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Equations in Contemporary Anti-Zionism: a Conceptual Analysis

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Equations in Contemporary Anti-Zionism: a Conceptual Analysis Equations in Contemporary Anti-Zionism: A Conceptual Analysis Shalem Coulibaly* 1. INTRODUCTION This article, which is based on several articles and research projects, aims first and foremost to present the criminogenic nature of contemporary antisemitism, which certain people, including people of African descent, have unfortunately adopted—through mimicry or imitation—as a result of ignorance or political calculation.1 It forms the final part of a larger work entitled “Africa and Antisemitism: From Indifference to Tempta- tion and Antisemitic Speech.” It is resolutely opposed to antisemitism, especially among some Africans who have contributed to diatribes against Jews in France. 2. FALSE EQUATIONS BETWEEN ANTI-ZIONISM AND ANTISEMITISM: THE ART OF MISREPRESENTING HISTORY AND POLITICS Many intellectuals who cannot be suspected of antisemitism reject the equation of anti- Zionism with antisemitism. The questions that I wish to raise in this context are as follows. Have they reflected on the contours of Durban I? Have they taken the time to decipher the logic of the anti-Zionist discourse, its critical ambiguities and the silence that it tends to impose on any defense of the Jewish cause? For me, the contemporary anti-Zionist discourse encompasses a dangerous performative contradiction. Combating antisemitism amounts to accepting the need to demonstrate the conceptual limits of the most objective criticisms. When anti-Zionists claim that they are not antisemites, how is one to interpret or gauge their scathing attacks on the legitimacy of the State of Israel? How is one to understand their calls for sanctions against Israel and the very existence of Jews in Israel! And not just in Israel but elsewhere. There are dangerous forms of objec- tivity. America is not Zion, but anti-Zionists are silent when the American flag and the Israeli flag are burned side by side with the same rage. This demonstrates the primary and basic anti-Americanism of the anti-Zionists, if not a performative contradiction. * Professor of Philosophy, University of Ouagadougou (UO), Burkina Faso. Former Senior Visiting Scholar, YIISA, Yale University. 1 In 2006, during a Paris march in support of Lebanon organized by anti-Zionists, many young Africans among the protesters chanted the slogan: “Zionism is the criminal DNA of mankind.” Marches in support of the Lebanese people also took place in several African countries. In Senegal, for example, the Israeli flag was burned by a mob that included several elected politicians. 37 Charles Asher Small (ed.), Global Antisemitism: A Crisis of Modernity. © 2013 Koninklijke Brill NV. ISBN 978 90 04 21457 6. 38 SHALEM COULIBALY Anti-Zionism thus does what it claims not to do, namely to be against the Jewish state but not against the Jews. We must remain lucid. Is it not so that the denial expressed by the prefix “anti” in anti-Zionism and antisemitism nowadays follows the same logic as the hatred of Jews and the desire to wipe them of the face of the earth? Until we have conceptualized and deconstructed the equation of these two terms, we must treat them as identical in the fight against antisemitism. Even a critical and objective anti-Zionist knows very well that, in a conflict, one cannot innocently set oneself up as a critic or judge of the protagonists. In fact, the differentiation between anti-Zionism and anti- semitism is formalistic and specious, because, strictly speaking, they involve the same intent, the same hatred of the Jews. In L’Imprescriptible,2 Jankélévitch explains that anti- Zionism is a form of linguistic trickery to justify antisemitism. An anti-Zionist, he argues, is a person who gives himself the right to be democratically antisemitic and to democratically popularize his hatred. Jankélévitch observes: Anti-Zionism is in this respect an unexpected windfall, because it gives us permission and even the right—even the duty—to be antisemitic in the name of democracy. Anti- Zionism is justified antisemitism, finally put at the disposal of all. It grants permission to be democratically antisemitic. In reality, anti-Zionism has the same target as antisemitism, namely the Jews. Otherwise, why plant bombs in synagogues in Paris or murder children and teachers at a Jewish school in Toulouse? Paris is not Jerusalem. Toulouse is not Tel Aviv. The era of globali- zation would thus appear to be an opportunity for anti-Jewish ideologies to prosper. Africans must understand this anti-Zionist hoax in order not to misunderstand this quagmire of antisemitism, which fraudulently posits the following equations: Zionism = colonialism, Zionism = apartheid and Zionism = racism.3 These equations, which are genuine historical travesties, relate to problems about which all Africans should be deeply concerned. They amount to nothing more than a revisionist form of African history and suffering. After all, have the people who come up with these equations even considered the history of colonialism and the desire of colonizers to civilize the savages? When have the Jews ever wanted to Hebraicize Palestinians so that they become Jews? Those who deceitfully establish these false equations should re-read Aimé Césaire’s Discourse sur le Colonialisme! In order to prove that this so-called objective criticism of Israel’s is actually a refusal to engage with the Jews, I will analyze another anti-Zionist equation, which posits that: economic boycott of Israel = Middle East peace. 3. THE ANTI-ZIONIST ECONOMIC BOYCOTT AND THE REJECTION OF PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST The era of globalization that characterizes the 21st century is a period of homogenization of modern economic, political, and cultural habitus. This bold global desire to transcend 2 Vladimir Jankélévitch, L’Imprescriptible (1986), pp. 19-20. 3 These equations are an unwholesome form of revisionism. After a visit to the Middle East, Desmond Tutu compared Palestine to a ghetto and Israeli democracy to apartheid. There can be no doubt that this was a misrepresentation of history and a sell-out of African suffering in the name of the Palestinian cause. .
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