Is this anti-semitism?

http://www.timesofisrael.com/paris-attacks-rooted-in-palestinian-plight-sweden-fm-says/

it's the same conspiracy by which the jews are responsible for all the ills of the world, just sub zionist/israel for jew and you're good to go

It is a rather myopic view, as though we're not on the tail end of a century of western intervention all over the middle east.

BTW there was an article in some Israeli or Jewish paper suggesting some tenuous Israel/Palestine connections to the Bataclan, but I haven't been sharing it because it seems tenuous and I didn't want to fuel the speculation on either the pro or anti-Israel side.

Leftist antisemitism today is the post-colonialism of fools. xp

I think it was (1) that there were some fundraisers there in the past for a pro-IDF org (though I don't think any in the past few years?), (2) that until recently the club was owned by someone Jewish and pro-Israel, and (3) that the Eagles of Death Metal refused to boycott Israel.

Salaita in the Nation:

Israel occupies imaginative in addition to physical geographies. Zionism therefore reproduces with great efficiency the cultures of recrimination in North America. It is necessary to connect this Zionist presence with the suppression of all radical ideas.

Palestinian human-rights activism, which often challenges Zionism, is firmly located in spaces of the political left, particularly among minority communities. Support for Israel, in contrast, exists in sites of authority, often an omnipresent but invisible accoutrement to swivel chairs, mineral water, and mahogany tables.

It’s not merely ideological Zionism that leads upper administration to support Israel—or, to be more precise, to entertain and normalize Zionist activism. Palestine solidarity represents democratization, grassroots organizing, anti-racism, and decolonization; it’s deeply involved in ethnic studies and other subversive fields. An upper administrator needn’t be amenable to West Bank settlement to understand the value of Zionism in his line of work.

Zionism is part and parcel of unilateral administrative power. It lends itself to top-down decision-making, to suppression of anti-neoliberal activism, to restrictions on speech, to colonial governance, to corporatization and counterrevolution—in other words, Zionism behaves in universities precisely as it does in various geopolitical systems.

Yeah, reading that, I'm pretty sure Steven Salaita is antisemitic. It's definitely possible to think the State of Israel is a war-criming apartheid state without basically alleging a "Zionist conspiracy" in so many words.

the manichaean dichotomization of the world (everything in the world, all things good/bad) in terms of zionism
no point engaging with this style of "argument"
swivel chairs, mineral water, mahogany tables

I thought he was anti-Semitic from the beginning based on the tweet: "Zionists: transforming "antisemitism" from something horrible into something honorable since 1948."

I *understand what he (thinks) he meant*, but way he chose to word it betrays that.

"Radical Islam: transforming 'Islamophobia' from something horrible to something honorable since [pick date]"

I keep winding up watching youtube videos and reading youtube comments that I should probably just not be watching at all, but I'm noticing a kind of rhetoric that I'm starting to get very uncomfortable with although I once thought it was harmless -- "I'm not anti-semitic, I'm anti-zionist." I used to feel like, "yeah, that's fair, of course you can be against the idea of a jewish state without being anti-jewish," and I still feel that way, except that now I see that the line is often followed with fairly scary stuff about how it's the "zionists" who control the banks, the money supply, force the US to fight wars, drink blood, whatever. I haven't changed my mind about criticism of israel or anything, but I think that the attempt to draw up a categorical bad guy is always a dangerous way to go.

― pass the duchy pon the left hand side (musical duke) (Hurting 2), Sunday, October 30, 2011 11:18 PM (4 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i feel like all the assumptions made in the essay that mordy is quoting are terrible and wrong, beyond even the anti-semitic base of the argument

It's a very bizarre way of looking at the world to imagine that the origin of all...I don't even know what he's identifying, authoritarianism? People having power? -- that all of that emanates from a particular political/nationalist movement originating in the late 19th Century? nb I am sitting in a swivel chair.

his alignment of certain values with palestinian activism is just so suspect to me but also the smug, 'look at me freaking out the squares' self-satisfaction of it is totally gross.

