Israelophobia and the West: the Hijacking of Civil Discourse on Israel and How to Rescue It
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
FROM ISRAELOPHOBIA AND THE WEST: ISRAELOPHOBIA ISRAELOPHOBIA “History has come full circle, and just as in the ‘good old days of Stalin,’ when they spoke of Zionists, they meant Jews, and when they spoke against Jews, they meant Israel.” Natan Sharansky, former Deputy Prime Minister of Israel and Chairman of the Executive the Jewish Agency for Israel “As a black South African who suffered under the former apartheid regime, ISRAELOPHOBIA and who has visited Israel, labelling Israel, a democratic and Jewish state, as AND THE WEST an ‘apartheid entitiy’ can only be described as a new virulent form of anti- AND THE WEST Semitism, masquerading as legitimate political criticism.” Luba Mayekiso, South African attorney and co-founder of the Africa for Israel Christian Coalition The Hijacking of ISBN 978-965-218-145-9 ISBN 978-965-218-147-3 Civil Discourse on Israel “BDS’s apartheid crusade to dismantle the Jewish majority nation-state delegitimizes its Arab, Muslim, and Christian communities. and How to Rescue It It has ‘kidnapped’ other Israelis and exploits them as pawns in its cynical political war.” Khaled Abu Toameh, Distinguished9 Senior78965 Fellow,2 181 459 9 789652 181473 Gatestone Institute and Palestinian affairs reporter DAN DIKER ISRAELOPHOBIA and commentator, the Jerusalem Post “Much of what today purports to be criticism of Israel, or the claim of AND THE WEST ideological opposition to Zionism, is merely disguised anti-Semitism Dan Diker, ed. perpetrated by the singling out by the nation-state of the Jewish people in (ED.) THE HIJACKING OF CIVIL DISCOURSE an unbalanced and biased way.” Alan Dershowitz, Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law, ON ISRAEL AND HOW TO RESCUE IT emeritus, Harvard University Law School DAN DIKER (ED.) ISBN 978-965-218-146-6 ISBN 978-965-218-148-0 Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs 9 789652 181466 9 789652 181480 Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs ISRAELOPHOBIA AND THE WEST The Hijacking of Civil Discourse on Israel and How to Rescue It Dan Diker, ed. Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA) Founded in 1976, the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA), is a leading research and applied diplomacy institute specializing in national security, foreign policy, and public diplomacy. Dr. Dore Gold, former Director General of Israel’s Foreign Ministry and former ambassador to the United Nations, headed the Jerusalem Center since 2000. Cover photo: Anti-Israel demonstration in Cape Town, South Africa, 2014. (Reuters/Mike Hutchings) Director of Projects: Ahuva Ben Dor Editor, Researcher, and Program Coordinator: Tirza Shorr Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs Beit Milken, 13 Tel Hai St., Jerusalem, 92107, Israel Email: [email protected] www. jcpa.org Tel: 972-2-561-9281 Fax: 972-2-561-9112 © 2020 Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs Book design: Lotte Design ISBN: 978-965-218-150-3 TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements | 5 Dan Diker Introduction | 7 Khaled Abu Toameh Dueling Discourses: Diaspora Demonization Versus Palestinian Pragmatism | 15 Alan Baker The Thin Line between Legitimate Criticism of Israel and Anti-Semitism | 25 Alan Dershowitz The Case for Moral Clarity: Anti-Zionism, Anti-Semitism, and Legitimate Criticism of Israel | 35 Dan Diker and How to Rescue Civil Discourse on Israel Alan Baker | 45 Dore Gold The Africa-Israel Renassaiance as a Response to Diplomatic Deligitimization | 63 Daniel Gordis Anti-Semitism, Anti-Zionism as Challenges to American Jewry | 71 Malcolm Hoenlein Walking a Thin Line: American Jewry’s Tightrope Act in Tough Times | 81 Pinhas Inbari Israelophobia and the Weaponizing of the Oslo Peace Process | 91 Asa Kasher The Spectrum of Negative Criticism: From Objective Reasoning to Anti-Semitism | 99 William Kolbrener Anti-Semitism and Progressive Fundamentalism’s Challenge to Israel | 111 Yossi Kuperwasser The New Anti-Semitism and the Threat to Israel’s National Security | 117 3 Luba Mayekiso Israelophobia and the Apartheid | 129 Criminalization of the Jewish State Olga Meshoe The Israel-Apartheid Lie and the | 137 Washington Appropriation of South Africa’s History Fiamma Nirenstein A Never-ending Struggle: Challenging Anti-Semitism and Anti-Zionism | 147 Natan Sharansky Fighting Anti-Semitism, Both Left and Right | 157 Shmuel Trigano Anti-Semitism as a Postmodern Ideology | 169 Joshua Washington Reaffirming Dr. Martin Luther King‘s Zionist Legacy | 179 Messeret Constructive Criticism in Israel’s Woldemichael Kasbian Democratic Discourse | 193 Elhanan Yakira From Judeophobia to Anti-Israelism | 209 About the Authors | 219 4 Acknowledgements This policy book was made possible by the extraordinary vision and support of friends of the Jerusalem Center and leaders of the Jewish world: Adam and Gila Milstein, Albie and Beth Kava, James S. Tisch, Morris Offit, Sarah Biser, David Keidan, Joseph M. Cohen, Peter J. and Susan Solomon, Roy H. and Judy Stern, Steven Stern, Kenneth and Nira Abramowitz, Valerie and Charles Diker, Mark N. Diker, Howard G. Sands, Mark Julio Messer, Gerald Platt, and several anonymous donors. 