https://socialistaction.org/2018/11/10/does-criticism-of-israel-equal-anti-semitism/
Does criticism of Israel equal anti-Semitism?
/ 21 hours ago
Nov. 2018 BDS Phil (Joe Petite)
Palestine solidarity activists picket the Philadelphia Orchestra,
protesting its June 2018 tour to Israel. (Photo by Joe Piette)
By STEVE XAVIER
The aftermath of the Tree of Life synagogue shooting has focused renewed
attention on anti-Semitism. Claims that a shadowy group of sinister
figures are behind world events—which appear in conspiracy theories
about financier George Soros, the 9/11 tragedy, and elsewhere—have
dangerous implications.
These conspiracy theories have deep roots on the far right, where
concocted stories involving the Rothschild banking family and Soros
(both Jewish) are commonplace. Marxists reject prejudice against Jewish
people and oppose any attempt to target Jewish communities.
Recently, allegations from Trump and other GOP politicians that Soros, a
major Democratic Party donor, is a sinister force behind the migrant
caravan going through Mexico has brought anti-Semitism close to the
mainstream. In his speeches, Trump has also spoken of the threat posed
by “globalists,” a common code word on the far right for Jews. Trump has
even attacked the ultra-conservative Koch brothers as “globalists.”
Rather than tackling the real sources of bigotry against Jews, the
capitalist media have repeated claims that anti-Semitism is a problem on
“both the right and left.” Democratic politicians like Senator and
presidential hopeful Corey Booker have declared the Boycott, Divestment,
and Sanctions (BDS) movement to be “anti-Jewish.” On campuses, there are
moves to marginalize pro-Palestinian activism with attacks on the free
speech of BDS activists and Students for Justice in Palestine.
On Oct. 29, The New York Times wrote, “Activists on the left—sometimes
including young Jews—call for boycotts and divestments from companies
doing business in Israel, or the occupied territories. Mainstream Jewish
groups are now branding such campaigns as anti-Semitism. Where to draw
the line between criticism of Israel and anti-Semitism is a growing
source of friction in many colleges and state capitals.”
The Washington Post went further in an Op Ed article that claimed that
left-wing anti-Semitism is the major problem: “It [anti-Semitism] lived
on in the [Soviet] communist attacks on the conspiracy of Zionists with
‘American monopoly capitalists,’ during the anti-cosmopolitan purges of
the early 1950s; in the New Left’s denunciation of a supposedly powerful
Israel working as a tool of American imperialism in the aftermath of the
Six-Day War of 1967; in the Palestine Liberation Organization’s lies
that Israel was an apartheid state that practiced deliberate mass murder.”
Problematic notions have even crept into the fringes of the left and
antiwar movements. In the antiwar movement, 9-11 “truth” claims can take
on an anti-Jewish coloration when they assert that Israel was behind the
terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers. In the Green Party, 9-11 truthers
and anti-vaccination “activists” play a destructive role. Recently, the
Green Party in Ohio had to disavow its Congressional candidate, Jim
Condit Jr., after his anti-Jewish statements came to light. In a recent
radio ad, Condit excoriated “billionaire communist Jews.”
Former Green Party presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney, for years a
stalwart of Palestine solidarity activism, has more recently appeared at
conferences organized by white nationalists and was called out by
activists for posting a blatantly anti-Semitic meme on Facebook.
Marxists are clear that such hatred is not welcome on the left, echoing
the words of German socialist August Bebel, “Anti-Semitism is the
socialism of fools.” But at the same time, we reject the notion that
criticism of the Israeli apartheid state, or the colonial-settler
ideology of Zionism, makes supporters of Palestinian rights and
self-determination anti-Jewish. In fact, it’s true that many of the
activists in the pro-Palestine movement are anti-Zionist Jews.
When anti-Semitism rears its head in the movement, socialists do not
shrink from fighting against those backward ideas. We do this in the
same way that we stand up to racism and sexism in the unions. A
responsibility of revolutionary leadership is to take a strong stand
against reactionary ideas wherever they present themselves. This means
standing against manifestations of anti-Semitism in the movement.
The BDS tactic has made it possible for activists to expose the
connections between apartheid Israel and government entities,
educational institutions, and corporations. By threatening the base of
financial support for the occupation, including settlement building, the
BDS movement has undermined support for Israeli policy in U.S. society
and internationally.
It is this threat to the legitimacy of the Israeli state that drives the
attempts to discredit the BDS movement. Zionist organizations and
bourgeois politicians who try to conflate anti-Zionism with
anti-Semitism actually reinforce the growth of anti-Jewish thinking by
blurring the lines between the legitimate criticism of Israeli policy
and actual hate speech.
Ironically, some far-right politicians have embraced Israel. This
includes white nationalist Richard Spencer, who has stated that Israel
is the model for the “white ethno-state” he wants to build here in the
U.S. Also, the recently elected president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro,
who is known for his racist, sexist and homophobic speech, expressed his
intent to move the Brazilian embassy to Jerusalem and was considering
shutting down the Palestinian embassy in Brasilia. Bolsonaro’s sons,
members of his far-right party, have been photographed wearing Israeli
Defense Force and Mossad t-shirts to demonstrate their support of Israel.
In a period when the Palestine Solidarity movement is under attack on
campuses and in communities, it is imperative that we defend the right
of activists to organize and speak. At the same time, we mobilize in
solidarity with those communities targeted by the far right and their
hateful speech and actions. Revolutionaries always stand with the oppressed.
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November 10, 2018 in Fascism / Far Right, Palestine.
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_________________________________________________________________
Isaac Asimov
“Don't you believe in flying saucers, they ask me? Don't you believe in
telepathy? — in ancient astronauts? — in the Bermuda triangle? — in life after
death?
No, I reply. No, no, no, no, and again no.
One person recently, goaded into desperation by the litany of unrelieved negation, burst
out "Don't you believe in anything?"
Yes", I said. "I believe in evidence. I believe in observation, measurement,
and reasoning, confirmed by independent observers. I'll believe anything, no matter how
wild and ridiculous, if there is evidence for it. The wilder and more ridiculous
something is, however, the firmer and more solid the evidence will have to be.”
― Isaac Asimov
