Monday, October 30, 2023

Today's News: using the Israel-Hamas War to promote antisemitism


I can appreciate the sincerity of those who support the Palestinians and oppose Netanyahu. But that sincerity is being weaponized now by those around the world who hate Jews. The Israel-Hamas War is providing an excuse for virulent and violent antisemitism.
Tonight, this happened: Berkley Law dean Erwin Chemerinsky - Nothing has prepared me for the antisemitism I see on college campuses now
I am a 70-year-old Jewish man, but never in my life have I seen or felt the antisemitism of the last few weeks....
On Friday, someone in my school posted on Instagram a picture of me with the caption, “Erwin Chemerinsky has taken an indefinite sabbatical from Berkeley Law to join the I.D.F.” Two weeks ago, at a town hall, a student told me that what would make her feel safe in the law school would be “to get rid of the Zionists.” I have heard several times that I have been called “part of a Zionist conspiracy,” which echoes of antisemitic tropes that have been expressed for centuries.
I was stunned when students across the country, including mine, immediately celebrated the Hamas terrorist attack in Israel on Oct. 7. Students for Justice in Palestine called the terror attack a “historic win” for the “Palestinian resistance.” A Columbia professor called the Hamas massacre “awesome” and a “stunning victory.” A Yale professor tweeted, “It’s been such an extraordinary day!” while calling Israel a “murderous, genocidal settler state.” A Chicago art professor posted a note reading, “Israelis are pigs. Savages. Very very bad people. Irredeemable excrement…. May they all rot in hell.” A UC Davis professor tweeted, “Zionist journalists … have houses w addresses, kids in school,” adding “they can fear their bosses, but they should fear us more.” There are, sadly, countless other examples....
if you listen to what is being said on college campuses now, some of the loudest voices are not advocating for a change in Israeli policies, but are calling for an end to Israel. Students regularly chant, “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” and “We don’t want no two states, we want all of 48,” referring to going back to 1948 before Israel existed.

Malcolm Nance - Ask Yourself, Are You Really for Palestine or Do You Just Hate Jews?
...I want to call attention to an issue that I see has been festering since October 7th. It is the sudden increase of support for the “Free Palestine” movement in the United States and Europe. It is undeniable that in the weeks after the massacre, Free Palestine-people power has dramatically flourished around the world. ...
...on its face, " Free Palestine! sounded like a good thing. The people of Palestine need some freedom and humanitarian champions. Their circumstances are terrible. They have had no representative governance or a way to exercise choice in elections for 17 years. The last government they elected was the HAMAS terrorist group. They stole all of the foreign aid to build tunnels, manufacture rockets, and deprive the people of an economy. Because of their terrorist attacks on Israel, Palestinians have had to live under virtual blockade by both Egypt to the south and Israel to the north and east. Non-governmental organizations such as the United Nations try to fill the gaps, but the terrorist group HAMAS determines what comes in and who gets what. So most Palestinian Gazans live in near abject poverty even though 50,000 Gazans worked daily in Israel. That is until the 10-7 massacre ended any future work prospects for Palestinians....
However, when studying the phrase “Free Palestine” what it means is a Palestine free from, and of, the presence of Jews. Numerous terrorist groups from the original Palestinian Liberation Organization to the Syrian-back Palestine Freedom Movement have popularized this slogan. It is a phrase that has been used for decades to mean the geographic borders of Israel must be freed by an armed religious war, called Jihad against the Jews. The result should be a genocide—the HAMAS charter to eliminate any religious, linguistic, and cultural vestiges as well. In my entire life, I have never heard any Israeli, save one or two Zionist extremists, claim that all Palestinians must be eliminated for Israel to have sovereignty. And my job was to listen to them very closely. ...
Unfortunately for everyone, the entire basis of the Free Palestine! movement is built on a foundation of hatred towards Jews, Judaism, and Zionism. To be honest, a lot of these people just hate Jews.