5 A woman holds a placard at a demonstration supporting Jeremy Corbyn outside Labour Party headquarters in London, ahead of a Labour Party decision in 2018 opposing the complete adoption of the IHRA Working Definition of Anti-Semitism. Photo: Sipa USA via AP/Ben Cawthra Introduction Dan Diker Israelophobia and the West: The Hijacking of Civil Discourse on Israel and How to Rescue It, is the result of urgent and extensive consultations at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs during 2019. Our concern centered around the spike in violent anti- Semitic attacks against Jews in Europe and the United States and the simultaneous and intensifying defamation, delegitimization, and demonization of Israel – the Jewish collective. Israelophobia in Iran, the Arab states, and other Muslim-majority countries requires a separate, exhaustive study. This volume evaluates the intensifying anti-Semitism against diaspora Jewry in Western countries and the converging rhetorical assaults on “sovereign” Jews in Israel – condemning them and their nation-state as “Nazi, apartheid, racist, genocidal, war criminal, illegal, illegitimate, colonialist, and anachronistic.” This invective has been characterized and justified as legitimate political criticism of Israel in mainstream Western discourse. It has become standard practice among faculty and “pro- Palestinian” student organizations on American university campuses, the United Nations, associated international bodies such as the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court, as well as European institutions and parliaments. For the first time, anti-Semitic tropes cloaked as political critique of Israel have even been voiced by several members of the U.S. House of Representatives. 7 At the same time, there have been recent efforts to counter these delegitimizing trends. Western governments and parliaments have condemned and even outlawed the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement as anti-Semitic.1 Broadly accepted principles and definitions of anti-Semitism have helped shape the debate over what constitutes anti-Semitic rhetoric versus what can be defined as legitimate critical discourse. The “3D” Test,2 the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance Working Definition of Anti-Semitism, and the U.S. State Department classifications of anti-Semitism have established internationally- accepted moral base lines.3 Natan Sharansky, a former Israeli minister and previous Chairman of the Jewish Agency, is the author of the 3D Test and a contributor to this book. He has pointed out that rhetoric against Israel that delegitimizes and demonizes the Jewish State, while judging it by prejudicial standards different from any other nation-state, constitutes anti-Semitism. Sharansky’s 3D Test has been bolstered by other global authorities on the study of anti-Semitism, such as Professors Robert Wistrich,4 Jerold Auerbach,5 and Alvin Rosenfeld.6 They have also identified assaults on Zionism and Israel as the new face of anti-Semitism. However, global expert assessments and internationally accepted definitions of anti-Semitism have done little to depreciate the use of anti-Semitic rhetoric against Jews and the Jewish state by Islamist, Palestinian, right-wing extremist, leftist radical, Black nationalist,7 progressive, and anti-Zionist groups in the United States.8 The opposite is true. Anti-Semitic events against Jews and Israel reached record highs in the United States in 2019.9 The challenge 8 has been compounded by free speech protections guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment. Protected speech in the United States has inspired deep confidence among these groups that any racist, anti-Semitic, even “eliminationist” speech against the Jewish state constitutes legitimate expression.10 ISRAELOPHOBIA The ever widening gap between legally protected hate speech and reasonable civil discourse on Israel is the reason this book was written. Entitled Israelophobia and the West, this compendium stands as a conceptual counterpart to Islamophobia, or hatred of Islam, which has gained broad acceptance as a term of reference in Western human rights discourse. JCPA fellow Fiamma Nirenstein, a leading European scholar on anti-Semitism, has used the term “Israelophobia” for nearly two decades, characterizing Europe’s hostility towards Israel, which it insists is mere political criticism.11 Israelophobia’s conceptual overlap between anti-Semitism