Ian Welsh

The horizon is not so far as we can see, but as far as we can imagine

Tag: Anti-semitism

The End Of Presumptive Anti-Semitism

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On August 16, 2024

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Let’s start with something very simple: Israel is committing a genocide is Palestine, and the Israeli state was founded by terrorists and has always been based on ethnic cleansing.

After World War II there was a huge backlash against anti-semitism: prejudice against Jews, because we had seen it end in Germany’s gas chambers. The Zionists used that in their project to take another people’s land for their own: to stand against a Jewish country after the Holocaust seemed wrong.

But this is a case of kindergarten ethics: two wrongs not making a right. The Zionists (not the Jews, the Zionists) stole another people’s land and did so violently.

Then, especially from the 67 on, they engaged in vicious apartheid, and continued to steal the land and homes of Palestinians.

May story of Palestine

After the first Intifada they started routinely killing Palestinians, along with other atrocious behaviour.

I have stated and firmly believe that the current death toll from the Gaza war is in the hundreds of thousands. You can check out the methodology here. They are certainly nowhere near as low as the official death count of something over 40K.

This is the result of deliberate starvation; attacks on hospitals till there is only one left slightly operating; cutting off medicine and water; herding refugees into high density camps then attacking them; shutting off water, and policies intended to lead to plague. All of these policies are entirely deliberate and done with knowledge of their certain effect.

Now let’s talk about anti-semitism v.s. anti-Zionism.

One is ethnic hatred: “Jews are evil.” The other opposes a political movement, “there should be a Jewish apartheid State on land taken from other people.”

Zionism started with ethnic cleansing and has moved on to genocide. To not be anti-Zionist is to be, at best, a moral imbecile and more commonly is a depraved political stance. That stance starts at “I’m OK with genocide” and ends with “I support genocide.”

The next issue is that accusations of anti-semitism have been weaponized. I lost my patience when they were used to take out Corbyn, who was in no way anti-semitic and if there were a Holocaust would be one of the people willing to die to try and stop it. We’ve seen how every protest against the Gazan genocide has been labelled anti-semitic.

So ordinary, moral people, have stopped having a default belief in accusations of anti-semitism because the vast majority of such accusations are now attempts, in effect, to use the Holocaust and people’s repugnance at what led to it to justify ethnic cleansing and another genocide.

Further if there is a rise of anti-semitism in the world, it can be laid 99% percent at the feet of Israel, Zionism and those who cover for the Gaza genocide. When a country wrapping itself in the fig-leaf of “we’re the Jewish nation” undeniably commits a genocide then accuses those who protest of hating Jews and Judaism, some people will fail to make the Zionist/Jewish distinction. “They say they’re Jews, and that Judaism permits this, so  Judaism is bad,” such people will think.

The greatest enemy Jews and Judaism have and the greatest creator of anti-semitism in the world is Israel. And anyone and any nation supporting them is helping create more anti-semitism.

All ideologies aren’t bad, though all can go bad, but Zionism was born with ill will: it was always the project to steal the land and homes of another people.

To Sum Up

Zionism is an ideology which starts with ethnic cleansing as its base. Evil.

Judaism is a religion, which, like almost all religions, can be used to justify evil, but is pointed more towards the good. Hillel’s “Whatever is hateful and distasteful to you, do not do to your fellow man” would have prevented this entire sickening mess, and is far more representative of Judaism than the Zionist perversion.

Jews are an ethnic religious group (there are lots of secular Jews), who are no more intrinsically evil or good than any other group.

Anti-semitism is bad, like all racism.

Anti-Zionism is good, like all opposition to ethnic cleansing and genocide.

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The Revival Of Anti-Semitism By Israel And Its Defenders

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On May 30, 2024

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Anti-semitism has been over-stated and used as a political weapon for generations now. It became beyond the pale after World War II and has stayed that way in the West and America. This isn’t to say there weren’t anti-semites, but they were powerless and damn near meaningless.

But that is changing, and it is going to keep changing. The problem is the constant use of the charge of anti-semitism itself to ward of criticisms of mass-murder, child killing, and other crimes by Israel in Palestine.

Israel wraps itself in the cloak of “we are Jews” to justify its crimes.

The distinction between Israeli, Zionist and Jewish isn’t being blurred most dangerously by Israel’s enemies, but by Israel itself.

And the intellectual propaganda is making it worse.

Take this article from “Tablet Magizine”, which according to their “About US” is a “Jewish Magazine about the world.”

It’s a long screed saying that the Talmud has a different conception of morality than Christian morality. “So far, so good”, you might think if you weren’t aware of Israel’s recent actions.

Let’s read a large chunk to get a feel for the argument.

Speaking in terms of religious archetypes, a Jew and a Christian can come to vastly different conclusions about what the right thing to do is in a given situation, particularly where something as ugly as war is involved. What would Jesus do if a Hamas fighter held a Gazan Arab child up as a shield while firing? Hard to say for sure, but anyone who argues that a properly humane response is to die rather than to try to shoot around the child has ample basis in Christianity. The image of the Crucifixion may mean many things, but part of what it means is that accepting corporeal defeat in this world can be a path to God-like virtue and spiritual victory in the world of tomorrow. You will not hear Jesus mentioned when Western leaders speak on how important it is that Israel adhere to international laws of war, but the concept of the innocent civilian enshrined in these laws grew practically out of wars fought within Christendom during the last several hundred years.

