It would be great if people on the Left would stop making opposition to the existence of a Jewish state a requirement for participation in progressive activism. Until then, I will continue to say that there is no place for us on the Left.
Come to the center, where there is space for moral complexity and absolutely no space for Jewish/Zionist conspiracy theories.
Because apparently we have failed in our responsibility to criticize Israel non-stop to please anons like you.
Having our entire worth judged by what we say about what happens in Israel is exhausting. I, for one, am not Israeli. I was spending Friday Night at a Passover Seder with my family. I didn’t spend much time online because my inbox was being filled with people accusing me of perpetrating “white genocide” and complaining about circumcision.
Do you want to know my opinion on what happened? EVERYONE was wrong. EVERYONE. Hamas was wrong for treating Palestinian lives so cheaply and mixing in militants with peaceful protestors in the hope of provoking outrage. Israel is wrong for using excessive force, yet again, and giving Hamas exactly what they wanted. It’s an ongoing, slowly unfurling disaster and I’ve now opened myself up to criticism from across the political spectrum to please you, oh Jew-judging anon.
Now the next time someone of your ethnicity half-a-world away does something horrible, I hope your inbox is flooded with asks questioning your response or lack-theoreof. It will be well deserved.
How to oppose Israel without being anti-Semitic: Stop demanding Jewish people as a whole answer for Israel’s actions.
then also don’t call people anti-semetic when critizising Israel
I’m ant-zionist, not anti-semetic
Well, that was completely unasked for…
Of course criticism of Israel is not always antisemitic, but if this is your reaction to this post I’m kinda inclined to ask you to unfollow me.
Did me or @tikkunolamorgtfo or @returnofthejudai make any such ridiculous statements? No. So either this is a stawman argument, or you are acting as if Jewish people are a collective hive-mind and because some Jewish people see all criticism of Israel as antisemitism, you feel you can address these two tumblr users in this denigrating way.
I won’t stand for it.
Well, first of all, nobody from the Netherlands or any country that has enabled non-Jews to systematically benefit from anti-Semitism really has the right to be either Zionist or anti-Zionist. It’s not your place to have an opinion on how some members of a minority group reacted to the oppression you inflicted on them, FULL STOP. Can you be critical of the country’s actions? Yes. Do you get an opinion about whether that country should exist or not? No. It’s not your place. You can’t benefit from centuries of Jewish oppression and still dictate how some Jewish people reacted in light of what was done to them.
Secondly, as said above, Jewish =/= Israeli. Just because some Jews reacted to your oppression one way, doesn’t mean all Jews agreed with their endeavours then, and doesn’t mean all Jews agree with Israel now. Even if you were entitled to an opinion on Zionism (and again, you’re not), you can’t be “ant-zionist-not-anti-semitic™” whilst simultaneously expecting all Jews to answer for the actions of a country in which they aren’t even citizens. You can’t claim to only be against a nation and not Jews in particular, and then turn around and demand that all Jews from every place on the globe pass a litmus test every time that nation does something. That’s not only being anti-Israel, that’s being anti-Semitic. You can’t have it both ways.
Thank you. Very well put.
People also need to get clear on what they mean by “anti-Zionist.” Do you mean that Israel should end its military occupation of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank and should stop allowing Israelis to build settlements in the West Bank? Great, I agree with you, but it’s extremely misleading to call that “anti-Zionism”; I suspect confused, well-meaning moderate Leftists have borrowed the term from people on the far Left, assuming that they’re reasonable and so that’s all they mean when they talk about opposing Israel. Do you mean that you think there should not be a Jewish state (as the extreme Leftists do)? Then see above: if you’re not Jewish, it’s not for you to say.
I really want to write something about how it’s not just that antisemitism is displayed differently from other forms of racism (Jews as the center of conspiracy theories subjugating non-Jews versus racial minorities as inferior non-humans). It’s also that the history of antisemitism has been both those in power and those at the bottom killing or forcing Jews out in pogroms. When there have been uprisings from those who have been victimized by those in power, Jews are painted as being central to control of the majority/establishment. That’s why you’ll find many Jews uncomfortable (at best) with the idea of the “proletariat” overturning the upper class. That has, historically and globally, ended up with us being forced out of homes or killed (see all of Eastern Europe). Because we are still the outsiders.
So, when anti-racist leaders and activists say that Jews should be concerned with “real antisemitism” (while conveniently never stating what would count as “real antisemitism”) or that antisemitism from the left is not as important as antisemitism on the right, they’re showing their complete ignorance of antisemitism and history and their refusal to listen to us. It’s not an either-or thing for us. And Jewish expulsion is not a relic of the past; it still occurs. And it’s only in America where there isn’t a deep history of Jewish expulsion.
There has been Jewish expulsion and governmentally sanctionedantisemitism in the United States, but even if there was no history of them? Do we really think that gentile immigrants to the US brought over all of their own history except for that little piece? Because that genuinely strains credulity.
