” islam has introduced sectarianism into the Palestinian movement and has nothing to offer but further division” ‘ Bastard Zio-Islamophobic Tony Greenstein’
” The quoran also have passages that are chauvinist and today, in the context of state policy woul undonbtedly be deemed racist.” ‘ Bastard Zio-Islamophobic Tony Greenstein’
”Tony I’m confused by the motion you’ve tabled (motion 9). The third point calls for education in order to reinforce the principles laid out in the first two points. However, the things you seek to make people understand seem completely irrelevant to ensuring that anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial have no place in the PSC.
Could you explain why you aren’t seeking to educate the PSC members about the history of anti-Semitism and about the Holocaust if your desire is to ensure that PSC members don’t slip into anti-Semitism or Holocaust denial?” 2 January 2012
” The reason is that PSC is a solidarity organisation and it would no more have internal education about the holocaust or anti-Semitism than any other solidarity organisation. To our mind there is little connection between Zionism, which was a political movement formed, if you take 1881 as the starting point, some 60 years before the holocaust. Likewise the history of anti-Semitism is likely to be contentious given that Zionist historiography has come into sharp dispute with diaspora historians over this and it seeks to rewrite the past from a distorted view of the present. As I wrote in my review of Gabriel Piterberg’s superb ‘The Returns of Zionism’: ‘Zionism rejected all the great Jewish historians of the Diaspora – Heinrich Graetz, Simon Dubnow, Salo Baron. They lived in ‘exile’ and therefore could not appreciate ‘real’ Jewish history as viewed from Mount Scopus and Palestine. As Raz-Krakotzkin, described it, Zionist history is the history of the victor. To the ‘Princess of Zionism’ Anita Shapira even the Nazi holocaust could only be understood on Jewish national soil even though it took placed in the accursed diaspora. As Piterberg notes, ‘Arendt committed what is for Zionist Israeli scholars, from Scholem to Shapira, the cardinal sin: she had a universalise perspective’ I suspect our take on the history of anti-Semitism would diverge because I don’t accept the Zionist myth that there were 2,000 years of unbroken anti-Semitism. Jews were oppressors and oppressed. In general they lived far better lives than the peasants and serfs around them. This resulted from time to time in pogroms etc. But the real point is that the history of anti-Semitism is in any case of very limited value. Anti-Semitism in medieval times cannot be compared with the Nazi genocide. Even in Latvia the Nazis found it hard, as the Situation Reports filed by the Einsatzgruppen testify, to initiate pogroms. In feudal times they tended to die out like brushwood and the state had no interest in such a conflagration. That was why fascist anti-Semitism marked a sharp break from the past in many ways. I don’t have time to deal with this, but there were Polish anti-Semitic leaders who, realising that anti-Semitism was being used to destroy Polish nationalism, moved to a position of opposition. Poland is another story so I’ll leave it. The reason we have proposed the things we have is to combat the idea that support for Israel, the Zionist lobby etc. is somehow the property of Jews and is in effect a Jewish lobby. It is important to show that the main lobby for Israel in the US, whilst using Jews as cover, comes from the Christian Right, in particular Hagee’s CUFI. Hagee, despite the defence of him by Foxman et al, is acknowledged to be a virulent anti-Semite who saw Hitler as fulfilling a divine mission. Likewise Glenn Beck, who was recently accorded an invitation to address the Knesset, waxes lyrical on Jewish financiers, the Rothschilds and other topics not a million miles form Atzmon. It is, interestingly, in view of the HP discussion, one of the key arguments of Atzmon that Israel is NOT a colonial entity nor was it formed by colonialism. For him it was the Jews, again a mirror image of Zionism. You will of course disagree with this, but in our view, an education about the origins of Zionism, not least to show how Jews were the main opponents of it and anti-Semites the main supporters (and there can be no dispute about this – from Class to Drumont to Rosenberg etc.) It is the failure to understand Zionism which leads people to see being Jewish and Zionist as synonymous. That means your side ending once and for all the continual conflation of the two, but we know they won’t, hence the problems that arise. 3 January 2012
I recognise your approach now. However, I find it troubling. Your position is part of the continuum of Jewish opinion. This continuum stretches from one extreme (such as wanting all Arabs murdered), through slavish support of every Israel policy, via discomfort and opposition to some and to the other extreme of opposing every policy and wanting Israel to disappear. This much ought to be obvious. More so, no anti-racist organisation should need education not to realise that an individual’s opinion is not determined by his skin colour or the religion of his parents. As such, regardless of the comments of any Jewish organisation, anti-racists should realise that Jews do not speak with one voice on this issue. How could they be anti-racist if they didn’t? And so the question is whether you’re approach is helpful. I don’t see that it is, at least not without