While the aims of many pro-Palestinian campaigners are admirable, the left must look at the wider context of Israel and Palestine today
While the aims of many pro-Palestinian campaigners are admirable, the left must look at the wider context of Israel and Palestine today
Peace negotiations have failed and violence on the Gaza strip has resumed once again. As this happens the left and the wider pro-Palestinian movement needs to think hard about how the next intensification of campaigning can avoid contributing to a rise in anti-semitic sentiment.
Many will read that paragraph and immediately react with hostility. A recurrent feature of the last few weeks has been the forceful claims by the pro-Palestinian left that it is not anti-semitic to criticise Israel’s actions in Gaza. Some commentators have also been conscientious in combining their critique of Israel with strong condemnations of those who have used the situation to make overtly anti-semitic attacks.
However, to believe that such arguments and qualifications means the left is now excused of any culpability is to engage in a denial for which the left itself regularly criticises others.
Left-leaning thinkers and movements have argued for many years that racism and sexism need not be overt to exist. Racist and sexist values are so deeply ingrained into much of our thinking and behaviour that it is quite possible for someone to unintentionally exclude or denigrate black people or women even while actively proclaiming themselves an anti-racist or feminist.
Unfortunately the left is at risk of becoming the bastion of unintentional anti-semitism just as individuals and organisations across the political spectrum purvey unintentional racism and sexism.
The way many rushed to the defence of the cultural venues which took decisions leading to the cancellation of events with Israeli links is a case in point. I have no doubt that the trustees and staff of those venues along with their supporters are deeply hostile to anti-semitism and are as troubled as anyone by the recent upsurge in anti-Semitic activity. It is also to the credit of one of those venues that they have now rescinded the decision to require the organisers of the event to cut their links with Israel.
However, to support an organisation that makes such demands and then claim you are not acting in a way that will leave many Jews feeling deeply uncomfortable is to reveal an ignorance of how central Israel is to the identity, culture and religion of the Jewish people.
Imagine if a venue decided it would not allow a Catholic cultural event to go ahead unless the organisers cut their links to the Vatican because of the poor record of the church on challenging paedophilia within its ranks. No doubt many would feel an immediate pang of sympathy with the venue. After all the history of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church is truly shocking and has created enormous misery.
But we would soon recognise that such a demand is impossible for a Catholic organisation to meet given the absolutely central role the Vatican plays in Catholic identity and practice. If the theatre’s boycott were to catch on, we would be in a situation where a well-meaning protest against sexual abuse had rapidly turned in to an effective exclusion of Catholic people and organisations from the cultural life of the country. No-one will have deliberately set out to be anti-Catholic but that will have been the outcome.
The situation is no different for Jews yet demands for a much wider boycott of Israel and Israeli goods is now a staple of the pro-Palestinian movement. Whether intentional or not, the idea that Jews and Jewish organisations could be excluded from the economic, cultural and wider public life of the country because of their inevitably close links to Israel should cause grave concern to anyone who knows the long and violent history of anti-Jewish prejudice which regularly used boycotts as a tool of oppression.
And as recent events have shown, those demanding a boycott could well end up preventing Jews having access to the products (as well as wider cultural and religious institutions in Israel) which are central to the practice of their culture and faith.
Similar concerns should also extend to the political goals of pro-Palestinian campaigners. The ultimate aim of much of the movement and its left-wing supporters is admirable: a long-term negotiated settlement leading to peaceful two-state co-existence. However, under current political circumstances that would require the Israeli Government, its citizens and the Jewish people around the world to accept negotiations with Hamas: an organisation whose founding document quotes the notorious anti-Semitic forgery, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, as though it were genuine, claims Jews run a secret global conspiracy to control the world through organisations such as the Freemasons and blames the Jewish people for instigating both world wars for their own material gain.
Hamas spokespeople have distanced themselves from the Charter since its publication in 1988 but frankly this is not good enough. Any right-thinking person would expect an organisation to make every effort to formally reject such a pernicious document if it were really serious about avoiding anti-semitism. Because Hamas has taken no such action, Israel is being asked to seek friendly relations with a body which is founded upon and promotes ideas which only seventy years ago led directly to the murder of six million Jewish men, women and children.
