Great Synagogue of Jerusalem demolished by Arab mob.

1488:                     Obadiah ben Abraham of Bertinoro arrives in Jerusalem on March 25, 1488, having commenced his journey October 29, 1486.  When, following the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492, many of the exiles settled in Jerusalem, Bertinoro became their intellectual leader. These Spanish Jews presented Bertinoro with a site for a yeshivah (religious academy) in Jerusalem, which he founded.  Considerable support for the maintenance of the yeshivah was given by the Jews of Egypt and Turkey at Bertinoro’s written solicitation.

1493:                     Joseph Saragossi travels from Spain and settles in Safed.  He becomes the leader of the local Jewish community and dies in 1507.

1561:                     Spanish Jews travel to the Land of Israel under the leadership of Don Joseph Nasi.  They settle in Safed.  Joseph Nasi secures permission from Sultan Selim II to acquire Tiberias and seven surrounding villages to create a Jewish city-state.  He hoped that large numbers of Jewish refugees and Marranos (Jews forced to convert to Catholicism) would settle there, free from fear and oppression; indeed, the persecuted Jews of Cori, Italy, numbering about 200 souls, decided to emigrate to Tiberias.  Nasi had the walls of the town rebuilt by 1564 and attempted to turn it into a self-sufficient textile manufacturing centre by planting mulberry trees and producing silk. Nevertheless, a number of factors during the following years contributed to the plan’s ultimate failure.  But by 1576, the Jewish community of Safed faced an expulsion order: 1,000 prosperous families were to be deported to Cyprus, ‘for the good of the said island’, with another 500 the following year.  The order was issued as an instrument of extortion: it was rescinded once a hefty bribe was extracted from the Jews in the form of ‘rent’.

1648:                     Jews from Turkey attempt to return as a group to Israel, under the leadership of Sabbatai Zevi.  His arrival in Jerusalem triggers an anti-Jewish pogrom.

1700:                     A group of 1,500 Ashkenazi Jews attempt to travel to the Land of Israel under the leadership of Rabbi Yehuda he-Hasid.  A third die on the way.  The Rabbi himself dies within days of arrival.  The survivors settle in Jerusalem.

1764-1850:          Small groups of Jews (between 5 and 500 each) make their way to the Land of Israel under various rabbis.

It’s not, then, that Zionism was ‘a 19th century political movement’.  It is that it became a political movement in the 19th century – acquiring in the process its modern name and ‘ism’ suffix.  The aspiration (or rather the craving) was there in every previous century – or in every generation; it’s just that it took such extent and form that suited the times.  One can hardly expect any “political movement” – let alone a Jewish one – to have appeared as such in the 15th century.  In fact, in the 15th century Zionism was so much an integral part of Judaism that people who believed in it (and put it in practice whenever possible) thought they were only practicing their religion.

No wonder, then, that Rabbi Mirvis concluded:

“to those people who have nevertheless sought to redefine Zionism, who vilify and delegitimize it, I say: Be under no illusions – you are deeply insulting not only the Jewish community but countless others who instinctively reject the politics of distortion and demonisation.”

Britain’s previous Chief Rabbi, Lord Sacks, agrees:

“Anti-Zionism is the new anti-Semitism.”

Anti-Semitism

The vast majority of British Jews will agree that antisemitism is racism directed against Jews.  Despite its name (a misnomer invented by an anti-Semite), it has nothing to do with ‘Semites’ or ‘Semitic people’ (‘Semitic’ really applies to a family of languages, not a ‘race’ or to a group of people).  Antisemites hold racist views about Jews, but not necessarily about Arabs and Ethiopians (who also speak Semitic languages).

Like all racism, antisemitism can take many forms – from subliminal prejudice and stereotypes to violent attacks and everything in-between.  People can hold racist views without necessarily expressing them.  One can hold a prejudice (and be driven by it) without consciously admitting it.  One can even actively support anti-racist causes, while harbouring racist views.  The incidence of racist views among white abolitionists in the US, for instance, is well-known and often analysed in the literature.

Since racist prejudice can be subliminal, how can society recognise manifestations of racism?  Typically, it is easy to recognise such manifestations in historical retrospect, once the society has ‘made up its mind’ about it.  For instance, use of the word “nigger” is recognised nowadays as racist.  But only a few decades ago (see for instance here), one could use the word while considering oneself ‘a good person’ and even an anti-racist.  The reason that the word came to be recognised as racist is that most African Americans find it offensive.

The point of all this is that what constitutes a manifestation of racism is best defined by the victimised community, the one that experienced racism and is most sensitive to its manifestations.  It is not up to white people to judge what black people should or should not find offensive.  And it is not up to non-Jews to define what Jews should or should not perceive as antisemitic.

