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Is Anti-Zionism Anti-Semitic?

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Is Anti-Zionism Anti-Semitic? MIDDLE EAST POLICY , VOL . XVI, NO. 4, WI N TER 2009 IS ANT I -ZI ON I SM ANT I -SEM I T I C ? JEW I SH CR I T I CS SPE A K Edward C. Corrigan1 Mr. Corrigan, BA, MA, LL.B., is a lawyer certified as a specialist in Citizenship and Immigration Law and Immigration and Refugee Protection by the Law Society of Upper Canada in London, Ontario. He can be reached at [email protected] or at (519) 439-4015. hen individuals, activists of Israeli policy. Beinin, a professor of or politicians in the United history at Stanford University, is active in States and Canada criticize Jewish Voice for Peace and an editor of human-rights problems in Jewish Peace News.3 Here is what he had WIsrael or question the tenets of the political to say about the campaign to attack critics ideology of Zionism, they are attacked, and of Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians: accusations of bias and even anti-Semitism are made in an attempt to discredit them. Why discredit, defame and silence The allegation that criticism of Israel those with opposing viewpoints? I is anti-Semitic is used as an effective believe it is because the Zionist lobby knows it cannot win based on facts. political weapon. To quote one anti-Zionist An honest discussion can only lead Jewish writer: to one conclusion: The status quo in which Israel declares it alone has rights Criticizing Israel’s mistakes is and intends to impose its will on the acceptable. But questioning whether weaker Palestinians, stripping them Israel is a Jewish state with a rac- permanently of their land, resources ist apartheid system that renders and rights, cannot lead to a lasting non-Jews second rate citizens — that peace. We need an open debate and the is not acceptable. It makes little differ- freedom to discuss uncomfortable facts ence whether the criticism is based on and explore the full range of policy op- facts. Few people who cannot claim tions. Only then can we adopt a foreign Jewish descent would dare to criticize policy that serves American interests publicly. They are afraid of being ac- and one that could actually bring a just 2 cused of “anti-semitism.” peace to Palestinians and Israelis.4 Joel Beinin in “Silencing Critics Not In “Why It Is Essential for Jews to Way to Middle East Peace,” an article Speak Out as Jews, on Israel,” Internet published in the San Francisco Chronicle, blogger Philip Weiss interviewed long- discussed the campaign to silence critics time Jewish activist Dorothy Zellner. She © 2009, The Author Journal Compilation © 2009, Middle East Policy Council 146 CORRIGA N : JE W ISH CRITICS SP EAK is now working with “Jews Say No.” As caust survivors, and we say that what Weiss notes, “A lot of activists would say happened to our murdered relatives in that this is an American issue; everyone Europe should not be the reason for 5 should be engaged. And a lot of left-wing- Palestinian pain. ers would say, religion/ethnicity is a tire- some traditional category, I don’t want to Here is what Norman Solomon has identify myself in such a manner.” Zellner to say about anti-Semitism: “As with all responds to these arguments and explains forms of bigotry, anti-Semitism should be why she believes that it is essential to ad- condemned. At the same time, these days, dress the Palestinian issue “as Jews, and America's biggest anti-Semitism problem speak to other Jews as Jews”: has to do with the misuse of the label as a manipulative tactic to short-circuit debate 6 But the sight of us doing the about Washington's alliance with Israel.” unthinkable has many benefits: There He added, are a few Jews who are happy and relieved to see us because it opens the The failure to make a distinction door for them. They have felt uneasy between anti-Semitism and criti- about Israeli policies for a long time, cism of Israel routinely stifles public and seeing us seems to give them more debate. When convenient, pro-Israel courage to speak their minds. There groups in the United States will con- are also some gentiles who are happy cede that it’s possible to oppose Israeli to see us because they have been policies without being anti-Semitic. afraid for a long time of being called Yet many of Israel’s boosters reflex- anti-Semites if they criticize Israel. ively pull out the heavy artillery of Just think what it would mean if charging anti-Semitism when their a significant number of people in our position is challenged.7 country started to break through the rigid, unthinking mindset of support- Professor Michael Neumann had the ing Israel right or wrong! And just following to say about anti-Semitism: think what it means if we could have