Israel | Multicultural Meanderings

When anti-Israel sentiment shades into anti-Semitism

2014/02/15 Leave a comment

Interesting commentary on the links between anti-Israel sentiment and antisemitism from a South African perspective by RW Johnson:

But the unfunny side of all this is when (perfectly acceptable) criticism of Israel is used to encourage entirely unacceptable anti-semitism. If we’re frank about it, this is always likely to happen in South Africa simply because our lines of ethnic and community cleavage have been so envenomed over such a long period. Given the sheer historical fact of anti-black, anti-white or anti-Indian feeling – and the fact that so many still believe that the expression of such feelings is legitimate – it is only a small extra step to get to anti-semitism.

So, whatever the “Boycott Israel” or “Israel Apartheid” lobbies say – and they have a right to exist and to their opinions – if they are honest they must admit that wherever they operate they leave a trail of anti-semitism in their wake. They may say that this is not their intent, but they cannot be unwitting that this is what happens.

This means that an ineluctable burden lies on all our Vice Chancellors and other university administrators. They just have to think about the history of academic institutions and intellectual life generally in this country to know how precious and indispensable the Jewish contribution has been. So that even if the prevention of anti-semitism wasn’t a sacred duty for intellectuals anywhere, we have our own particular South African reasons to say that this simply shall not pass.

Politicsweb – When anti-Israel sentiment shades into anti-Semitism – FEATURES.

Hussein Ibish writes on the BDS campaign, and the need to limit it to the occupied territories, both in fact and in rhetoric. He does not mention the overtones of antisemitism of BDS when the language includes Israel itself:

There is no question that Palestinians are onto a very good thing here, if they handle it right. And the Israelis clearly have a problem, as acknowledged by all of their sensible leaders. But, ironically, the biggest threat to this sudden and significant piece of leverage is the strident BDS rhetoric that makes pro-peace actions against settlements that are based squarely in international law look like anti-Israel initiatives that don’t square with the goals of either peace or a two-state solution.

If the rhetoric of strident BDS activists can be brought into line with the reality of anti-settlement boycotts, Palestinians could well acquire a significant and desperately needed new tool of leverage with Israel. If not, while demagogues may not be able to stop the growing international anti-settlement sentiment, they can certainly continue to provide apologists for the occupation with vital rhetorical ammunition for counterattack, and space for conflation and confusion, that they would and should otherwise be denied.

Harmful rhetoric can break the momentum of anti-settlement boycott efforts

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with BDS, Hussein Ibish, Israel, RW Johnson

Israel’s dilemma: Who can be an Israeli? – latimes.com

2014/01/28 Leave a comment

As the Canadian government prepares to introduce its revisions to the Citizenship Act, and in the wake of the Prime Minister’s trip to Israel, interesting commentary on the different classes of citizenship in Israel:

Some 60 years ago, the prescient Jewish thinker Simon Rawidowicz declared that it is not only Jews who dwell on the land by right, not sufferance, but also the Palestinian Arab population of Israel. That principle is one consistent with the vision of Israel’s Declaration of Independence, which calls for equal rights for all of the country’s citizens and is the bedrock of Israel’s claim to democracy.

It’s time to apply that standard uniformly. Simply put, citizenship should not be divided into classes. Israel must begin to construct a meaningful sense of Israeli identity and confer an equal stake in the well-being of the society on all those entitled to call themselves citizens. Rights of residence and freedom in personal status issues should be the same for all citizens, whether they are Jewish according to religious law, Jewish only by citizenship or non-Jewish.

Israel’s dilemma: Who can be an Israeli? – latimes.com.