‘Good Jews’ and ‘Bad Jews’

People accused of antisemitism often point out that their views are supported by/based on opinions of some Jews (sometimes even Israeli Jews) – the implication being that they cannot possibly be antisemitic.

This is a strident fallacy.

Firstly, as explained before, not everybody who is “of Jewish descent” or has a recognisable Jewish name should automatically be considered a Jew.  US President Barack Obama has a Swahili first name, a Muslim middle name and is of Kenyan descent.  Yet he is American (not just by citizenship, but in terms of his sense of identity) and cannot speak on behalf of Swahili-speaking Africans, Muslims or Kenyans.

British-Jewish author Howard Jacobson has famously coined the term “As-a-Jew” to describe people of Jewish descent who preface criticism of Jews, Israel or Zionism with the words “As a Jew…” – in an attempt to impart additional ‘weight’ to that criticism.  For some of “As-a-Jews”, that criticism is the only manifestation of their “Jewishness”.

Secondly, like any other community, Jews hold a wide range of opinions.  It is unclear why some people seem to implicitly request that all Jews (rather than most Jews) should agree with a certain view, before it is taken to represent the collective view of the community.  Such standard of “unanimity” is not required of any other community.  By such standard, use of the n-word should not be viewed as racist (despite being offensive to most black people), if a small minority of black people supports that use.

In fact, most Jews find arguments like “Not all Jews are Zionists” and “Before WWII, most Jews were not Zionists” as themselves inappropriate and expressing a prejudice.  Why would “all Jews” be anything – one does not expect “all Muslims” or “all Swedes” to agree on anything?  How is what past generations of Jews believed (assuming one knows what most of them believed),relevant to how most Jews feel today?  Should we sanitise the n-word because past generations of African Americans might not have considered that word offensive?  Before WWI, the notion of independence from the Ottoman Empire might have been supported only by a minority of Arab people.  Is that relevant to how Arabs feel about independence today?

In the case of other groups of people (including the Labour Party), it is accepted practice that their “collective view” is expressed by their elected representatives – even though, of course, minority opinions exist within the group.  It is unclear, therefore, why the views of the Board of Deputies (the elected representatives of the British Jewish community) are ignored.  How come that the Board is not represented on a panel investigating anti-Jewish views and activity in the Labour Party?

Thirdly, some Jews (or “people of Jewish descent”) can themselves harbour antisemitic prejudice, make antisemitic comments and even commit antisemitic acts.  This is no different than in the case of any other community or group of people.  Before the abolition of slavery in USA, some freed black people have themselves been slave-owners.  Even nowadays, a few African Americans can be heard disparaging their own community.  That, surely, constitutes no excuse for slavery, nor does it justify anti-black prejudice.

“I cannot be antisemitic, because – look – some Jews agree with me” is a fallacious, ridiculous and actually offensive “argument”.

‘Classic’ anti-Semitic tropes

Most Jews have no difficulty recognising certain stereotypes, which have been historically associated with anti-Jewish prejudice.

The ‘blood libel’ (the claim that Jews murder children and use their blood in Passover bread or other ritual uses) is a particularly old and vile accusation, which has been used for centuries to demonise Jews and make possible horrific atrocities against them.  It is hard not to see echoes of that trope in articles and caricatures depicting Israeli soldiers, Israeli politicians and the Israeli society in general as blood-thirsty monsters that deliberately kill children.  Google “caricature Netanyahu kills children” and one will be flooded with horrific depictions of the Israeli Prime Minister killing children.  Substitute “Netanyahu” with the name of outrageous butchers like “Assad” or “Omar al-Bashir” and one finds less bloody caricatures and much less use of children.

Medieval tropes made Jews responsible for the spread of deadly diseases and for poisoning water wells.  Both tropes find a (merely coincidental?) echo in accusations against the Jewish state – see for instance here, here and here.

Another medieval trope is that Jews have a characteristic odour, some sort of demonic smell.  This, too, occasionally finds “modern” reverberations – see here, here and here.

A very pervasive antisemitic prejudice is that portraying Jews as rich, dishonest in money matters, greedy and avaricious.  Ken Livingstone appears to harbour such prejudice – see here and here.