accepting that your colleagues in the PSC are currently not actually anti-racist. Your motion and intended education material does not challenge their seemingly racist notion that all (or most) Jews share the same opinion. Educating them about Jewish opposition to Zionism doesn’t tackle the underlying lack of anti-racism. Moreover, I think your proposal and indeed the entire anti-Israel “as a Jew” phenomenon, may exacerbate the problem. The tendency is to imply a simple dichotomy in which those who oppose Israel publicly are “good Jews” and everyone else is a “bad Jew” who, by virtue of not opposing Israel, must support every policy and action. In my article that you quoted in your post, I point to one example of this result. The opposition of Neturei Karta to Zionism did not lead to an understanding that there is a continuum of Jewish opinion. It simply led to the racist slightly amending his racism to include a special category for “good Jews”. I’d be very interested to hear whether you share my concerns and, in particular, whether you accept that an anti-racist organisation ought to understand without special education that no racial, ethnic or religious group speaks with one voice even if some members of that group claim that it does. 3 January 2012
you ask why it is that when so many of the injustices I complain about have nothing to do with race do I insist on calling them racist. I make a distinction between racism and racist. There is no such thing as ‘race’, it is a political construct. However racism certainly exists, based on this false construction. I.e. people are arbitrarily discriminated against on the grounds of their perceived ‘race’ or lower status. That is why I say their treatment is racist. Not all injustices are of course racist and you won’t find me describing the government attack on the low paid, pensions, claimants etc. as racist because of course they apply equally to those of all ‘races’. 3 January 2012
”..Anthony, you say that ‘no anti-racist organisation should need education not to realise that an individual’s opinion is not determined by his skin colour or the religion of his parents.’
I agree. However it is not as simple as that. You say ‘regardless of the comments of any Jewish organisation, anti-racists should realise that Jews do not speak with one voice on this issue.’ Therein lies the problem. There is a deafening cacophony of wall to wall noise that says, explicitly and insistently, backed up by the court papers of the establishment, that says to be Jewish is to support Israel. The BOD organises demonstrations ‘Jews Stand by Israel’ when there is an attack on Gaza. Not ‘some Jews’ but’Jews’. And those of us who dissent are ‘self-haters’ i.e. the bad Jews but worse, because they borrow the language and concepts of how Nazi Germany treated anti-fascist Germans. In short you are trying to have your cake and eat it. Zionism can hardly proclaim to speak on behalf of all Jews as a ‘national’ movement, not individual Jews, and then complain when people take them at their word. Therein lies the problem. Some supporters of the Palestinians do accept the Zionist claims and therefore all Jews are seen as the enemy. It is a situation entirely of Zionism’s own making. And we have on the HP blog that has discussed, appallingly, your article and in the repeated proclamations of J Hoffman the insistence that ‘aZ = aS’. I believe that it is only through an understanding of the origins of Zionism, Jewish opposition to it, why Jews opposed it, how Zionism arose and the context, which of course is modern day anti-Semitism, that an understanding can be garnered that it is the growth of AS that led to a growth of Zionism. In fact the majority of supporters of the Palestinians do understand this. It is a minority we are talking about but it is a minority I wish to see reduced to insignificance. Well clearly there are some associated with Palestinian politics, including PSC, who are not confused at best, for the reasons I have given above. In fact I believe that nearly all of them, including Gill Kaffash, are primarily motivated by opposition to the primary racism of Israel and Zionism and when Jewish organisations say that Jews AS Jews are responsible, that there then begins a process of what Marxists call false consciousness. The co-existence of 2 contradictory trends inside one’s head. When I speak ‘as a Jew’ against Zionism I don’t imply that all other Jews are bad. I speak for myself alone but I do so, because there are others, speaking ‘as Jews’ who attack things like Boycott because they are Jewish. That is the context in which I speak as someone who is Jewish. But certainly, if someone proclaims that they are shackling children, confiscating homes, expelling refugees etc. in the name of all Jews I do think it is incumbent on Jews to speak out. Certainly morally but I’ve never criticised someone who remained silent. But we could contextualise this. Was there an obligation on Germans to oppose Nazi policies, despite the terrible risks between 1933-41? Neturei Karta’s oosition is different as it stems primarily from their religious not political views, though religion and politics cannot be separated.” 3 January 2012
” So yes, of course PSC is an anti-racist organisation. But it is also a solidarity organisation and people come into it from varied backgrounds and opinions. That is a fact. There is so much any organisation can do and we have proposed a modest programme of education. Our activity is the best guarantor.