Filed under Citizenship Tagged with Citizenship Act, Daniel Sokatch, David N. Myers, Israel

Jonathan Kay: Even some Zionists should find the Tories’ Israel zeal to be disturbingly manic | National Post

2014/01/23 Leave a comment

Interesting commentary by Jonathan Kay of the National Post on the messaging of PM Harper and the Conservative government. Ironically, it is possible that such unqualified support may, over time, undermine support for the Government’s activities and initiatives against antisemitism, given the relative silence of the important linkages with other forms of discrimination that impact on a wide range of communities in Canada:

Perhaps the best adjective I can use to describe the Conservatives’ zeal for Israel — and, indeed for all things Jewish — is manic. In interpersonal terms, it reminds me of a couple that professes their status as soul mates — loudly, and very repeatedly — as they bask in the bloom of first love (as opposed to the occasional bickering that characterizes the long, solid marriage between Israel and the United States). In my email inbox, I have lost count of the number of messages from Jason Kenney advertising his government’s support of Israel, its steadfast opposition to anti-Semitism, and its diligent observance of some anniversary or memorial day honouring a figure connected to Judaism. Many times, whole days pass in which this is the only type of message I get from his office. In each individual case, the spirit is admirable. But the overall effect comes across as a sort of monomania.

This fixation is beginning to express itself in somewhat reckless gestures. One of the members of Harper’s official delegation in Israel, for instance, is a Rabbi who has offered public support to Pamela Geller, an anti-Islamic conspiracy theorist. When taken to task for the Rabbi’s inclusion, the PMO shot back with the lazy, apparently baseless, and possibly libelous charge that the Muslim group raising the objections has “ties” to Hamas. This is the not the way a serious government responds to the legitimate concerns of its citizens.

The Harper government is to be lauded for the overall tendency of its foreign policy — which is to offer full-throated support for democratic nations that share our values. But where the Jewish state is concerned, our support is crossing the line into a sort of emotional mania. And it has never been on fuller display than this week, during the Prime Minister’s trip to Israel.

Jonathan Kay: Even some Zionists should find the Tories’ Israel zeal to be disturbingly manic | National Post.

Filed under Antisemitism, Hate crimes, Holocaust, Multiculturalism Tagged with conservative government, Israel, Jonathan Kay, PM Harper

Freedom of speech debate sparked by draft law to ban use of ‘Nazi’ in Israel | World news | theguardian.com

2014/01/21 Leave a comment

Interesting debate on freedom of speech and the proposed ban of “Nazi” in Israel. The US was often criticized in a variety of Holocaust and antisemitism fora for its invoking of the First Amendment as an explanation for not having hate speech laws unlike many countries in Europe and Canada. Always a fine line between freedom of speech and anti-hate speech, although generally better this be handled by social norms and discussion what is acceptable and what is not.

Freedom of speech debate sparked by draft law to ban use of ‘Nazi’ in Israel | World news | theguardian.com.

Filed under Antisemitism, Hate crimes, Multiculturalism Tagged with Hate speech, Israel

PM Harper on Antisemitism at the Knesset

2014/01/21 Leave a comment

Full text in link below, section on antisemitism is stronger restatement than in Minister Kenney’s pre-visit interview (Canada has “moral obligation” to support Israel, stop anti-Semitism: Jason Kenney):

And in the garden of such moral relativism, the seeds of much more sinister notions can be easily planted.

“And so we have witnessed, in recent years, the mutation of the old disease of anti-Semitism and the emergence of a new strain.

We all know about the old anti-Semitism.

It was crude and ignorant, and it led to the horrors of the death camps.

Of course, in many dark corners, it is still with us.

But, in much of the Western world, the old hatred has been translated into more sophisticated language for use in polite society.

People who would never say they hate and blame the Jews for their own failings or the problems of the world, instead declare their hatred of Israel and blame the only Jewish state for the problems of the Middle East.

As once Jewish businesses were boycotted, some civil-society leaders today call for a boycott of Israel.

On some campuses, intellectualized arguments against Israeli policies thinly mask the underlying realities, such as the shunning of Israeli academics and the harassment of Jewish students.

Most disgracefully of all, some openly call Israel an apartheid state.

Think about that.

Think about the twisted logic and outright malice behind that: a state, based on freedom, democracy and the rule of law, that was founded so Jews can flourish, as Jews, and seek shelter from the shadow of the worst racist experiment in history, that is condemned, and that condemnation is masked in the language of anti-racism.

It is nothing short of sickening.

