What Do AntiZionists Want?

Yesterday, the New York Times ran this front-page headline: “Anti-Zionism is Not the Same as Anti-Semitism.”  

Here at Framing Israel we’re interested in language and rhetoric, so the claims of Times staff opinion writer, Michelle Goldberg demand our attention. She says, “The conflation of antisemitism with antiZionism is a rhetorical slight of hand that depends on treating Israel as the embodiment of the Jewish people everywhere.”  This statement seems to be slight of hand, itself.

I would understand saying Israel embodies a 2000-year longing of Jews to return to their roots.  Or that Israel embodies the modern Zionist hope for a home safe from antisemitism.  I do understand that Goldberg objects to such Zionist themes and that she feels somehow implicated in what the Israeli government does.

At the same time, she tells us that BDS advocacy by new members of the US Congress is something that “American Jews have nothing to fear...” This appears right below the headline, in fact.

Goldberg writes that while some criticisms of Israel can be antisemitic, one can object to “Jewish ethno-nationalism without being a bigot.”

But “entho-national” doesn’t describe Israel, which is a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, democratic Jewish state.  And antiZionism is not hard to recognize.  It isn’t criticism of Israel.

Rather, antiZionists believe there should no majority Jewish country between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.

There can be a Palestinian majority country, or all the many Muslim majority countries, or a Japanese majority country; in fact, there can be all of the 195 countries of the world except one.

BDS advocates for the elimination of the world’s only Jewish majority state.

In earlier eras, antisemitism showed up as hatred of the Jewish religion and at other times as hatred of the Jewish people.  Although these forms of Jew hatred still exist, more often antisemitism now appears as hatred of the Jewish state.

Singling out Jews for special harm fits the definition of antisemitism so well that even the New York Times front page can’t make this reality go away.

UC Regents Condemn anti-Semitic anti-Zionism: Media Disapprove

   
                                                       published at Honest Reporting

A “landmark” first step was taken by the University of California system this week to combat anti-Semitism on campus. The Regents’ statement of principles condemns “anti-Semitic forms of anti-Zionism” and declares that such behaviors “have no place in the University of California.”

“There is absolutely no doubt that anti-Zionism is the driving force behind the alarming rise in anti-Semitism at UC and at schools across the country” says Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, the UC Santa Cruz faculty member who heads the AMCHA Initiative that tracks on-campus anti-Semitism.

But much of mainstream reporting on the Regents’ statement erases this link between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. Headlines refer to anti-Semitism but not to anti-Zionism and reporting suggests that there is no real need for the Regents’ statement or that free speech is at risk.

The LA Times made their position explicit in an editorial: “In reality, it is perfectly possible to oppose Zionism—or advocate for a secular state in what is now Israel and the West Bank—without being anti-Jewish.”

Leaving aside that Jewish Israel is predominately secular and is surrounded by Muslim counties that unlike Israel do not have religious freedom, and leaving aside the secular Zionist founders of the Jewish State, I find most disturbing the phrase “in what is now Israel and the West Bank.”

Somehow the LA Times, the largest newspaper in the city that has the second largest Jewish population in the US, whose editorial board defines anti-Zionism as “opposition to the idea of a Jewish State,” cannot understand that college students report they are ostracized and harassed because they take the minority view (on campus) that the world’s only Jewish state should continue to exist.  Students are experiencing old fashioned anti-Semitism to such a degree that even the Regents of UC, who have many other things to worry about, have noticed.

I’ll admit that I struggle to understand what forms of anti-Zionism are not anti-Semitic. The LA Times’ definition that anti-Zionism opposes even the idea of a Jewish state suggests that anti-Zionism is necessarily anti-Jewish. However, anti-Zionism is also its own form of bigotry. The push for legalistic language to protect Jewish students arises from the reality that anti-Zionism is quite acceptable on campus while, at the same time, Jews are not a “protected minority.”

The hundreds of anti-Semitic incidents catalogued by AMCHA are connected to the widely heard campus position that Israel should not exist as a Jewish state and to demonizing Zionism. Tellingly, Associated Press reports that ran in many California papers including the San Francisco Chronicle contrasted “Israeli supporters” with “backers of Palestinian rights,” although Zionism is the concept of Jewish rights to self-determination. No report that I could find considered pro-Israel students to be “backers of Jewish rights.”

In fact, the LA Times headlined its editorial “Striking a Balance Between Free Speech and Bigotry,” as if anti-Zionism is not a form of bigotry and as if anti-Zionist speech is not protected by the first amendment.

No one explains the situation better than UCLA professor, Judea Pearl:

“UC guidelines opposing anti-Semitism are grossly inadequate in curbing the current wave of anti-Jewish hostilities on campuses, which by and large are directed not against those who practice their religion but against those suspected of supporting Israel…

…the UC regents have not banned anti-Semitic, Islamophobic or white supremacist speech, and do not propose to ban anti-Zionist speech; rather, the regents rightly want to make it clear that the latter is beyond the pale of civil discourse.

So if the regents adopt the principles against intolerance, they won't officially restrict free expression. But, and here is an important distinction, they will send a message to the community that anti-Zionism, like Islamophobia and other hateful ideologies, has “no place,” culturally, “at the University of California.”

Acceptable Anti-Semitism?

The UN held its first forum on anti-Semitism last week, except that it was an “informal” gathering where only about half the UN countries showed up, making any resolutions impossible.