Some of the problem with antisemitism on the Left is that it’s been reimported into the west by non-western immigrants and correspondents… who borrowed the conspiracy-theory tropes from the west (and/or Russia) in the first place. Apparently part of “listening to the oppressed” is taking on their misinformed views of minority groups who are less oppressed for the time being. And it’s totally OK for white people to be antisemitic if it’s in solidarity with brown people, right?
There are many valid critiques of Israel, the way Israel was founded, and Zionism itself. But “Jews are European colonizers who are really from Poland and Russia,” isn’t one of them, for four reasons:
– Roughly half of Israeli Jews aren’t even European, at all. They’re Levantine, Persian, Iraqi, Indian, North African, Ethiopian, etc.
– You can’t be a colonizer if your “colony” doesn’t have a mother country.
– Ashkenazim did spend 1000 years in Eastern/Central Europe, but we were never really considered European. In fact, we consistently faced discrimination and violence *because* we were seen as foreigners from the Middle East. By saying we’re “really European” you are foisting on us the identity of our oppressors.
– Ethnic Ashkenazim are not genetically Eastern/Central European. Roughly half of our DNA is from the Levant (the area where Israel and Palestine are) and the other half is from Southern Europe (like, Northern Italy). We have next to no Eastern/Central European admixture.
You can’t assign us an ethnicity just because you don’t like us. You can’t rewrite history or ignore science just because you don’t like us.
In case you are wondering, it’s shit like this that is why Jews have so much trouble feeling safe in liberal places.
For the record, Shaun King is claiming that he is not antisemitic for claiming that Louis Farrakhan isn’t antisemitic. Shaun King is claiming that he knows more about antisemitism than Jewish people and that when Jewish people tell you that you are being antisemitic, it’s correct to throw a fit about how you can’t possibly be antisemitic and refuse to even discuss it. And imply that the Jews should be more grateful to him in the process.
The ironic thing is that King would be the first to criticize someone else for doing this about another ism, but when it comes to antisemitism, he is specifically exempt.
Shaun King Pro-Tip: Absolve yourself of having to listen to Jewish people about what constitutes anti-Semitism by declaring that you are not anti-Semitic by your own standards, which are (recursive loop!) not informed at all by Jewish perceptions/thought.
Not saying Shaun King hates Jews, but he seems willing to ignore Jewish voices. It’s damn frustrating that non-Jews think they get to decide what is and isn’t antisemitism.
Exactly. I don’t think he hates Jewish people. I think he just doesn’t care about us in any way that is meaningful, and is obviously not willing to “fight for us.”
Louis Farrakhan heads the Nation of Islam, a group he has led since 1977 and that is based on a somewhat bizarre and fundamentally anti-white theology. Farrakhan is an antisemite who routinely accuses Jews of manipulating the U.S. government and controlling the levers of world power. Read
…and this is why I do not trust the Left. It’s clear who they care about and who they don’t. Leftist identity politics will never include us; the Left’s just-so story about skin color and modern European colonialism as the root of all oppression can’t make sense of us. Universalist humanism is the only principle that has ever worked for our liberation along with others’. There would be no “liberatory” politics or philosophy at all without the Enlightenment, whatever you want to say about the specific views on race and gender of Enlightenment thinkers. It’s the ideals of the Enlightenment at the heart of all liberatory and anti-oppression politics, but they haven’t been improved by all the group particularism (I blame Hegel, which is usually a safe move).
Iceland is poised to become the first European country to outlaw male circumcision amid signs that the ritual common to both Judaism and Islam may be a new battleground over religious freedom.
Listen, I get the concerns about safety, pain, and sexual sensitivity later in life. Ideally, religious communities would have this conversation and decide to delay circumcision until a later age, the way some Christian denominations delay baptism to an age when the recipient understands what it means. But what really steams me is:
the comparison to female genital mutilation with the appalling term “male genital mutilation.” The severity is not remotely comparable, and perhaps more importantly, the intention behind the practices are miles apart. Male circumcision is a mark of community membership, probably arose as a way to slow the spread of venereal disease, and is in no way intended to deprive men of sexual pleasure, even if (as a matter of fact) it does. Female genital mutilation is intended to control female sexuality by making sex painful.
the way opposition to circumcision on the American Left acts as a proxy for Left antisemitism. I wonder sometimes if those people even know that Muslims also circumcise, or if they think it’s just Jews; after all, they wouldn’t want to be accused of Islamophobia, but we all know that there’s no such thing as antisemitism anymore, right?
and now the way the issue is no doubt acting as a proxy for Islamophobia and antisemitism in Europe.
I was surprised to see being against circumcision as being linked to antisemitism. I’m more familiar with all the Christians who do it though from this I take it circumcision is more important to the Jewish and Muslim faiths.