Yet another pervasive myth is that of “the Jewish conspiracy” – an all-powerful Jewish cabal controlling or attempting to control countries, powerful corporations, or “the world”.  This is an age-old but very persistent prejudice, reflected in the “Elders of Zion” forgery and also used by Nazi propaganda.  This deeply entrenched conspiracy theory finds its “modern” outlets in “Jewish lobby” accusations – see here, here, here, here and here.  That perpetrators of such conspiracy theories sometimes use euphemisms like “Zionist lobby” or “Israel lobby” does not change the essence of the message.  The issue is not whether Jews “lobby” or not.  Of course they do lobby governments, parliaments and other authorities, in support of their interests.  All communities do.  The issue is also not whether Jews do their lobbying (on Israel and other issues of interest) better or worse than other communities.  The suggestion (sometimes clearly expressed, otherwise just implied) is that Jewish lobbying is somehow “special”, dishonest, conspiratorial, ill-intentioned.

A very strong example of the use of the “Jewish conspiracy” canard in the context of the Arab-Israeli conflict is the Covenant of Hamas.  Here is an interesting passage in Article 22:

"For a long time, the enemies have been planning, skilfully and with precision, for the achievement of what they have attained. They took into consideration the causes affecting the current of events. They strived to amass great and substantive material wealth which they devoted to the realisation of their dream. With their money, they took control of the world media, news agencies, the press, publishing houses, broadcasting stations, and others. With their money they stirred revolutions in various parts of the world with the purpose of achieving their interests and reaping the fruit therein. They were behind the French Revolution, the Communist revolution and most of the revolutions we heard and hear about, here and there. With their money they formed secret societies, such as Freemasons, Rotary Clubs, the Lions and others in different parts of the world for the purpose of sabotaging societies and achieving Zionist interests. With their money they were able to control imperialistic countries and instigate them to colonize many countries in order to enable them to exploit their resources and spread corruption there.You may speak as much as you want about regional and world wars. They were behind World War I, when they were able to destroy the Islamic Caliphate, making financial gains and controlling resources. They obtained the Balfour Declaration, formed the League of Nations through which they could rule the world. They were behind World War II, through which they made huge financial gains by trading in armaments, and paved the way for the establishment of their state. It was they who instigated the replacement of the League of Nations with the United Nations and the Security Council to enable them to rule the world through them. There is no war going on anywhere, without having their finger in it.‘So often as they shall kindle a fire for war, Allah shall extinguish it; and they shall set their minds to act corruptly in the earth, but Allah loveth not the corrupt doers.’ (The Table – verse 64).The imperialistic forces in the Capitalist West and Communist East, support the enemy with all their might, in money and in men. These forces take turns in doing that. The day Islam appears, the forces of infidelity would unite to challenge it, for the infidels are of one nation.”

This is the constitutive document of the organisation whose leaders Jeremy Corbyn has described as ‘friends’.  What would be the Labour Party’s reaction, if the leader of Israel’s main opposition party would call Ku Klux Klan leaders ‘friends’?

‘New’ anti-Semitic tropes

Although ‘new’ in chronological sense, these antisemitic views are related and in fact are extensions of the ‘old’ ones.

A ‘family’ of such anti-Semitic beliefs are Holocaust-related.  The most basic one is Holocaust denial.  This is built, among other things on the old “conspiracy” trope: if the Holocaust never happened, then some sort of Jewish cabal or ‘lobby’ invented it for very ignoble purposes.  There are several variants of Holocaust denial, besides “never happened”: that it was “exaggerated” (see here); that the Jews themselves (or “the Zionists”) have somehow concocted it or been complicit in it (see here and here); that it was brought about by the Jews’ own faults (see here).

An even more pernicious version is Holocaust inversion: the claim that “what Israel is doing to Palestinians” is comparable, similar or even identical or worse than what the Nazis did to the Jews (see here, here and here).  Beyond the factual incompatibility of the situations, it should be noted that the Nazi comparison is rarely employed when Jews (or the Jewish state) are not involved.

Nazism has come to be identified as the symbol of evil; the comparison with the Jewish state is an extension of the old “Jew/demon/monster” theme.

A variant of that accusation is “apartheid” – another regime that entered history as a symbol of evil.  On a personal note: I get a bit sad whenever I hear or read the accusation of apartheid levelled against Israel.  Not just because I sense the profound prejudice that lurks behind such accusation, but because it reminds me of my father, who passed away in Jerusalem’s Hadassah Medical Centre in March 2006.  He lost the battle with cancer – despite the heroic efforts of the hospital’s staff (both Arabs and Jews), led by the Head of Surgery Department, Prof. Ahmed Eid, himself a Jerusalemite Arab.  My father spent his last days in the ICU unit, sharing a cubicle with a young Palestinian from the West Bank town of Kalkilia, who had fallen off a scaffold.  Some apartheid!

Needless to say, the accusation of apartheid is also very rarely employed, except for the Jewish state.

