Aidan Semmens
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It's not anti-Semitic to detest apartheid

3/5/2016

5 Comments

 
Does the Labour Party have an anti-Semitism problem? Well, yes, undoubtedly it does. It’s a broadly based party whose members come from many parts of society – and society as a whole has a nasty strain of anti-Semitism running through it. At least Labour is prepared to admit it, and challenge it.

For complex historical reasons, Jewish people have been held responsible for capitalism, Communism and a great many other contradictory ills. But then, for many centuries Jewish people have been routinely blamed for almost anything somebody wanted to blame someone for.

They’re not the only ones. Throughout the 20th century – and it still goes on – poor white Americans were encouraged to blame their poor black neighbours for their troubles. It distracted them from looking for their real oppressors.

In exactly the same way, people in Britain and across Europe are encouraged now to blame innocent migrants or Muslims for troubles caused by governments.

And in exactly the same way, Tsarist Russia’s savagely oppressive ruling class turned the poor peasants on the Jews, most of whom were poor peasants themselves. The resulting wave of riot and murder in the 1880s and early 1900s led desperate Jews to seek a way out.

One way was the boat to America. Another was the idea of Zionism – that a “homeland” could be found in Palestine.

The idea was Utopian. It was based on the mistaken belief that no one was living there already. Or that both communities could rub along happily together in friendship and co-operation. And so the modern state of Israel had its origin.

It’s not anti-Semitic to believe that it was a great and tragic mistake.

And it’s not anti-Semitic to be appalled by the institutionalised racism of the Israeli government. Even if you accept – as I think you have to – that the state of Israel is a fact that can’t be wished away. Or transported to America.

Many Jews are appalled by the apartheid system brutally applied by Israel’s rulers. Many Israelis – sadly, not quite a majority – are equally horrified.

That vicious system, incidentally, should not be equated with Zionism, though many people - Ken Livingstone, for instance - get the two things muddled up. Most of the original Zionists would have been appalled to see what's now being done in their name - the idea was for equality, mutual tolerance and peaceful co-existence in a shared land, which doesn't seem such a bad idea.

In today's reality there are similarities between Israel’s treatment of its Palestinian citizens and the Nazis’ treatment of the Jews. It’s not the same – not by a long way – but there are clear parallels. And it’s not anti-Semitic to point that out.

Any more than it’s anti-British to side with the junior doctors in their dispute with the health secretary.

Like people the world over, I am often made angry or embarrassed by my country’s government. It doesn’t mean I hate my country, or its people.

Unhappily, though, opposition to Israeli policy is often mistaken for opposition to Jewish people generally.

Even more unhappily, the one often really does shade into the other. Which can make the two things difficult to tell apart. And that appears to be the problem afflicting Labour. Along with the destructive desire of one part of the party to bring down their elected leader by whatever means seem available.

There is another factor too. The Left’s natural sympathy for the oppressed – the sympathy which went out to Russian Jews a century ago and to German Jews in the 1930s – now goes out to the Palestinians.

It’s simplistic to see the Israeli conflict in straightforward black-and-white terms: “good” Palestinians versus “bad” Jews (or vice versa). Dangerously simplistic, whichever way round you look at it. The situation is more complex than that, the people more varied.

Unfortunately, simplistic and monochrome seems to be how most people look at most things most of the time.

5 Comments
Carole
3/5/2016 12:09:47 pm

I agree completely. This is a sensible and well-reasoned piece that deserves a wider audience.

Reply
Mrs. Whittaker
3/5/2016 06:58:38 pm

I just feel so sad and angry that people like you are still making these excuses for anti-semitism in the Labour Party. You can clothe it in whatever, but it is clear that you are anti-Semitic and all your comments betray this clearly. If you don't believe that the Jewish people have the right to have their own homeland then you are anti-semitic. SO, I completely disagree with this article as it is inaccurate in the 'facts' it presumes to be correct. With every statement you actually show your true colours, which are obviously very prejudiced against the Jewish people and thier homeland Israel. The fact you've omitted is that at every point since the foundation of the state of Israel, all the Arab neighbours swore to it's destruction and still swear in their charter (e.g. in Hamas charter they want to destroy not just the state of Israel but kill all the Jews), which a lot of left wing pro - palestinian supporters still chant at every opportunity : "From the river to the sea, palestine shall be free" Well, indeed it should be free, but from Hamas, their home grown oppressors. Look at the facts, for goodness sake and STOP SPREADING THESE LIES! Israel is a democracy, the only one in the M.E. so if you really care about the Palestinian people, why don't you try and support it instead of demonising it - did you not know that nearly a third of the population in Israel is Arab and other ethnicities? And they are represented in the Kneset! And if you bothered to ask the vast majority of Arabs that live in Israel and enjoy all the freedoms of living in a democracy, they would say that they prefer to live in Israel than in any other Arab country. For goodness sake! Get your facts right, read a bit of objective history! I'm pretty sure you won't publish my comment, because I am not one of your faithful naive audience, which this article is obviously intended for. Have a good day!

Reply
Aidan Semmens
3/5/2016 07:21:23 pm

Well, there's a surprise for you, then, Mrs Whittaker (you don't have a first name - or any name of your own?). Though of course I disagree with everything you say in your comment, I don't happen to believe in censorship.
As for my being anti-Semitic, I am Jewish... and no, I'm not a "self-hating Jew", a category I suspect has been invented by the apologists for a hateful regime.

Reply
Carole
3/5/2016 08:16:22 pm

Well, Mrs Whittaker, I would suggest to you that it is because Israel is a democracy that it should be judged by the highest standards of conduct and criticised for actions that are not only in breach of international law but also ethically and morally unsound. Israel has a right to exist, I have no problem with this, but I believe that it should exist within the borders it had before the 1967 war. Israel, under a government that espouses the expansionist ideology of Revisionist Zionism has illegally occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem and is engaged in an ever-increasing programme of colonisation via the so-called settler movement. It is probably worth pointing out that most of these "settlers" are immigrants from countries like the USA and Canada where they were citizens and under no kind of existential threat whatsoever. It is also worth pointing out that to continually refer to Israel as a Jewish state is implicitly racist and elitist, because it says that those who are not Jews but who live there are inferior, second-class citizens.

As for your comment that begins "if you bothered to ask the vast majority of Arabs...", well, let me ask you a question. Have you consulted the vast majority of Israeli Arabs yourself? I am asking because unless you have, you really cannot claim that what you say is actually correct. All it is is empty rhetoric.

I am glad that you have mentioned Hamas. Do you know that the Israeli government used to promote Hamas in the early days because it was seen as a useful tool to weaken Fatah and the PLO?

Perhaps you need to start doing a bit of quite simple and straightforward research? It isn't difficult, but it might make you realise that the standard Zionist narrative is not the pure unvarnished truth.

Reply
Wilski
3/5/2016 10:07:01 pm

Good heavens, a considered take on Israel; I must be dreaming. As you say, the whole situation is a mess, and sadly one without resolution in sight.

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