Anti-Zionism and antisemitism

Ad Orientem: Anti-Zionism & Anti-Semitism recommends a post that addresses (from a Catholic perspective) the often blurred lines between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism: Vivificat!: When Anti-Zionism Turns Into Anti-Semitism:

I start with a statement that many will find counterintuitive and is this: since Zionism is a non-religious political movement belonging to the sphere of politics according to its own founders, to oppose Zionism a priori does not make one a Judaeophobe and anti-Semite of necessity. Said in other words, in theory, it is possible to be an anti-Zionist without hating Jews as a people or as a believers of their particular religion and at the same time, there is no obstacle in principle impeding an otherwise tolerant state to oppose Zionism and to protect the civil liberties of the Jewish people in their midst.

Unfortunately Ad Orientem: Anti-Zionism & Anti-Semitism also says "Please leave your comments at Vivificat!", and that is something I find difficult to do, because an Orthodox perspective on the matter must differ from a Catholic perspective, and operates with different asumptions. I think the assumptions of the Vivificat! article are flawed, not merely because they are Catholic, but because they are approaching it from a different end.

In my experience (which is no doubt fairly limited) the link between Anti-Zionism and antisemitism has been made by apologists for the government of the state of Istrael, who denounce any criticism of any policy of the government of the state of Israel (such as the bombing of Lebanon in 2006) as "antisemitic".

And if that is what "antisemitism" has come to mean, then I have no hesitation is saying that I think "antisemitism" is a thoroughly good thing.

I don't believe, however, that that "antisemitism" has come to mean that, or that it ought to mean that. I believfe that those who make propaganda for the government of the state of Israel have been twisting the meanings of words.

But that is what all warmongers do. Criticism of the Israeli bombing of Lebanon in 2006 have been described as "antisemitic" (on the grounds that "anti-Zionism is anti semitism"), just as critics of the US bombing of Iraq in 2003 and of Yugoslavia in 1999 have been described as "anti-American".

The Israel apologists also accuse those who criticise any policy of the government of the state of Israel of denying Israel the right to exist, as if the right to commit mayhem is an essential part of the right to exist.

There's no arguing with such people, and I've given up trying. I do not believe that criticising the policies or actions of the government of a state means that one denies that state's right to exist, but then, I don't believe that the right to exist includes the right to commit mayhem.

We had the same kind of attitudes in South Africa back in the 1960s. People who criticised the apartheid policy of the South African government were denounced by the government and its appologists as "anti-South African". But they believed that it was not possible for South Africa to exist without apartheid. They confused the government of the state with the state itself.

So much for my experience.

But one needs to go deeper and examine the roots of Zionism, which was a form of nationalism that arose in central Europe, and partly grew out of the romnatic movement in Germany. In this sense Zionism is akin to Hellenism, the Greek nationalism that arose from much the same roots. And there were other Balkan nationalism too, and others in Eastern Europe. Zionism, Hellenism and the other Balkan nationalisms wanted to establish "homelands" in territory under the rule of multinational empires. In most cases this was the Ottoman Empire, and in some cases the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Prussian Empire, or the Russian Empire (e.g. Polish nationalism). One could even say that in South Africa Afrikaner nationalism has similar philosophical roots.

In some ways, Zionism is to Judaism as Hellenism is to Orthodoxy. Just as there are those who say "Antizionism is antisemitism", there are those who say that "Hellenism is Orthodoxy and Orthodoxy is Hellenism". And there are others who have tried to coopt religion for that kind of nationalism. The Roman Catholic Church is not exempt from this -- Croatian nationalism is not all that disssimilar from Zionism either.

I've written about this elsewhere, in an article on Nationalism, violence and reconciliation.

Hamas condemns the Holocaust

This article is unlikely to get much coverage in the Western media.

clipped from commentisfree.guardian.co.uk We are not engaged in a religious conflict with Jews; this is a political struggle to free ourselves from occupation and oppression But it should be made clear that neither Hamas nor the Palestinian government in Gaza denies the Nazi Holocaust. The Holocaust was not only a crime against humanity but one of the most abhorrent crimes in modern history. We condemn it as we condemn every abuse of humanity and all forms of discrimination on the basis of religion, race, gender or nationality. And at the same time as we unreservedly condemn the crimes perpetrated by the Nazis against the Jews of Europe, we categorically reject the exploitation of the Holocaust by the Zionists to justify their crimes and harness international acceptance of the campaign of ethnic cleansing and subjection they have been waging against us

Hat-tip to The Western Confucian.

