Soccer Dad

Anti-zionism ?= antisemitism

I started this by writing

Proving as reliable as a stopped watch, stark raving moonbat, Tikkun Olam can't get around his fixation with the occupation, but still finds the blanket boycott of Israeli academic institutions troubling. Having looked at the text of the boycott he also wonders if the language may be antisemitic.

While the introduction was unnecessarily snarky I was simply giving Tikun Olam credit for being bothered by the tone of the call for the boycott.

However he objected to my using the "antisemitic" when he meant that an aspect of the boycott seemed to be anti-Zionist.

I responded that I made the mistake because I equated anti-Zionism with antisemitism. So Tikun Olam responded

Pro-Israel propagandists have a hard time distinguishing bet. those opposed to Israel as a state and being opposed to Jews as a people or race (aka anti-Semitism). The distinction is crystal clear to most reasonable people. But if Israel can do no wrong & criticism of it is the worst sin imaginable, then there is no difference at least in their limited perspective.

Lest the author mischaracterize my views by claiming I AM an anti-Zionist let me preempt him by explaining that I am not. And if he didn't intend to make that claim I apologize. But so many others have done so in this type of situation I thought I'd get the potential canard out of the way.

And let me give him & his readers some more food for thought by pointing him to Gideon Levy's courageous column (linked in my post which is linked to my name here) about the boycott effort published in Haaretz. But I guess even Israelis who support Israel's best long-term interests by supporting the boycott can be anti-Semitic in the eyes of Soccer Dad.

First I'd like to quote a famous pro-Israel propogandist (h/t Elie's Expositions ) Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

I researched Dr. Martin Luther King's famous, oft-quoted "Letter to an Anti-Zionist Friend", only to discover, to my chagrin, that the letter is apparently a hoax, as confirmed by Camera and other sources.

However, although not actual, the letter is at least in tune with Dr. King's real personal beliefs regarding Jews and Israel; an "almost-fact", if you will. As he was positively confirmed to have said at a 1968 Harvard University appearance:

“When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews; you are talking anti-Semitism.”

While I'm flattered that Tikun Olam considers me a pro-Israel propagandist he is wrong that my failure to distinguish between anti-Zionism and antisemitism is a shortcoming of mine.

Perhaps it is because his definition of Zionism is deficient. Zionism means believing that there is a historical connection between Jews and Israel. Anti-Zionism - at the core of Palestinian nationalism - denies that connection. It means, further, that one believes that Jews alone among all people have no right to an independent country.

Simply put anti-Zionism denies 2000 years of Jewish history. If someone who denies 15 years of Jewish history (i.e. a Holocaust denier) is considered beyond the pale surely someone who denies so much more should be too.

I realize of course that those promoting anti-Zionism usually hide behind a mask of caring for Palestinian rights. But that's just putting a noble face on a vile belief. Anti-Zionists are revealed as phonies because the Palestinian rights they so loudly demand are nowhere in evident in the state currently being created by the Palestinians. If they truly cared about Palestinian rights, they'd be demanding a lot more of the Palestinians. But the only rights they want for the Palesitians are those that deny Israel its legitimacy. In other words just like the original antisemitism, the anti-Zionism of today uses another cause to make it respectable.

The term antisemitism was invented by a German, Wilhelm Marr. The term was one of pride for Marr. He hated Jews not because they believed in the wrong God, but because they really were inferior.

Antisemitism is indeed not only an unfortunate phenomenon, but by universal admission an unfortunate term. Its origins are clearly documented. It was coined in 1879 by the German journalist Wilhelm Marr, the author of a book called "The Victory of Judaism Over Germanism." In that year Marr, in step with the swelling tide of anti-Jewish feeling in Germany, founded his Bund der Antisemiten or "Antisemitic League." The term caught on immediately. In 1881 an "Antisemitic Petition" bearing 225,000 signatures was presented to Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, and by 1882 there was an official "Anti-Semitic Party" in Germany that won several seats in the Reichstag.

Why did the German word Antisemitismus so quickly replace the older Judenfeindschaft, or "Jew-hatred," and spread to other European languages as well? The answer lies in the growing propagation in late-19th-century Europe of a pseudo-Darwinian racial ideology that, dividing the world's population into various "biologically" definable groups of which the "Aryan" was deemed the most advanced and fittest to survive, relegated Jews and blacks to the bottom of the ladder. The problem was, however, that Jews could not be "scientifically" considered a separate race in themselves. After all, they originally came from the Middle East, where, like all other Middle Easterners, to whom they bore many resemblances, they had spoken a Semitic language — in their case, Hebrew. "Racially," therefore, they had to be considered "Semites," thus making anyone who opposed them or considered them inferior on racial rather than strictly religious grounds an "anti-Semite."

I do not intend to continue this conversation. To argue with an unthinking ideologue is like teaching a pig to sing.

If Tikun Olam is really an anti-Zionist, then let me say he is an antisemite. If he's simply sympathetic to anti-Zionists then he is sympathetic to antisemites.

If he believes that I believe that Israel can do no wrong he is mistaken. But it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to say that he believes that Israel can do no right. What amazes me is that after Syria, Hezbollah and the Palestinian Authority rejected Israeli peace overtures in 2000 that anyone still places the onus of peace making on Israel. (Yes I know each offer by Israel was inadequate for one reason or another. Actually they were all inadequate because the Arab world - an unprogressive place as any in the world - is still hostile to Israel's existence. Those making excuses for this hostility are excusing the reactionary in the name of progressive politics.)

Finally my hostility toward Tikun Olam isn't just a reaction to his intellectual laziness. Six months ago another blogger twisted my words. Tikun Olam in true progressive fashion cut and pasted that post into his own, and expressed his approval of the other person's judgment. I don't feel I owe him any apologies. He is an unpleasant moonbat through and through.

Technorati tags: antisemitism, anti-Zionism.