Thursday, May 13, 2004

Sharansky and 'The New Antisemitism'

By Adam Keller

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Posted 05/13 | Add a Comment

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  1. Mr. Keller’s article is very concise, cogent, compact. And I only want to add a corroborating footnote.
    If a given person is affected only by Israel’s policies and not, for example, by the Chinese government’s policies, Sharansky’s demand for “equal time” criticism seems to be just a ploy to shut folks up.
    For example, an famous Israel professor said that the Gaza Strip is the world’s largest concentration camp. Does the professor then have to point out the location and criticise the second largest concentration camp?
    American taxpayers foot the bill for Israel’s unlawful occupation of the West Bank. They do not pay for, as an example, the Chinese occupation of Tibet. Could not such a taxpayer legitimately restrict his criticism to the occupation he unwillingly pays for?
    Everyone knows that America’s blind support for anything and everything the Judeo-Nazi state terrorist government does is the main reason for any genuine terrorist acts on American installations, so why does Sharanksy argue that USA taxpayers cannot just concentrate on Israel’s criminal behavior?
    And why should anyone listen to an official spokesman for the state-terrorist government that needs to be criticized? Sharansky wants to be not only the judge, jury, and prosecutor but the legislator who decides what the laws are.

    Posted by Patrick from  on  05/23  at  01:37 AM

  2. There are 15 articles on this web page, and 7 of them include very ugly criticism of Israel:

    Niemoller be Damned:  “...partner in terrorism Israel wipes out children in Gaza.”

    Delusions and Cowardice:  “...ethnic cleansing.”

    Homes Destroyed:  “...hostile Israeli military aggression.”

    Civil Disobedience:  “Israel’s bloody and unjust occupation.”

    Murder of Casey Auguste:  “brutally killed by the IDF”

    Kerry Woos McCain:  “Israel’s apartheid wall”

    and this article too.  Then you can add a pro-Arab (even pro-Hamas) plug in Twice Human.

    There are many, many problems in the world.  Less than 40 people died in Israel this week.  Several thousand died in Sudan.  Where’s the outrage?  If you took a census of all the Palestinians, you would find the total to be less than the number of people in inhumane prisons in China.  I don’t here you complaining.  In “Twice Human” the author complains that we don’t treat the deaths of people in less developed countries as seriously as the death of Americans.  I think this web page is at least as guilty, ignoring carnage in Sudan, Congo, Columbia and elsewhere to hyperventilate with outrage about Israel.

    Sharansky is on to something.

    Posted by Andrew from  on  05/24  at  05:00 PM

  3. The man who wrote the first comment is anti-semitic.  Here’s what he says:

    “Everyone knows that America’s blind support for anything and everything the Judeo-Nazi state terrorist government does is the main reason for any genuine terrorist acts on American installations”

    You can’t reason with such people.  You can only hope they remain an ugly fringe element.

    Posted by JLM from  on  05/25  at  07:39 PM

  4. One reason why “Several thousand died in Sudan” this week, as Andrew says, may not get the criticism here that the Israel repression of Palestinians does is because the Sudanese are not recipients of US $5 billion a year in aid from the US, which makes each of we Americans individually and collectively complicit in said repression.  Moreover, the repression is about a lot more than “just the 40 who died” this week, but an incredibly tyrannical and unjust and systematic theft of land and rights of the Palestinians which includes checkpoints, curfuews, roadblocks, ad nauseum.  Moreover, I am unaware of the killings in Sudan other than Andrews reporting of them here; nor does this make me ignorant and unfeeling as I am enduring as much as I can politically in the Bush Jr. League administration, the alleged challenge in Kerry, Israel/Palestine, Iraq, US imperialism in general, so-called free trade, capitalism just for starters.  And hey, you know what?  It’s awful that Israeli citizens are subjected to the terror, violence, and horror of suicide bombings.  And a solution to them ought be diligently sought.  But it’s not in Sharon’s war crimes, or Bush Jr. League’s lip service to road maps, while maintaining the status quo of keeping Israel as the US policeman in the region.  And putting those suicide attacks on the scales, bad as they are, and with ALL the news coverage and publicity they get, next to what the Palestinians are forced to endure, and, as horrifying as it is to say, it is no contest. 

    Finally, no fair.  In mentioning 7 of the 15 articles you neglected this line of my review of “State Terrorism and the United States”: 

    “Particularly salient in light of Europe’s recent refusal to even consider it, a negotiating posture ought be adopted to ameliorate the grievances of terrorists and potential terrorists. This should be especially true in the case of those with grievances against Israel, says Gareau, whose close relationship with the United States fuels much terrorist hatred.”

    Posted by Tracy Mclellan from  on  05/25  at  09:44 PM

  5. Interesting piece, and well-argued - although I’m not sure I entirely agree with a number of the points you make.  For example, you say: “Not every state that resorts to oppression claims to be a Western democracy...”

    That’s true - but Israel’s most aggresive critics tend not to criticise it by saying, “They’re a democracy so should know better”.  Israel tends to be compared to countries that aren’t democracies at all.

    “Not every state that resorts to oppression has been founded by people who were themselves the victims of...oppression”

    The experience of oppression is used to explain brutal human behaviour in various parts of the world; when it comes to Israel, the experience of oppression is used to hold them to a higher standard.  People tend not to say, “Israel was the victim and has a special duty not to be an oppressor”.  If anything, they’re more likely to indulge in a little rationalisation of the Holocaust.

    “(Israel)got this enterprise recognized and approved by the League of Nations and later by the United Nations… “

    In my experience, the whole business of UN resolutions tends to be used very selectively.  Everyone learned to say, in the run up to the invasion of Iraq, that Israel had more outstanding resolutions than Saddam Hussein.  But few refer to Syria’s obligations under the same resolution and nobody used the example of Turkey as a state which also has more outstanding resolutions than Israel.


    “Not every state that resorts to oppression had been founded by people who came from Europe and settled in an already inhabited land...”

    Yes - but still we get an uneven approach.  I’ve been making a comparison with the RSA, which doesn’t seem to have impressed many people.  Apartheid obviously did bring attention to the RSA but people tended not to argue that the South African state had no right to exist.

    “Not every state that resorts to oppression is the recipient of $3 billion a year in U.S. aid...”

    Again, no consistency here: Egypt is the second biggest beneficiary of US aid in the region.  And there’s always Jordan, Kuwait, formerly Ba’athist Iraq, the House of Saud etc. to consider.  Why, next to this list, is American support for Israel seen as the root of all evil in the region?

    “Not every state that resorts to oppression is the possessor of a considerable arsenal of nuclear warheads and missiles..”

    Nukes are something that practically no-one is consistent about.  But again, why is Israel’s possession of nuclear weapons so much more sinister than those held by Pakistan or North Korea?

    Posted by Shuggy from Glasgow  on  06/28  at  08:23 AM
    6. Commenting is not available in this weblog entry. {/if}

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