But this is the face of the new anti-Semitism.

It targets the Jewish people by targeting Israel and attempts to make the old bigotry acceptable for a new generation.

Of course, criticism of Israeli government policy is not in and of itself necessarily anti-Semitic.

But what else can we call criticism that selectively condemns only the Jewish state and effectively denies its right to defend itself while systematically ignoring – or excusing – the violence and oppression all around it?

What else can we call it when, Israel is routinely targeted at the United Nations, and when Israel remains the only country to be the subject of a permanent agenda item at the regular sessions of its human rights council?

Read the full text of Harper’s historic speech to Israel’s Knesset – The Globe and Mail.

Filed under Antisemitism, Government, Multiculturalism Tagged with Israel, PM Harper

Canada has “moral obligation” to support Israel, stop anti-Semitism: Jason Kenney

2014/01/18 Leave a comment

While most observers would disagree with Minister Kenney’s characterization of the Canadian approach to the Mid-East as “balanced,” his interview well worth reading as an overview of the Canadian government’s position on Israel and antisemitism, on the eve of the PM-led delegation to Israel.

Kenney was instrumental in increasing the focus on antisemitism, through participation in a number of international fora, hosting the Ottawa Conference of the Inter-Parliamentary Coalition Combatting Antisemitism, joining the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance,withdrawing Canada from the follow-up to the Durban Anti-racism conference, and shifting general racism and discrimination programming to address specific forms such as antisemitism, among others.

While political parties always take into account the political advantage of positions (“shopping for votes”), this is more driven by beliefs, rather than electoral calculations (Stephen Harper’s deceased father a key influence in PM’s support for Israel).

Canada has “moral obligation” to support Israel, stop anti-Semitism: Jason Kenney.

Filed under Antisemitism, Holocaust, Multiculturalism, Religion Tagged with antisemitism, Inter-Parliamentary Coalition Combatting Antisemitism, Israel, jason kenney, Minister Kenney

Klug: Charges of anti-semitism and Israel-lobby conspiracy are an ‘acrimonious circle’ we must step outside

2013/11/29 Leave a comment

Commentary on the controversial lecture in some circles by Brian Klug, the Oxford philosophy scholar, and his efforts to distinguish between antisemitism and anti-Israel attitudes:

Then what is it? What do we mean when we say, in a particular case, that anti-Zionism is antisemitic? … the figure of the ‘Jew’ is projected onto Israel because Israel is a Jewish state (or onto Zionism because Zionism is a Jewish movement). Sometimes this is obvious to the naked eye. But what if we think it is hidden behind a mask? Then we must look between the lines; and if we are right we will uncover the same figure implicit in the text. Text or sub-text, the figure is still the figure of the ‘Jew’: that is the point. And there are ways of bringing subtexts to light. Suppose there is a group that presents itself as pro-Palestinian, but… we suspect that there is an antisemitic motive. We could look at the literature they produce, their history, their membership, their political connections, and so on. Then we are in a position to form a judgment, a judgment based on evidence.

There is no algorithm for doing this. The evidence might be insufficient. Moreover, we can be wrong. There might be room for argument by people of goodwill who weigh the evidence differently, some believing that antisemitism does lie between the lines, others not. But this would be a rational process of argument, rather than the vicious circle of acrimony that I described earlier. The decisive issue would be this: Does the group in question project the figure of the ‘Jew’ (directly or indirectly, openly or otherwise) onto Israel? Do they, so to speak, pin a yellow star on the place, like the badge that was pinned to [Andre] Kertész’s breast? Do they, in short, turn the Jewish state into the ‘Jewish’ state?

This has always been a hard distinction to develop criteria for, beyond the working definition that provides some guidance (i.e., European Fundamental Rights Agency Working Definition of Holocaust Denial and Distortion). People have been cautious in taking this to the next step with more specific criteria or examples from the “grey areas”.

Klug: Charges of anti-semitism and Israel-lobby conspiracy are an ‘acrimonious circle’ we must step outside.

Filed under Antisemitism, Multiculturalism Tagged with Brian Klug, Israel