More importantly, the very idea of the innocent civilian makes sense in an explicitly Christian context: “Render unto Caesar” plus the idea of a universal community of faith that transcends nationality means the conscience of the individual is paramount, and a person cannot so easily be classed as a targetable enemy “just because” of his membership in some nation waging war.

There is no propaganda from Israel’s enemies that is as dangerous to Jews as this is. If you read carefully, it basically says that there are only innocent civilians, even innocent children, if they are of the same faith as the nation fighting the war, especially if Jews feel that their existence as a people is threatened. (Leave aside, of course, that committing mass murder of women and children is likely to make Jews less safe, not more.)

I mean, this is Nazi anti-semitic level propaganda. There is nothing the Nazis said about Judaism that was worse than what this idiot has just said. “It’s OK to kill non-Jewish innocents, en-masse, if we think it protects Jews.”

And further on he spends time saying it’s what Yahweh wants. (Admitted, the God of the old Testament is often a bastard, but do you want to lean in to, embrace and announce to the world that this is what Judaism is?)

There is no world in which there is not going to be a massive upsurge in anti-semitism, because there is no world in which Israel is not using Jewish identity and religion to justify mass murder of children and women.

Further, the US empire is collapsing. It’s clear to everyone that it’s weak. It’s being kicked out of Africa. It can’t keep the sea lanes open against a bunch of Yemenis. The BRICS are creating a new trade currency, countries are using local currency for trade and China is dumping dollars by the container-ship load. Meanwhile NATO proxy forces in Ukraine are being whipped, the Israelis can’t conquer a small city and Europe is losing its industrial base.

Coming down off the high of being the hegemonic power is going to hurt like a multi-decade hangover, and Israel has been flaunting its control of American government (no, don’t waste my time or yours denying it.)

The only people who have done more damage to Jews than Israel and its defenders are the Nazis.

And that’s before we get to to the fact that they’re losing this war.

Like anyone sane, with the least pretense of morality, I abhor real anti-semitism, as opposed to the fake shit used as a political weapon.

But this is being done to Jews, by the country which wraps itself in its Judaism. It’s not Nazis leading charge to ramp up anti-semitism, it’s Jews who support Israel.

And, speaking personally, after the use of anti-semitism charges to take out Jeremy Corbyn and to whitewash a genocide, well, even I will have to assume that any charge of anti-semitism against anyone is prima-facie fake and just a political weapon.

That isn’t on me, it’s on those who have used charges of anti-semitism as a political weapon to justify mass murder and avoid humane welfare policies.

Again, Jews have no greater enemy in the world than Israel.

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Jews to Be a Nationality

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On December 11, 2019

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Sigh

President Trump will sign an executive order defining Judaism as a nationality, not just a religion, thus bolstering the Education Department’s efforts to stamp out “Boycott Israel” movements on college campuses

This is, of course, the standard anti-semitic smear of the 19th and 20th centuries: That Jews cannot be loyal to their country, because they are loyal to other Jews first. This was also said, by the way, of Catholics, because of the Pope, and it’s why John F. Kennedy becoming President as a Catholic was a big deal, and why he felt he had to explicitly state that he wouldn’t take orders from the Pope.

But all those Jews, and there are many, who have been so vehement in support of Israel that they say, in effect, that any criticism of Israel is criticism of Jews and therefore anti-semitic have also brought us here.

Trump just believes them. The interests of Jews and Israel are identical, to him. Just like they are to the Anti-Defamation League.

This is, of course, a horrible thing. It will lead, in time, to many people being sure that Jews are traitors to the US, because they put another country before the US. Traitors are generally considered to deserve death.

How did we get here?

Well, Hitler genocided millions of Jews–after he liquidated the socialists and trade unionists (he knew his real enemies). That scared and horrified many Jews, as it would anyone. So a bunch of them, in a land they didn’t control, used military force to throw out the then-current occupants (if they didn’t, then their opposition to Palestinians returning and taking their homes back is odd), and set up a religious ethnostate. Because if someone genocides your people, the best response is to ethnic cleanse another group. (Yeah, it meets the definition, sorry.)

At this point, the Israelis rule a lot of Palestinians and treat them terribly, in what many consider an apartheid system. Nelson Mandela always opposed the occupation, and his grandson has straight-up said Israel is an apartheid state.

So the sort of people who oppose injustice now want to treat Israel the way South Africa was treated when it was an apartheid state. But the Israeli lobby is extremely strong in the US (please don’t waste anyone’s time denying this), in large part because of the large numbers of American Jews who support Israel, even when it’s doing evil things. (The other large group supporting Israel is the evangelicals, who want Israel to put up the Temple so that the apocalypse can happen. Nice folks.)

So Trump is giving Israeli supporters and Jews (not the same group, always) what he thinks they want.