As an Eno fan for life, I'm not sure what to make of his current obsession with Palestine: http://www.vice.com/read/musicians-should-boycott-israel-until-palestinians-are-free-1117

perhaps not a fan of apartheid

I keep winding up watching youtube videos and reading youtube comments that I should probably just not be watching at all, but I'm noticing a kind of rhetoric that I'm starting to get very uncomfortable with although I once thought it was harmless -- "I'm not anti-semitic, I'm anti-zionist." I used to feel like, "yeah, that's fair, of course you can be against the idea of a jewish state without being anti-jewish," and I still feel that way, except that now I see that the line is often followed with fairly scary stuff about how it's the "zionists" who control the banks, the money supply, force the US to fight wars, drink blood, whatever. I haven't changed my mind about criticism of israel or anything, but I think that the attempt to draw up a categorical bad guy is always a dangerous way to go.

yeah one of my 'this is probably nonsense' triggers is a writer throwing in the word 'zionist' into a sentence when it's not necessary...which almost always. 'z' words are exotic and harsh in english, I don't think that's a small part of this phenomenon actually.

also leads so nicely into zionazi - i mean the 'n' is right there already in the word and did you know they both have to do with jews?

lots of clarifying thought on the issue of anti-zionism v anti-semitism in that engage piece i linked to above from someone who is very left-wing on the issue of palestine but can clearly see the places where it bleeds into jew hate.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/22/brussels-faces-week-on-lockdown-as-hunt-for-terror-cell-intensifies

Geens, the justice minister, said that the Paris attacks had shown that the profile of potential targets had changed. “It’s no longer synagogues or the Jewish museums or police stations, it’s mass gatherings and public places,” he said.

my feeling is that there's an assumption in the west that if Jews don't have it coming to them, it certainly is not surprising when they're targeted by terrorism. this was also the tenor i felt of kerry's maligned comments about how charlie hebdo was understandable compared to the recent attacks. even if you don't believe that it's right to target Jews with terror, isn't this presumption that it should be expected (and on some level therefore more tolerated than attacks on the general population) also implicitly anti-semitic? you see this as well when it comes to civilians killed in israel - maybe they don't deserve to be killed but it's certainly understandable. whereas 9/11 or the paris attacks are more incomprehensible violence.

Could be. I couldn't imagine a British politician making the same statement tbh.

Corbyn maybe?

I knew you'd say that. I should have said Minister not politician, but, no, I don't think Corbyn would have said it.

it's certainly more predictable, since jews have been targets of terrorism by middle-eastern actors since... well since well before the founding of israel actually. but especially since the 1970s.

re salaita, he is a stupid asshole (i think that’s the precise scholarly term)

(i wonder what he thinks of the profoundly authoritarian nature of palestinian politics, whether it’s hamas or the PLO/PA; so is it only pro-palestinian activism outside of palestine that’s inherently anti-authoritarian. also his comments are profoundly ahistorical but given that there is scarcely an ounce of good sense in them it seems nitpicky to criticize for that.)

the whole U of Illinois thing was such clusterfuck. the school did very very wrong by salaita, and the way it was handled (and brushed off with a settlment that’s much less than that what they’d be paying salaita for a half-decade of teaching) sets a bad precedent

but salaita is a terrible scholar and has no business teaching in a native american studies program

xposts

is being less shocked by anti-semitism bc of how common it is anti-semitic? the differing resonances that different deaths/violence have in the public consciousness depends on how comprehensible they are within our framework of expectations about how the world works. the framework absolutely cheapens and deadens the impact of a lot of violence but it's hard to blame individuals for that

i feel like it inevitably tolerates a status quo where jews are killed and it doesn't necessarily require the same response you'd have to non-jews being killed. i keep thinking about how the toulouse shootings seemed to not even be considered an attack on france bc the primary targets were jews, or where i see references to charlie hebdo but almost none to the koshermart. i don't know that i blame individuals but i worry about the consequences of this kind of expectation.

i feel like it inevitably tolerates a status quo where jews are killed and it doesn't necessarily require the same response you'd have to non-jews being killed. i keep thinking about how the toulouse shootings seemed to not even be considered an attack on france bc the primary targets were jews, or where i see references to charlie hebdo but almost none to the koshermart. i don't know that i blame individuals but i worry about the consequences of this kind of expectation.