Double standards

As a result of antisemitic prejudice, historically Jews have suffered from legal and societal discrimination.  Jews were judged using a different yardstick.  In one of his books, Prof. Alan Dershowitz recalls the notoriously anti-Semitic early 20th century president of Harvard University, A. Lawrence Lowell.  When asked why he singled Jews out for low admission quotas, Lowell claimed that, “Jewish students cheat.”  A member of staff reminded Lowell that non-Jewish students were also caught cheating.  Lowell retorted: “You’re changing the subject. We are talking about Jews now.”

Most Jews see the Jewish state being treated in a similar way.  A classic example is the issue of Israeli settlements in the West Bank.  Of course, it is perfectly legitimate to criticise those settlements, point out that they are illegal (even though legal experts are by no means unanimous about that), etc.  The problem is that people who seem to spend half of their time ranting about Israeli settlements have nothing to say about settlements in other occupied territories: Western Sahara, North Cyprus, Tibet, etc.  It seems that asking people to apply the same standard to all settlements is “changing the subject” away from the Jewish state!

A similar attitude appears to govern some people’s assessment of Gaza-Israel conflicts: while the proportion of Palestinian civilians killed is repeated ad nauseam, it is never compared to that registered in other recent conflicts.  It seems that the Jewish state is measured using a dedicated yardstick, one not employed for any other nation.

It is only the Jewish state, it seems, whose very right to exist (and to have a specific character imparted by the majority of its inhabitants) is constantly questioned – to the point where people do not shy away from suggesting ethnic cleansing of Israeli Jews as the “solution”.  This is also the solution favoured by Mr. Corbyn’s ‘friends’ from Hamas.  In the introduction of their Covenant, they claim:

“Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it”

I wonder what Mr. Corbyn would say if Benjamin Netanyahu would propose to ‘obliterate’ or ‘relocate’ Palestine to – say – Saudi Arabia?

A particularly venomous way to contest Israel’s right to exist is to declare it a “settler colonialist” enterprise, i.e. to put it in the same category with the colonisation and settlement by Europeans of South Africa, North and South America, Australia, etc.  In addition to being extremely offensive to most Jews, the suggestion is intellectually dishonest.  I have discussed previously the centrality of the Land of Israel in Jewish religion and culture and the long history of Zionism.  Jews who went to settle in Mandatory and pre-Mandatory Palestine were not driven by imperialist and colonialist agendas.  They were re-settling in their ancestral homeland.  This was no colonial enterprise, but one of national emancipation and independence.

Historically, boycotts have constituted one of the major manifestations of systematic discrimination against Jews.  This culminated with the Nazi-organised boycott of Jewish businesses remembered by its German name (Judenboycott) and slogan (Kauft nicht bei Juden).  To most Jews, the call to single out the Jewish state (and only the Jewish state) for this type of “cruel and unusual punishment” is a chilly reminder of that boycott.  The uniquely intense rage manifested by ‘protesters’ against Israeli businesses, artists, academics that have nothing to do with politics or with military conflict is a stark reminder of the Nazi-organised mobs that ‘demonstrated’ against Jewish businesses, artists and professionals.  It should be noted that there are few calls (and even less organised actions) to boycott any other country, including the most egregious human rights violators.  People drive to anti-Israel protests in their cars fuelled with Saudi petrol!

Freedom of speech

It has been claimed that taking steps to tackle antisemitism (for instance, by excluding members who have expressed antisemitic prejudice) constitutes a limitation of freedom of speech.

This is a fallacy.  Freedom of speech (even speech that causes offence) is a fundamental human right; while necessary sometimes, its limitations should be kept minimal.  However, excluding people from an organisation does not muzzle them.  Ken Livingston did not lose his right of free speech just because he has been suspended from the Labour Party.  In reality, we are not talking about freedom of speech, but about freedom to be a member of a political party irrespective of one’s opinions and behaviour.  Such a right does not exist – nor should it exist.  Membership in any organisation is governed by the principles of that organisation – it is not an absolute right.  Since the Labour Party enshrines anti-racism among its principles, it should exclude people who manifest racism.

Suggestions

Here are my suggestions:

•          That the Labour Party leadership officially declares zero tolerance towards manifestations of antisemitism and other forms of racism, in whatever shape and under whatever disguise they come;
•          That the Labour Party leadership officially acknowledges that members of racist and terrorist organisations such as Hamas and Hezbollah are not ‘friends’ and that calling them such was a mistake;
•          That the Labour Party leadership officially acknowledges that critical discourse about Israel (including within the Party) has slipped into the realm of antisemitism and that this needs to be redressed;
•          That the Labour Party leadership reaffirms that Israel has the right to exist as the state of the Jewish people, in security and at peace with its neighbours;
•          That the Labour Party leadership invites the Board of Deputies to draw up a definition of antisemitism based on the collective views of the British Jewish community and to put together an education programme for Labour activists, aimed at recognising and eliminating anti-Jewish prejudice.