And the event only took place at all when the Western countries proposing it agreed that the forum would link anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. The ambassador from Saudi Arabia (a country that doesn’t allow Israelis, or anyone with Israeli stamps on a passport, to enter) explained that the actions of Israel “are very closely linked to the rise in hate crimes, extremism, violence, and anti-Semitism." That is, anti-Semitism is the Jews’ fault.

But that’s the UN, with its 26 condemnation resolutions passed in 2012, for example, one each for Syria, Burma, North Korea, and Iran, and 22 against Israel.

How’s the rest of the world doing?

The murder of four Jewish men, Yoav Hataab, Yohan Cohen, Phillipe Braham and Francois-Michel Saada who were shopping in a kosher market in Paris, linked as it was to the Charlie Hebdo murders, got worldwide attention.

Perhaps less known is that the murderers were staking out Jewish schools in Paris, as well. Or that attacks against French Jews, including murders, rapes, and beatings have gone on for years.  This week, for the first time, the French government has sent in army protection for all the Jewish schools in France (the families have paid for guards until now).

In Malmo, Sweden, a reporter tried an experiment of wearing a kipa and taking a walk. He was called “dirty Jew” and other names, had eggs thrown at him, and was threatened with shouts of “we will kill you.” He learned that many of the Jews still living in Malmo are afraid to go out of their homes. Threats against Jews in Sweden have escalated since the Paris attacks.

England? This summer London experienced the highest number of hate crimes ever recorded, 95% of them against Jews.

It is impossible to keep track of all the anti-Semitic incidents in Europe, but here is a blog that attempts it.

Yesterday was the 70^th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwizt and the New York City Council acknowledged it, or attempted to, but was interrupted by a shouting, pro-Arab group.  Councilman David Greenfield, whose grandparents survived the Holocaust, spoke out about the clear-cut anti-Semitism.

And here in Israel last week, a Palestinian got on a Tel Aviv bus and began stabbing people at random. 12 people in all were injured and several are still in critical condition. The terrorist said an influence on him was the promise of paradise for those who kill Jews.

Seemingly isolated incidents occurring with such frequency have way of becoming normalized, as if a high level of anti-Semitism is to be expected (as it seems to be in parts of Europe) and if expected, then even acceptable.

Paris, Gaza, and the Oldest Hatred

                                                                                             Photo: Reuters / Philippe Wojazer

It seems that attending synagogue in Paris has become more dangerous than running to bomb shelters in Israel. In the past weeks, with Hamas rockets targeting all the cities of Israel, 430 French Jews, mostly young families, arrived to make their home in Israel.  

The world’s third largest Jewish community has in recent years experienced a steady decline of its population due to emigration, mainly to Israel but also to the US and Canada.  The war in Israel will come to an end but dangers for Jews in France, and elsewhere in Europe, will continue unless radical change takes place within Europe, with France the focal point of the greatest threats to Jews. 

It is hard to think of the beautiful city of Paris this way. But the reality is that Jews in Paris have been trapped inside their synagogues while mobs rioted outside throwing Molotov cocktails and chanting  “death to the Jews” and “long live Hamas.”

The pretext of pro-Palestinian protest has been completely shattered as Jewish businesses have been torched and Jewish neighborhoods have become danger zones for their residents.

Even if one holds the position that Israel should not defend itself against Hamas rocket attacks, it should be obvious that shouts of “death to Jews” and the chant, “Jews out of France,” by marchers through Paris back in January (without the Gaza pretext) express raw anti-Semitism. 

Most recently these chants have been accompanied by so much violence that “Paris’s Kristallnacht” is an apt description. According to Paris University professor, Guy Muilliere:

Demonstrators also shouted slogans in favor of a man who had murdered Jewish children: "We are all Mohamed Merah." Merah shot and killed a rabbi and three Jewish children at close range in a schoolyard in Toulouse in 2012; it was the one of the most serious anti-Semitic acts committed in France since the Vichy regime. This was the first time in France that a large crowd proudly identified with a murderer of Jewish children.

…Dozens of windows of Jewish shops and restaurants along the route were broken and covered with yellow labels saying, "boycott Israel". This was the first time that so many Jewish shops and restaurants were attacked during a demonstration in Paris.

In addition, several hundred protesters armed with iron bars, machetes, axes and firebombs, arriving Place de la Bastille, marched to the nearby Don Isaac Abravanel Synagogue on rue de la Roquette. They shouted, "Let's slay the Jews," "Hitler was right," and "Allahu Akbar".

It is encouraging that French Prime Minister, Manuel Valls spoke out on Monday, according to the Jerusalem Post, condemning “the use of anti-Zionist rhetoric as a cover up of anti-Semitic opinions,” though the rioters make no such distinction. He delivered the speech on the anniversary of the 1942 Vil d’Hiv Roundup, a two-day period during which French authorities delivered 12,000 Jews to the Nazis. “The dishonor of France,” said Valls “is to have been an accomplice of the occupier, to have sent men, women, children, to death because they were Jews.”

Also on Monday, after an anti-Israel protest in Toulouse, a man threw firebombs at the Jewish Community Center and was arrested. A local Jewish community leader, Nicole Yardeni, commented, “We endure daily insults and get spat on--a general feeling of anxiety because a part of the population has a poisoned mind that makes it their mission to hurt Jews, regardless of Gaza.”

During an attack last week on a kosher restaurant in the Paris neighborhood Le Marais,  “A worker of the restaurant managed to shutter the restaurant’s anti-burglary bars, preventing the crowd from entering and locking dozens of customers inside. The crowd proceeded to hurl various objects at the windows while shouting ‘bunch of dirty Jews, we will kill you’ and ‘death to the Jews.’”

                                                                                                                 Published at Times of Israel