It's almost supernatural: The loathsome smearing of Israel's critics - Johann Hari, Commentators - The Independent

Why is it that when one criticises actions of the Israeli government, one is often called "anti-Semitic", or accused of "denying Israel's right to exist". Here's a journalist who has had such experiences.

Johann Hari: The loathsome smearing of Israel's critics - Johann Hari, Commentators - The Independent:

I have also reported from Gaza and the West Bank. Last week, I wrote an article that described how untreated sewage was being pumped from illegal Israeli settlements on to Palestinian land, contaminating their reservoirs. This isn't controversial. It has been documented by Friends of the Earth, and I have seen it with my own eyes.

The response? There was little attempt to dispute the facts I offered. Instead, some of the most high profile 'pro-Israel' writers and media monitoring groups – including Honest Reporting and Camera – said I an anti-Jewish bigot akin to Joseph Goebbels and Mahmoud Ahmadinejadh, while Melanie Phillips even linked the stabbing of two Jewish people in North London to articles like mine. Vast numbers of e-mails came flooding in calling for me to be sacked.

I had a Jewish correspondent in New York who was forever sending me copies of the same article by Martin Luther King, Anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism and vehemently denied any resemblance between the way Palestinians are treated by Israel and apartheid. Yet in many ways it is worse than apartheid. South Africa never tried to build a concrete wall around the "homelands", though they did accuse anyone who criticised apartheid (or any of its euphemisms, like "separate development") of being anti-South African, though the accusation that they "denied South Africa's right to exist" was implicit rather than explicit as in the case of the Israeli government apologists.

Let's face it, Zionism (in the sense of Jewish nationalism, rather than the African Independent Churches) comes from the same milieu that produced other Eastern European nationalisms that led, inter alia to the breakup of Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia, whose repercussions are still being felt today. In Africa, however, we call it tribalism rather than nationalism.

First they came for the Jews?

Red Star Coven: First they came for the Jews? has an interesting post about a historically misleading T-shirt, which misquotes the German pastor Martin Niemoller, speaking about resistance to Nazism, as saying "First they came for the Jews".

Red Star Coven: First they came for the Jews?: gives the first line of the original, followed by the English translation of the whole poem:

Als die Nazis die Kommunisten holten, habe ich geschwiegen; ich war ja kein Kommunist.

When the Nazis came for the communists, I remained silent; I was not a communist.

When they locked up the social democrats, I remained silent; I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists, I did not speak out; I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for the Jews, I remained silent; I wasn't a Jew.

When they came for me, there was no one left to speak out.

The makers of the T-shirt say that Niemoller's words "are testimony to the horrific consquences of abandoning human solidarity", and so they are, but by omitting all the groups other than the Jews they themselves dilute and weaken the message.

Niemoller's poem was often quoted in South Africa during the apartheid era, and in South Africa, too, they first came for the communists. The Suppression of Communism Act (1950) was one of the first pieces of legislation the Nationalist government passed to suppress political opposition after they came to power in 1948.

Then they came for the African Nationalists. The ANC and PAC were banned in 1960.

Then they came for the Liberals, and the members of the Liberal Party were picked off one by one until the party was forced to disband by the Prohibition of Improper Interference Act of 1968.

And the Jews?

Well, they never actually came for the Jews.

The National Party indulged in a lot of antisemitic rhetoric before 1948. When King George VI and his family visited South Africa in 1947, the Nationalist media suggested that he should rather visit the Jewish state that the British were developing in Palestine.

But the Nationalists came to power in 1948 in the same year that the state of Israel was formed, and as time went on there was increasing cooperation between the National Party regime and Israel in such things as the development of WMD.

Many Jews were active in opposition groups, including the Communist and Liberal Parties, but many of those had abandoned Judaism and were atheists or agnostics. Official Jewish organisations were often very muted in their criticism of apartheid, if they criticised at all. They weren't the only ones, of course. Many other religious bodies were equally muted in their criticism, and some were quite sycophantic in their support of the government. And Jews were as quick to abandon human solidarity as others, in spite of the Holocaust.

It is all very well to say "Never forget", but we do, especially when it is comfortable or convenient to do so.