Left, right and centre: UK parliamentary elections 2015

While I hope that I express myself clearly enough on the actual subjects I write about, some readers tell me that I leave one issue blurred: what’s my actual political inclination? “In your posts”, they say, “you’ve attacked Cameron, written against Farage, derided Labour and slammed the Liberal Democrats.  So who do you support?  Are you a right winger or a left winger?”

Well, folks, sorry to disappoint you all: I’m neither!  I’m not a centrist, either. And I certainly ain't a fence-sitter!!  But why do I have to be anything?? I am a political animal, of course; but why do I have to align myself with a particular political party and with their doctrine?

In their thirst for success and power, politicians throw mud at each other; the despicable ‘mainstream’ media joins in, attempting to demonise the side they don’t like.  We, the public, are left frustrated, holding them all in contempt.  Political leaders will find it very hard to gain our respect if they seem unable to respect each other.

That does not mean that we should switch off and lose interest in the whole bloody thing; that would be effin’ stupid.  The reality is that a sensible case can be made for both the ‘right-wing’ and the ‘left-wing’ views of the world.  Everything but the political extremes is reasonable and deserves at least consideration – if not always support.  After all, capitalism remains the only system with a track record of delivering economic growth and societal progress; but softening its rougher edges and imparting it a better human interface is a worthy endeavour.  We want the most fortunate of us to contribute more; but we also want to provide them with the incentive to exert their talents, invest and become even more fortunate.  We want a society kind to those less fortunate among us; but we also want them to make a stronger effort, not rely on handouts.  We wish to relentlessly pursue prosperity and success; but not by riding roughshod over our fellow human beings.

There is, somewhere in the middle, a sweet spot, an ideal trajectory we should pursue.  But it is difficult, so difficult, impossible to find.  In our desire to follow that golden path, we elect one party; and then, as we feel that those leaders got it wrong, that they overshot the ideal balance point, we vote their opponents into power.  The upshot is that, instead of following that ideal but impossible path to progress, we meander our way around it; we end up erring at times to the left, then over-correcting  to the right and so on.  We may not follow the shortest, most desirable route; but we are, thankfully, going roughly in the right direction and are never too far away from the Golden Path.  That’s why democracy works.

Our not-so-perfect path to progress

But it can only work if we, the public, are not regimented; if we are sensible enough to understand that no single political doctrine is perfect; that the question is not ‘which philosophy is right and which is wrong’, but rather ‘in which direction our society needs to go at this time’.

That is why I am neither a left-winger, nor a right-winger or a centrist.  Call me a swing vote; deride my fickleness, if you so wish.  I don’t care: I reserve the right to make up my mind each time afresh.  Whether in the UK or in Israel, democracy works because of people like me.  Long live the swing votes!  May they grow and multiply!

Those Racist Jews!

I recently went to listen to a panel session entitled ‘The progressive case for Israel’.  The title was a bit of a hoax: ‘The case against Israel and Netanyahu’ would have been more honest, as the panellists – all coming with ‘progressive’ (read: hard left wing) credentials – spent the entire session bashing the country and vilifying the man.

Now, I never quite liked Netanyahu myself and I have even less time for the ultra-hawkish Lieberman and Bennett.  Yet I experienced a strong urge to defend Bibi against what felt like an ad hominem, unfair and obsessive attack.  I was not the only one who felt like that: once the session finished, an Israeli acquaintance caught my elbow.  He seemed embarrassed.  “Did you enjoy that?” I asked him, remembering his stalwart leftist views.  “No”, he said, looking abashed.  “I wanted Netanyahu to lose, but I have nothing in common with these guys.  I’m not like that…” he said – and grimaced.

Well, I don’t blame him: ‘those guys’ got on my nerves, too.  To start with, declaring your views ‘progressive’ implies that anyone who disagrees with them is a bloody reactionary caveman.  And implying something like that is not the best way to make friends; nobody likes an arrogant twat!

Then, one may like or dislike the results; but at least there were democratic elections in Israel – something that her neighbours could only dream of.  One would think that ‘progressives’ would appreciate and praise democracy; but no time was wasted on such inconsequential details.