I should add that the most vociferous opponents of Atzmon, many of whose young activists were on the picket of Atzmon’s book launch were the same people decried as ‘Jew haters’ by Geoffrey Alderman when he rejoiced in the death of an Italian activist, ie the ISM. It is often those who less active and older who seem attracted by Atzmon who in fact opposes solidarity actions.
So when you ask whether I accept that ‘no racial, ethnic or religious group speaks with one voice even if some members of that group claim that it does’ then of course the answer is yes. But the real problem, as I think u understand, is that there are many others who are insistent that Jews are a collective and do speak with one voice and, as you know, there is great pressure in the Jewish community not to rock the boat or criticise Israel.”
“Holocaust Denial and anti-Semitism Have No Place in PSC”
”Tony I’m confused by the motion you’ve tabled (motion 9). The third point calls for education in order to reinforce the principles laid out in the first two points. However, the things you seek to make people understand seem completely irrelevant to ensuring that anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial have no place in the PSC.
Could you explain why you aren’t seeking to educate the PSC members about the history of anti-Semitism and about the Holocaust if your desire is to ensure that PSC members don’t slip into anti-Semitism or Holocaust denial?”
2 January 2012
” The reason is that PSC is a solidarity organisation and it would no more have internal education about the holocaust or anti-Semitism than any other solidarity organisation.
To our mind there is little connection between Zionism, which was a political movement formed, if you take 1881 as the starting point, some 60 years before the holocaust.
Likewise the history of anti-Semitism is likely to be contentious given that Zionist historiography has come into sharp dispute with diaspora historians over this and it seeks to rewrite the past from a distorted view of the present.
As I wrote in my review of Gabriel Piterberg’s superb ‘The Returns of Zionism’:
‘Zionism rejected all the great Jewish historians of the Diaspora – Heinrich Graetz, Simon Dubnow, Salo Baron. They lived in ‘exile’ and therefore could not appreciate ‘real’ Jewish history as viewed from Mount Scopus and Palestine. As Raz-Krakotzkin, described it, Zionist history is the history of the victor. To the ‘Princess of Zionism’ Anita Shapira even the Nazi holocaust could only be understood on Jewish national soil even though it took placed in the accursed diaspora. As Piterberg notes, ‘Arendt committed what is for Zionist Israeli scholars, from Scholem to Shapira, the cardinal sin: she had a universalise perspective’
I suspect our take on the history of anti-Semitism would diverge because I don’t accept the Zionist myth that there were 2,000 years of unbroken anti-Semitism. Jews were oppressors and oppressed. In general they lived far better lives than the peasants and serfs around them. This resulted from time to time in pogroms etc.
But the real point is that the history of anti-Semitism is in any case of very limited value. Anti-Semitism in medieval times cannot be compared with the Nazi genocide. Even in Latvia the Nazis found it hard, as the Situation Reports filed by the Einsatzgruppen testify, to initiate pogroms. In feudal times they tended to die out like brushwood and the state had no interest in such a conflagration.
That was why fascist anti-Semitism marked a sharp break from the past in many ways. I don’t have time to deal with this, but there were Polish anti-Semitic leaders who, realising that anti-Semitism was being used to destroy Polish nationalism, moved to a position of opposition. Poland is another story so I’ll leave it.
The reason we have proposed the things we have is to combat the idea that support for Israel, the Zionist lobby etc. is somehow the property of Jews and is in effect a Jewish lobby.
It is important to show that the main lobby for Israel in the US, whilst using Jews as cover, comes from the Christian Right, in particular Hagee’s CUFI. Hagee, despite the defence of him by Foxman et al, is acknowledged to be a virulent anti-Semite who saw Hitler as fulfilling a divine mission. Likewise Glenn Beck, who was recently accorded an invitation to address the Knesset, waxes lyrical on Jewish financiers, the Rothschilds and other topics not a million miles form Atzmon.