John Ibbitson - All of us could do with a check of the words we’re using
...Canada is changing, politically and demographically. Some who defend the rights of Palestinians use language that is plainly antisemitic. People are saying hateful things during pro-Palestinian demonstrations. For supporters of Israel and of Jews everywhere, the future darkens.
...People have taken to the streets in support of the rights of Palestinians. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. But when demonstrators and others call Israel an apartheid state, call Jews “settlers” or chant “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” – presumably of Jews – their actions cross the line.
Then-prime minister Stephen Harper, a Conservative, put it well in his address to Israel’s Knesset in January, 2014. Calling Israel an apartheid state, he said, “is the face of the new antisemitism. It targets the Jewish people by targeting Israel and attempts to make the old bigotry acceptable for a new generation.”
We can fault the actions of the Israeli government in the West Bank and Gaza; we must condemn Islamophobia every bit as fiercely as antisemitism. We can and should worry about innocent civilians put at risk by Israel’s determination to root out Hamas in Gaza, once and for all.
But let’s not forget what the Jews have lived through and died from. The right to resist is their right as well. When we pray for peace, let that peace be for a safe and secure Israel as well as for Palestinians. And those who ask us to reflect on the words we use should reflect on their own words as well.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's a shame more people on the Left don't share your opinions Cathie.

Purple library guy said...

It's certainly happening. And it's certainly a terrible thing.

But I think we should not ignore that racism against Palestinians in particular, and Arabs in general, is also being stoked. So far, and let's hope it stays that way, there have not been any actual antisemitic killings since the Hamas attack. There has, however, been at least one person of Palestinian descent murdered in the US for being Palestinian--a little boy, knifed to death by his mother's landlord in New York. As to other stuff, we don't hear about it much because anything short of murder doesn't usually make the news when the victims are not white, but it's clearly there at the best of times, let alone now. And, like antisemitism, this is also far from new. And for that matter, just as antisemitism once had nothing to do with Arabs but is nowadays often stoked by Arabs and pro-Arab groups, racism against Arabs and prejudice against Muslims once had nothing to do with Jews but is now often stoked by pro-Israeli Jewish groups and lobbyists.

So there's a lot of mirror images out there. The only thing that is clearly NOT a mirror image, is that Israel is occupying Palestinians, but there aren't any Palestinians occupying any Israelis.

Cap said...

Wow, who woulda thought that encouraging students and corporate drones to see things "through the lens" of social justice would lead people to take action against those coded as white colonial oppressors?

Hard to see how encouraging students to join racial and religious affinity groups could backfire. I mean there's nothing about global conflicts that would lead anyone to think it was
dangerous to teach kids to define themselves by the group into which they’re born—and how easily such a culture can lead to the worst forms of zero-sum conflict. Right? Sorry, I'll go back to "owning my whiteness."

BTW, quoting "Bloody Bill" Kristol is probably not a good thing. The last time people paid attention to him led to a war crime in which at least 200,000 Iraqi civilians died. I can see why he'd like to chalk up people's contempt for him as Jew-hatred.

Cathie from Canada said...

Yes, I am finding it somewhat uncomfortable to be in such company on this issue.
But I really cannot support the antisemitic anti-Jewish commentary we are seeing now across Europe and the Americas - of course neither could the anti-Muslim Islamophobia after 9-11 be justified.

e.a.f. said...

Haters just want to hate. They'll hate Jews and they'll hate Muslims. What ever group they
can "hate", they'll join the group., those same haters will hate Indigenous People, people from India, Asia, etc. they feel they have the right to do so and not much will change their minds.

Some have expressed surprise at the amount of anti Israeli, Jewish, we are seeing in the past week. I'm not. Its always been there, now people believe they can express in public what they've been saying privately.

Its quite funny to have some spew hate and then you turn around and say, , You're talking about me, actually my Grandfather and he is the only member of his family who did not go to the concentration camps. The back peddling they do is amazing.

It is one thing to "hate' a person who did something "wrong" to you. Its another whole thing when you hate an entire group of people based on their colour, religion, etc. How some can "hate" millions of people is beyond me.