Policies of fear

Instead, one of the panelists claimed that Netanyahu won because of his ‘policies of fear’.  He certainly did talk to Israelis’ fears; but so did every one of his opponents, who described in their campaigns all the terrible catastrophes that would befall Israel, should Netanyahu win again.  Politicians – of every tinge and in every country – appeal to the hopes and, yes, the fears of their constituents.  One may wonder why Israelis are more receptive to fear than to hope.  Well, it may be experience; or perhaps it may have to do with its current neighbours: in addition to the old (and not very friendly!) ones, the most recent neighbours include Hamas, Hizb’ullah, Islamic Jihad, ISIS and Al-Nusra Front.  It’s rather easy to condemn ‘policies of fear’ when one’s butt is in the warm embrace of a cosy armchair in London; ‘courage in the face of adversity’ is rather cheap when there’s little adversity around and quite a few thousand miles divide between one’s neck and the nearest ISIS knife!

But one of the progressives’ biggest complaints was Netanyahu’s ‘racism’, his unforgivable assault on his fellow citizens of Arab ethnicity.

Let us first recount the facts: on the day of the Israeli elections (March 17), a visibly exhausted Netanyahu posted on Facebook a video with the following desperate appeal to his supporters:

“The right-wing government is in danger.  Arab voters are going to the polls in huge numbers.  Leftist organisations are bringing them in by bus.  Gentlemen, we do not have V15 [an allusion to the foreign-funded organisation that campaigned against Netanyahu].  We only have ‘Order 8’ [a hint to a situation of national emergency symbolised by the emergency mobilisation order]; we only have you.  Get out the vote, bring your friends and family, vote Likud so we can close the gap between us and the Labour Party…”

Of course, accusing a political opponent (or even a sector of Israel’s society) of foul play is nothing new in politics – and certainly not in Israeli politics: left wing parties often accuse the right of ‘extremism’; in previous elections, militant secularist parties had alleged that ‘ultra-Orthodox’ party Shas unethically ‘bribed’ voters by offering them amulets blessed by a famous rabbi…  For some reason, nobody cried ‘racism’ then.  Yet the reference to ‘Arab voters’ caused an audible global gasp.  Among the first to react was former Labour leader Shelly Yakhimovich, who wrote on Facebook

“…no Western leader would dare let such a racist text come out of his mouth.  Imagine if the prime minister or president of any democratic country would warn that his government is in danger because, for example, ‘black voters are going en-masse to the polls.’”

Others were quick to adopt the metaphor.  For instance, in the UK, Guardian columnist Jonathan Freedland.  Who, however, starts by ‘tweaking’ a bit Netanyahu’s words, to make them sound worse than they were:

“On election day itself, he sank lower still. In a Facebook video, he posed in front of a map of the Middle East, as if in a war room, and used the idiom of military conflict to warn that ‘Arab voters are advancing in large numbers towards voting places’ and that this was ‘a call-up order’ for Likud supporters to head to the polling stations.”

Of course, Netanyahu did not say “advancing”, he said “going”; and the ‘military conflict’ argument is more than a bit contrived.  But a true ‘progressive’ won’t let the truth stand in the way of a good argument, will he?  So Freedland continues:

“A prime minister was describing the democratic participation of one-fifth of the country he governs in the language of a military assault to be beaten back.
Imagine if a US president broadcast such a message, warning the white electorate that black voters were heading to the polls in ‘large numbers’.  Or if a European prime minister said: ‘Quick, the Jews are voting!’  This is the moral gutter into which Netanyahu plunged just to get elected.”

From the pages of the Time magazine, Joe Klein wails even louder:

“He won because he ran as a bigot. This is a sad reality: a great many Jews have come to regard Arabs as the rest of the world traditionally regarded Jews.”

Klein does acknowledge that

“They [those ‘great many Jews’] have had cause. There have been wars, indiscriminate rockets and brutal terrorist attacks. There has been overpowering anti-Jewish bigotry on the Arab side, plus loathsome genocidal statements from the Iranians and others.”

But Klein dismisses details like “overpowering anti-Jewish bigotry on the Arab side” and “genocidal statements” in a couple of lines, to make room for the real subject: vilifying Netanyahu and the Israeli society as a whole.  And, again in true ‘progressive’ style, not in the writers own name, but in that of unspecified ‘many’:

“There will be many – in the Muslim world, in Europe – who will say that the results are no surprise, that Israel has become a harsh, bigoted tyrant state.”

Now, I think that Arab Israelis should be equal citizens, with equal rights under the law and in practice; that they should be free to keep and develop their own cultural and linguistic identity, as a recognised and respected ethnic and religious minority within the Jewish State.