― Mordy, Tuesday, November 24, 2015 12:56 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it depends on who is talking, i guess. but i think you're basically right.

i agree that in many quarters the terrorism wasn't seen as an "attack on france" until it targeted non-jews

even people who should know better

a book store i've visited a few times in my life -- whenever these events happen i'm always like trying to figure out if this is just some crazy person who not emblematic of larger/broader cultural shifts + sways or whether it's indicative of some more terrible and widespread problem. tbh he sounds like a nut to me (and the bizarre "I'm a Muslim" declaration suggests some kind of disaffection in his interior landscape where he's performing some action he believes he's supposed to do). but isn't that really the case with all of these hate crimes - dylan roof or the fort hood shooter or the recent planned parenthood shooter - they're all unwell people (probably by definition - hate seems to me like a sickness, something akin to schizophrenia in terms of false belief, unclear or confused thinking, etc) and also they are products of the environment and community they live in. anyway i don't know what the answer is; i'm not like packing my bags or anything. but it's still concerning.

yikes. i've been to that store, i think.

it shouldn't matter when these things hit close to home - a bookstore i've been to numerous times, or when a chabad institution is attacked (in toulouse or mumbai). i remember there was an israeli victim of terror last year that shared a [somewhat uncommon] name with my daughter and it hit me pretty hard. but inevitably it makes me feel a tightness in my chest.

(and on the other hand when they found 'yechi hamelech' graffiti at the duma arson site i felt particularly ashamed :/ )

down the block from me just now :/ her kids go to school w/ mine

http://i63.tinypic.com/14np65j.png

That's so fucked up. :(

we're going to her son's upsherin tmmrw so hopefully i'll find out if they found the guy (and idk do they arrest a guy for something like that?)

P sure that's terroristic threats, not protected speech

supposedly a video of the police talking to the guy. someone in the comments say they didn't end up arresting him:
https://www.facebook.com/shadchan/videos/10153159662721389/

http://fathomjournal.org/the-left-and-the-jews-time-for-a-rethink/

i imagine the way i feel about these developments among the left are the way a lot of moderate US conservatives have felt about watching their party descend into psychosis

Or the way almost everyone feel about Benjamin Netanyahu...

(I tried to find a non-confrontational way to phrase this, but really, this is what it's about. Bibi seems insane. His supporters seem insane. As insane as leftist anti-semitists)

that's a strange response imo to that article as if to say that Bibi's behavior has any link to what seems like collective psychotic bigotry on the part of very vocal and important institutions on the left.

to borrow a popular anti Israel trope - is that really the company you want to compare the left to?

I tried to find a non-confrontational way to phrase this

How hard?

but really, this is what it's about.

RLY

i felt that article was somewhat weak, in that it held up some obviously terrible ideas ("ISIS is run by the Israeli secret service") alongside some ideas that maybe deserve more unpacking ("Understanding Hamas and Hezbollah as social movements that are progressive, that are on the left, that are part of a global left, is extremely important") alongside some that may be wrong but are not obviously wrong ("Israel is a ‘settler-colonialist state’") and just let them all hang there without rebutting one or another, as if to argue through guilt-by-association

I somewhat agree, although some of those arguments depend on context. There is definitely a tendency to speak about Israel in a hyperbolic way that seems to slightly bleed over into antisemitic stereotypes. E g the Salaita tweet about Netanyahu wanting a necklace strung with Palestinian babies heads or something to that effect.

well yeah i agree, there is a lot of stuff like that and it is totally indefensible

But yeah there are a wide range of opinions about Israel on the left and not all of the negative ones coincide with antisemitism of course. And it did feel like the author was using the more egregious ones to avoid the more difficult ones to address.