Um, yeah. For Jews it symbolizes the covenant God made with Abraham; God commands Abraham to circumcise himself and his male descendants. I assume the significance is similar for Muslims, who regard themselves as descendants of Abraham’s first son Ishmael.
For most of recent European history, being uncircumcised was one of the ways Christian men distinguished themselves from the two most salient groups of outsiders: the Jews (the inside outsiders) and “the Turks” (the outside outsiders). Some Protestants started borrowing the practice for some reason, but not until pretty late, and only in the U.S., I think. For most Christians (especially Catholics), the commandment to circumcise, like most of the commandments in the Five Books of Moses, was overridden by the “new covenant” formed through Jesus’s self-sacrifice.
Iceland is poised to become the first European country to outlaw male circumcision amid signs that the ritual common to both Judaism and Islam may be a new battleground over religious freedom.
Listen, I get the concerns about safety, pain, and sexual sensitivity later in life. Ideally, religious communities would have this conversation and decide to delay circumcision until a later age, the way some Christian denominations delay baptism to an age when the recipient understands what it means. But what really steams me is:
the comparison to female genital mutilation with the appalling term “male genital mutilation.” The severity is not remotely comparable, and perhaps more importantly, the intention behind the practices are miles apart. Male circumcision is a mark of community membership, probably arose as a way to slow the spread of venereal disease, and is in no way intended to deprive men of sexual pleasure, even if (as a matter of fact) it does. Female genital mutilation is intended to control female sexuality by making sex painful.
the way opposition to circumcision on the American Left acts as a proxy for Left antisemitism. I wonder sometimes if those people even know that Muslims also circumcise, or if they think it’s just Jews; after all, they wouldn’t want to be accused of Islamophobia, but we all know that there’s no such thing as antisemitism anymore, right?
and now the way the issue is no doubt acting as a proxy for Islamophobia and antisemitism in Europe.
”Being queer, transgender, and Hispanic, I’ve had my share of slurs thrown at me.
My social group and volunteer work are where I find a safe place from the nonsense outside. If things got bad after my conversion, I had this community to turn to. Imagine my surprise, then, to find accusations and anger not from the usual suspects, but from my own progressive communities. To give a few choice examples:
1) My Catholic parents bought me a Star of David necklace to celebrate my conversion. I showed this to someone I had attended numerous LGBT events with. Their response was to call it “pro-apartheid jewelry” and said I was wearing “that star on the Jewish flag.”
2) For about a year, I catalogued footage of humanitarian disasters during the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for use by a humanitarian organization. I’m proud of that work. I mentioned my conversion to a few friends who knew me at the time. All immediately asked if I had changed my views on Israeli politics.
3) Whenever I mention my conversion to anyone in my larger social circle, the response is never congratulations. Four out of five times, I’m immediately grilled on my views regarding Israeli policy.
When I chose to convert, my rabbi made it very clear that conversion was just a ritual. “You’re already Jewish,” he told me. “This is confirmation of what already exists.” In some ways, that’s true. I was the same person when I entered the bet din as I was when I exited the mikveh. What has changed, though, is how others see me regardless of who or what I am.“
“It is always more painful to receive negativity from loved ones than from strangers. If these are the responses I should come to expect from more progressive communities, I’m starting to wonder if that harm is worth continuing to remain here.”
Welcome to the Center, because the Left has no home for us.
Anyway it’s 2018 and the Pro Palestinian movement still has a serious problem with antisemitism.
I consider myself “pro-Palestinian” in the sense that I favor the creation of a Palestinian state and the end to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. But a lot of people seem to think that the only way to be pro-Palestinian is to oppose the existence of any state of Israel. It’s a lot easier to oppose the existence of the state of Israel when you ignore the historical background to its formation, and it’s a lot easier to demonize your opponents when you portray them as only ever having been oppressors and deny that they ever had a history of oppression. But if you think you need to deny documented historical facts in order to make your case, your position is probably untenable.
Educating people about the Holocaust doesn’t have to mean ignoring or denying the ongoing oppression of Palestinians. And the assumption that it does reflects the simple-minded view (all too common on the far Left) that the world is divided cleanly into evil oppressors and the virtuous oppressed, and that having once been oppressed, a group can no longer be blamed for oppressing others (which can usually be called the “Colonialism Made Them Do It” argument). So if you’re determined to blame Group A (say, Israeli Jews) for oppressing Group B (Palestinian Arabs), you have to conclude, whatever the evidence says, that Group A has never been oppressed, at least not in recent enough history for it to Count. But while it may make the situation easier to digest for people committed to this black-and-white morality, this will simply lead to intractable conflict, because the two sides, pro-A and pro-B, do not agree on a shared reality; and the pro-B side is now committed to regarding Group A as incomprehensibly evil liars as well as oppressors, and their motivations become so inscrutable as to make real dialogue impossible.
Loki is the Philosopher King 