Perhaps the real problem is nationalism: the idea that every ethnic group deserves self-determination in the form of its own state. Perhaps that’s a bad idea, actually. (Nazism comes directly out of this: “Blood and land and folk.”) Perhaps ethnic states aren’t a good thing, because we shouldn’t base how we treat people on their ethnicity. This doesn’t mean everyone has to open their border to unlimited immigration or any thing silly, but it does mean people in their country should be treated equally.

That’s all that’s being asked for these days. Treat Palestinians equally. Make them citizens with equal rights. The two-state solution is dead, anyone looking at a map knows that. So, are you going to have a massive second-class population or actually be a genuinely democratic state?

The problem is that Israel can’t remain a religious ethnostate if it does that.

Meanwhile, putting Israel first, before Jews has, in effect, lead to a situation in the US which imperils Jews. In Britain it has lead to an entire campaign run on the idea that Corbyn is anti-semitic, when he’s spent his entire life fighting racism. Why? Because Corbyn is opposed to current Israeli policy towards Palestinians.

The funny thing is that both Israel and Jewish people would be safer and better off if they simply did the right thing and gave Palestinians citizenship.

But people who have been terribly abused too often think that abusing other people is the only way to be safe.

It’s sad, and I hope for everyone’s sake–especially the Jews and Palestinians–that this era of conflating Jewish and Israeli interests and of weaponizing charges of anti-semitism against people who oppose injustice, ends soon.

We’ll all, minus some settlers, be a lot better off.

(Or, to put it another way: Don’t be evil, K?)

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When Are You Guilty for the Crimes of Your Group

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On February 13, 2019

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One of the most stable political situations in the West is the use of charges of anti-semitism to attack those who criticize Israel.

Alexandria Occasio-Cortez, who championed Palestine in her primary run, was quickly broken by the pro-Israeli lobby, before she was even elected. The UK Labour party under Jeremy Corbyn has been under constant attack for “anti-semitism” because Corbyn is sympathetic to Palestinians. And recently, Representative Ilhan Omar suggested that donation from AIPAC are why Congress supports Israel.

(I don’t think that’s mostly correct. They fear AIPAC for far more than monetary reasons.)

Anyway, Ilhan was forced to apologize.

I tend to avoid the Israel-Palestine issue because it’s so dangerous. It’s the only issue I’ve ever been told to shut my mouth about or else (a donor strike, in that case).

But let’s state this simply: Israel is a religious-ethnic apartheid settler state, where the land and homes of much of the people who lived there were seized by force.

The problem is that criticism if Israel, a particularly evil state, is deliberately conflated with criticism of Jews, because Israel is an explicitly Jewish state.

So, here’s the formula:

Jews: Wonderful.

Israelis: Citizens of an apartheid, colonial state running the world’s largest open air prison. Any Israeli who opposes their government’s Palestinian policies is good in that regard.

Any Israeli who supports the government is evil. It’s not hard.

Let us extend this:

Germans: Wonderful.

Germans who supported the Nazis. Evil.

Germans who opposed the Nazis. Good.

Or:

Americans: Wonderful

Americans who supported the Iraq War: Evil.

Americans who opposed the Iraq War: Good.

(We could instead say, oh, Whites, or African Americans, or women, then move to Americans.)

People have responsibility exactly equal to their power. Nonetheless, if you support evil, you are culpable.

Most ethical situations are, in fact, black and white. We like to pretend they aren’t. Let’s take another situation:

Raising the price of Insulin 1000 percent in a few years: Evil.

People who do it? Mass murderers.

Correct punishment? Same as for any other murderers.

None of this is to say redemption is impossible. One of my friends supported the Iraq War. He quickly realized his mistake, reversed his position and has consistently opposed shitty American wars since then.

George Bush wouldn’t get off so easy: He had a lot of power, therefore his responsibility is much greater and as he’s no longer in power, he can no longer “make it up”.

The rule for redemption is as follows:

First stop doing evil. Apologize. Make it up. Those insulin execs: Drop the prices back down. Disgorge all the profits you made, with a priority to the families of those you killed. That’s all it takes.

But if you keep doing it or supporting it you are responsible or complicit.

This isn’t hard. Don’t do evil. Don’t support evil. If you do or support evil, then you are stained by that evil.

As for Israelis: It is not their fault they are Israelis. However, if they support their government’s policies against Palestinians, well, they’re evil.

The same is true of Jews, as it is of individuals belonging to identity-group you wish to name.

With respect to Israel, well, all it has to do is offer all Palestinians full citizenship and give them reparations equal to what was stolen. This will probably mean the end of Israel as an religious-ethnic state, but, umm, are religious ethnic states a good thing?

We all know what is required when we do wrong. Stop doing harm, apologize, and recompense the victim(s) as best one is able. (Yeah, this applies to black descendents of slavery in the US, though not so much as it does to the remaining Native Americans in the US, Canada, and elsewhere.)

While often what we should do as individuals isn’t true of states, for redemption and forgiveness, it is. Stop doing evil. Say sorry. Make it up as best one can.

But first stop doing evil.

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