To dismiss or ignore such concerns, as many in the pro-Palestinian movement do, is again to fail to think through the implications of their own demands for the justifiable fears of Jewish people. If the Hamas Charter had included numerous references to the inferiority of black people, one cannot help but wonder if the left would be quite so willing to close their ears to the complaints.
Claims of unintentional racism and sexism have been used in the past to silence debate and have, on occasion, reached absurd levels leading to accusations of racist or sexist behavior where none exists. No reasonable person would want a situation where awareness of unintentional anti-semitism made it impossible to criticise Israel because it undoubtedly does need criticising. However, it is very important for the pro-Palestinian movement and its supporters on the left to be clear that just because you distance yourself from those using the Gaza conflict to make overt attacks on Jews, you are not excused from thinking far more deeply about the consequences of your actions and demands for the well-being and liberty of the Jewish people.
Adam Lent is on Twitter here
81 Responses to “The Left must confront its unintentional anti-Semitism”
Leon Wolfeson
You are an anti-Semite. You are right wing. Those are based on things you have posted. It is very, very clear. If you don’t like it, change your views.
Your anger is based on your fury at my looking at what you’ve posted. You are the one who has run away from discussion, and politeness takes a back seat to me to accuracy.
I am the same person I always was. And so are you…I just was fooled by you for a time into thinking you were a reasonable, rational person.
Leon Wolfeson
You protest frantically. Massively. Constantly.
Too much.
Kryten2k35 – “The problem is that Jews”
Because you have screamed hate at every last theist and their rights. And used the right’s trick of dividing those rights by country. You attacked Jews because of your anti-Semitism, and we are your target, not Israel.
Kryten2k35 – “The problem is that Jews”
Those are *absolutely* what defines your stance here.
You are now frantically using the defence of the New Anti-Semite, which is to try and run away from your views, blaming “Israel”
Kryten2k35 – “The problem is that Jews”
You and your buddy George are holding hands. And you lie as well as he does (that’s “badly”).
Kryten2k35
No, I’m not an anti-semite. No, I’m not right wing. You’re simply trying to annoy me. You are trolling.
This was not a discussion, this was you trying to get under my skin, and it worked, so I left. I don’t even know why I bothered checking again.
Kryten2k35
You’re just taking the quote out of context. The problem, I see, is that Jewish people like you want to take ANY criticism of Israel as anti-Semitic. That’s what I said. That’s what you immediately did. Instead of seeking clarification you want to troll and try to annoy me. You’re a dickhead.
If someone said “the problem with Britain is…” I’d take that as criticism of the government, and/or the people causing the criticism. If YOU want to take criticism of Israel as criticism against you personally, then that is YOUR problem. Don’t try to push that shit onto me.
Leon Wolfeson
That’s your claim now, yes.
And you’ve done it again – Jewish people like you”
I did ask for clarification.
“If the phenomenon was limited to just Israelis, I would’ve said so. If it was only Zionists, I would’ve said Zionists. Instead, from my experience, it’s not limited to those groups.”
You thus clarified you meant Jews. Then you accuse me of sharing your head-shape.
(The American anti-Zionist Jews would laugh long and loud at you. I think their views are very odd, personally, but it’s not at all in contention that they really don’t like the State of Israel for religious reasons and don’t tend to care at all about criticism of it)
In reality, I am quite aware that criticism of Israel’s *government* is possible without being an anti-Semite. I am critical of Israel’s government, for instance. But hey, only FACTS. One which don’t fit into your universe.
But you charged right across the line. And are blaming me for the shovel of shit you’re holding.
At least now you’re honestly admitting to anti-theism rather than saying “I don’t care”. Feel free to admit the rest any time, but that alone would make my dislike your divisive, nasty approach – France’s divided communities and the violence levelled against Jews there shows what happens when the state uses an anti-theistic policy.
I’m quite happy with Britain’s very different and nominally Christian system, which in practice is pluralistic.
Oh, and for reference, Courts of Law are in the Noahhide laws. And I have the vote. Why, exactly, do you not oppose those? After all…
(And no, I’m not going to ease up on someone who is actively trying to create division, does not think theists should have rights outside the UK, talks about Jews as a whole in a bigoted fashion, etc. – you’re trying to “ok” away the criticism your views, as far as I am concerned, deserve).