weakened the stranglehold of Israeli . to inflate the definition by includ- policies but chose not to do it! ing critics of Israel is, if not exactly Because we are Jews, we natural- incorrect, self-defeating and danger- ly have a certain currency in challeng- ous. No one can stop you from pro- ing Israeli policies. We identify with claiming all criticism of Israel anti-Se- the Jewish people, and we respect mitic. But that makes anti-Semites Jewish culture. Some of us are former out of Nelson Mandela and Bishop Zionists, and we know that Israel was Desmond Tutu, not to mention tens of never an empty land. We’ve been to thousands of Jews. Israel and Palestine more than once, The best way to reserve and we’ve seen the checkpoints and “anti-Semitism” as a term of con- the barbed wire and the guard towers demnation is to define it as hatred with our own eyes. We’ve been angry of Jews, not for what they do but and ashamed that this occupation is for what they are. It is to hate them supposedly being done to protect us. just because they belong to a certain Some of us have relatives in Israel. ethnic group. [Abraham] Foxman is Some of us are the children of Holo- 147 MIDDLE EAST POLICY , VOL . XVI, NO. 4, WI N TER 2009 right to suggest that you can be an Soros can hardly be considered a radical. anti-Semite without expressing any He is also Jewish. racist sentiments: Many anti-Semites Ben Ehrenreich, author of the novel confine themselves to expounding The Suitors, wrote in the Los Angeles false claims about Jewish control. Times on whether criticism of Zionism is But you can also, without harboring anti-Semitic hate, criticize Israel and anti-Semitic: even the Jewish community for its failures. To suppose otherwise would The characterization of anti-Zi- be to suppose an inexplicable wave onism as an “epidemic” more danger- of anti-Semitism among both Ameri- ous than anti-Semitism reveals only can and Israeli Jews, both of whom the unsustainability of the position figure prominently among the critics.8 into which Israel’s apologists have been forced. Faced with international condemnation, they seek to limit the To quote George Soros on the use of discourse, to erect walls that delineate anti-Semitism, a tactic he described as “the what can and can’t be said. most insidious argument” to silence the It’s not working. Opposing Zion- political debate on Israel’s policies toward ism is neither anti-Semitic nor par- the Palestinians: ticularly radical. It requires only that we take our own values seriously and Any politician who dares to ex- no longer, as the book of Amos has it, pose AIPAC’s influence would incur “turn justice into wormwood and hurl its wrath; so very few can be expected righteousness to the ground.” to do so. It is up to the American Establishing a secular, pluralist, Jewish community itself to rein in the democratic government in Israel and organization that claims to represent Palestine would of course mean the it. But this is not possible without first abandonment of the Zionist dream. It disposing of the most insidious argu- might also mean the only salvation for ment put forward by the defenders of the Jewish ideals of justice that date the current policies: that the critics of back to Jeremiah. Israel’s policies of occupation, control For the last several decades, and repression on the West Bank and though, it has been all but impos- in East Jerusalem and Gaza engender sible to cry out against the Israeli anti-Semitism. state without being smeared as an The opposite is the case. One of anti-Semite, or worse. To question not the myths propagated by the enemies just Israel’s actions, but the Zionist te- of Israel is that there is an all-power- nets on which the state is founded, has ful Zionist conspiracy. That is a false for too long been regarded an almost accusation. Nevertheless, that AIPAC unspeakable blasphemy. has been so successful in suppress- Yet it is no longer possible to be- ing criticism has lent some credence lieve with an honest conscience that the to such false beliefs. Demolishing deplorable conditions in which Palestin- the wall of silence that has protected ians live and die in Gaza and the West AIPAC would help lay them to rest. A Bank come as the result of specific poli- debate within the Jewish community, cies, leaders or parties on either side of instead of fomenting anti-Semitism, the impasse. The problem is fundamen- would only help diminish it.9 tal: Founding a modern state on a single 148 CORRIGA N : JE W ISH CRITICS SP EAK ethnic or religious identity in a territory However, in the mainstream North Ameri- that is ethnically and religiously diverse can press, these one-sided votes are almost leads inexorably either to a politics of never reported.
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