That is the goal.  But then, there is reality.  This is not an issue of ‘race’; Arabs are not a ‘race’ and neither are Jews.  They are two nations locked – for almost a century now – in a bitter (and, at least from the Jewish perspective, existential) conflict.  Arab Israelis are not comparable to African Americans; nor is their situation similar to that of European Jews.  Here’s a comparison that bears resemblance to reality: imagine that, at the peak of the Cold War, 20% of American citizenry would have been made up of ethnic Russians; imagine also that the elected representatives of these Russian Americans express complete sympathy for the Soviet Union.  Actually… you know what – you don’t have to imagine anything; because history leaves little room or need for imagination.

US poster instructing 'All Persons of Japanese
Ancestry' to prepare for deportation

Just two months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, President F.D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which enabled the rounding up of US citizens of Japanese ancestry and their forced ‘internment’ (read: detention) in 10 camps.  Most of these Japanese Americans were loyal citizens who'd never expressed support for Japan.  Yet ethnicity rendered them a perceived security risk.  So 120,000 men, women and children were ‘evacuated’ (read: deported) from their homes into makeshift ‘internment camps’.

Between 1939 and 1940, tens of thousands of Germans, Austrians and Italians were rounded up in Britain and ‘interned’.  Most of them languished in makeshift camps on the Isle of Man; others were deported to Canada and Australia.  Many were actually Jewish and therefore certainly did not harbour Nazi sympathies; but in the face of the perceived security situation, making such fine distinctions was seen as an unacceptable risk…

Both Klein (an American citizen) and Freedland (a British subject) must be familiar with these historical facts; yet both choose to ignore them in favour of the ‘juicier’ – but distinctly libelous – ‘race’ metaphor.

British internment camp on the Isle of Man

So was Netanyahu’s remark a good thing?  Well, feel free to say that it was ill-advised, divisive, stupid if you wish.  But was it ‘racist’?  How, exactly?  Netanyahu made absolutely no attempt to prevent Arab Israelis from voting; he just urged his own supporters to get the vote out.  He did not even criticise Arab Israelis for voting en-bloc along ethnic lines, or for voting against him – his barbs were directed not at Arabs, but at fellow Jews: ‘leftist organisations’ and the Labour Party, his political opponents.

And then there are ‘circumstances’; there always are in the Middle East.  Netanyahu—and with him many in Israel – perceived an unwarranted and blatant attempt by foreign governments to interfere in Israeli elections.  And it is already clear that those perceptions were far from baseless.  As I write these lines, a bi-partisan US Senate committee is investigating ‘donations’ made by the Obama Administration – allegedly in violation of US law – to anti-Netanyahu organisations.  And if Obama’s interference may ironically (but only ironically) be dubbed ‘a friendly intervention’, that irony dissipates when Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas also feels entitled to weigh in:

“We welcome the Joint [Arab] List and wish them much success. This is not interference [in Israel’s internal affairs] … it is our right as members of the same nation to [endorse] them.”

And it’s not just Mahmoud Abbas, either; Hamas has also urged Arab Israelis to vote for the Joint Arab List.  And why not?  The List includes the Islamic Movement in Israel, whose members (especially those belonging to the Northern Branch) are – unofficially but rather obviously – Hamas sympathisers.  Three Islamic Movement activists were elected this time and will sit as legislators in Israel’s Parliament.

Tweet by the 'military wing' of Hamas (the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades)
asking their supporters to vote for Ayman Odeh, leader of the Joint Arab List

They are not the only ones.  Another prominent member of the Joint Arab List, Haneen Zoabi, is notorious for her brazen abuse of Israeli democracy to provide ‘inside support’ for the country’s existential enemies.  Below are some of her statements.

About Hamas: “Hamas is not a terrorist organisation”.

On the ‘hope’ for Israeli Arabs: “I have a vision of our rights as indigenous people. We didn't migrate to Israel; it is Israel that migrated to us.”

About the Iranian nuclear programme: “… if the world doesn't prevent Israel from having nuclear weapons, why does it prevent others?”

On the two-state solution: “… it's unrealistic to have a real sovereign state in the West Bank and Gaza with Jerusalem as the capital. The more realistic solution is one state with full national equality for both national groups.”

On the concept of ‘Jewish State’: “When you agree with the 'Jewish state' idea, you necessarily agree with the idea of loyalty to this state. Rejecting the 'Jewish state' concept will block the road for anyone who demands our loyalty to such a state.”

About Israeli centre and right-wing party leaders: “A bunch of fascists pure and simple”.

Another notorious figure among Arab Israeli Members of Parliament is Dr. Ahmad Tibi.  Prior to becoming an Israeli legislator, Tibi had been a political adviser to PLO leader Yasser Arafat and an official representative of the Palestinian Authority at the 1998 Wye River negotiations.  Tibi, who has served in the Israeli Parliament continuously since 1999, supports the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, but also the right of Palestinian refugees and their descendants to ‘return’ to Israel; he called Israel’s self-definition as the Jewish State ‘racist’ and demanded that Jewish symbols be removed from the country’s flag and from the national anthem.

And it’s not just words and opinions, either.  In 2006, Arab Member of the Knesset Azmi Bishara conducted a series of telephone talks with Hizb’ullah operatives in Lebanon.  Alerted, Israeli security services intercepted conversations in which Bishara advised that attacking Israel with long-range missiles would “serve Hizbullah goals”.  Bishara proceeded to advise his interlocutors which locations in Israel should be targeted.  He was suspected of having received considerable amounts of money in return for his ‘advice’, which was given only days before the 2006 military confrontation between Hizb’ullah and Israel (a confrontation in which 44 Israeli civilians were killed by Hizb’ullah missiles).  When the investigation of his activities became public, Bishara used his diplomatic passport to flee the country – and was soon awarded Qatari citizenship.

In short, if some Jews in Israel view Arab Israeli parliamentarians with suspicion, that is not without reason.  Nor is it unreasonable for politicians like Netanyahu to view with displeasure the votes (and the voters) that got such ‘representatives’ elected.

Of course, a wise Prime Minister must choose well the words he uses to voice his displeasure.  But equally, honest people (even political opponents) must not selectively quote and should not seize on ill-chosen words to misrepresent positions.  After all, the same Netanyahu said:

“We must create conditions that will enable the full integration of graduates from the Arab sector in the labour market.  The Arab sector is a main growth engine for the Israeli economy, which has yet to be fully utilised, and I believe that their integration into the labour market will contribute not only to the Arab sector, but to the State of Israel as a whole.”

Again, it’s not just words.  In November 2014, Bloomberg reported:

“Only one in five of Israeli Arabs with a computer science degree works in the field, and a new government program is trying to change that. As part of a push to add 300,000 jobs in the Israeli Arab sector by 2020, the Ministry of Economy has budgeted more than 40 million shekels ($10.5 million) over the next three years to integrate one of the country’s fastest-growing populations into its most promising industry. […]The sum the government has earmarked for the technology jobs program is part of a total 1.2 billion shekels allotted to encourage Arab employment.”

Somehow, both the quote and the facts above have ‘mysteriously’ escaped the attention of Messrs. Freeland and Klein!  One can imagine them saying: 'Don't bother me with the facts, can't you see I'm busy?  I'm looking for evidence of racism!'

Lina Makhoul, an Arab Israeli singer.  In 2013, Lina won the Israeli
version of The Voice, after receiving most votes from the
'racist Israelis'

But the fact is that Jews and Arabs are in the midst of a long and bitter conflict.  The fact is that there are daily expressions of unequivocal anti-Semitism throughout the Arab world, which hardly elicit a bored shrug from pundits.  The fact is that, throughout the same Arab world, millennium-old Jewish communities were expelled or persecuted into non-existence.  The fact is that, despite all that, in Israel Arabs are citizens, equal under the law, endowed with the right to vote – even the right to elect existential enemies to the country’s Parliament.  The fact is that Arabs in the Jewish state are, to date, the only Arabs endowed with meaningful political rights.  The fact is that in the Jewish state there are Arab university professors, lawyers, ministers, consuls, Supreme Court judges…

Not that everything is peachy; there is much, much to improve.  While the law decrees equality of all citizens, in reality there is still inequality; there is discrimination; there is also racism.  But, how is Israel different in that respect from USA, UK, Sweden, etc. etc.?  If anything, given the existential threat they operate under, Israelis can claim extenuating circumstances unavailable to Americans, Brits or Swedes.

But all these facts are willfully ignored by that ilk of ‘progressives’.  When it comes to Israel – and only when it comes to Israel! – these holier-than-thou politicians and pundits become obsessed with ‘racism’.  They jump through incredible hoops to find racism, whether real or imaginary, in the Jewish state.  And not just that: racism in USA, UK or Sweden is usually described as a marginal phenomenon, harboured by a minority of the population; in contrast, any suspicion of racism in Israel is reflexively and maliciously exploited to malign Israeli society as a whole.

An anti-racism militant...

But why?  Because, folks,  for some people ‘exposing racist Jews’ is liberating; they really need the Jews to be guilty of racism, because it frees their conscience from the pangs – well-hidden but nagging nonetheless – caused by their own anti-Jewish prejudice.  If Jews are ‘racist’, then there is, you see, a good reason to dislike them.

As for the likes of Klein and Freedland… well, the poor things just want to be loved.  These assimilated Jews are like battered wives: the more abuse is flung at them, the more they blame themselves for causing it.