It is, interestingly, in view of the HP discussion, one of the key arguments of Atzmon that Israel is NOT a colonial entity nor was it formed by colonialism. For him it was the Jews, again a mirror image of Zionism.
You will of course disagree with this, but in our view, an education about the origins of Zionism, not least to show how Jews were the main opponents of it and anti-Semites the main supporters (and there can be no dispute about this – from Class to Drumont to Rosenberg etc.)
It is the failure to understand Zionism which leads people to see being Jewish and Zionist as synonymous. That means your side ending once and for all the continual conflation of the two, but we know they won’t, hence the problems that arise.
3 January 2012
I recognise your approach now. However, I find it troubling.
Your position is part of the continuum of Jewish opinion. This continuum stretches from one extreme (such as wanting all Arabs murdered), through slavish support of every Israel policy, via discomfort and opposition to some and to the other extreme of opposing every policy and wanting Israel to disappear.
This much ought to be obvious. More so, no anti-racist organisation should need education not to realise that an individual’s opinion is not determined by his skin colour or the religion of his parents. As such, regardless of the comments of any Jewish organisation, anti-racists should realise that Jews do not speak with one voice on this issue. How could they be anti-racist if they didn’t?
And so the question is whether you’re approach is helpful. I don’t see that it is, at least not without accepting that your colleagues in the PSC are currently not actually anti-racist.
Your motion and intended education material does not challenge their seemingly racist notion that all (or most) Jews share the same opinion. Educating them about Jewish opposition to Zionism doesn’t tackle the underlying lack of anti-racism.
Moreover, I think your proposal and indeed the entire anti-Israel “as a Jew” phenomenon, may exacerbate the problem. The tendency is to imply a simple dichotomy in which those who oppose Israel publicly are “good Jews” and everyone else is a “bad Jew” who, by virtue of not opposing Israel, must support every policy and action.
In my article that you quoted in your post, I point to one example of this result. The opposition of Neturei Karta to Zionism did not lead to an understanding that there is a continuum of Jewish opinion. It simply led to the racist slightly amending his racism to include a special category for “good Jews”.
I’d be very interested to hear whether you share my concerns and, in particular, whether you accept that an anti-racist organisation ought to understand without special education that no racial, ethnic or religious group speaks with one voice even if some members of that group claim that it does.
3 January 2012
you ask why it is that when so many of the injustices I complain about have nothing to do with race do I insist on calling them racist.
I make a distinction between racism and racist. There is no such thing as ‘race’, it is a political construct. However racism certainly exists, based on this false construction. I.e. people are arbitrarily discriminated against on the grounds of their perceived ‘race’ or lower status. That is why I say their treatment is racist.
Not all injustices are of course racist and you won’t find me describing the government attack on the low paid, pensions, claimants etc. as racist because of course they apply equally to those of all ‘races’.
3 January 2012
”..Anthony, you say that ‘no anti-racist organisation should need education not to realise that an individual’s opinion is not determined by his skin colour or the religion of his parents.’
I agree. However it is not as simple as that. You say ‘regardless of the comments of any Jewish organisation, anti-racists should realise that Jews do not speak with one voice on this issue.’
Therein lies the problem. There is a deafening cacophony of wall to wall noise that says, explicitly and insistently, backed up by the court papers of the establishment, that says to be Jewish is to support Israel. The BOD organises demonstrations ‘Jews Stand by Israel’ when there is an attack on Gaza. Not ‘some Jews’ but’Jews’. And those of us who dissent are ‘self-haters’ i.e. the bad Jews but worse, because they borrow the language and concepts of how Nazi Germany treated anti-fascist Germans.
In short you are trying to have your cake and eat it. Zionism can hardly proclaim to speak on behalf of all Jews as a ‘national’ movement, not individual Jews, and then complain when people take them at their word.
Therein lies the problem. Some supporters of the Palestinians do accept the Zionist claims and therefore all Jews are seen as the enemy. It is a situation entirely of Zionism’s own making. And we have on the HP blog that has discussed, appallingly, your article and in the repeated proclamations of J Hoffman the insistence that ‘aZ = aS’.
I believe that it is only through an understanding of the origins of Zionism, Jewish opposition to it, why Jews opposed it, how Zionism arose and the context, which of course is modern day anti-Semitism, that an understanding can be garnered that it is the growth of AS that led to a growth of Zionism.
In fact the majority of supporters of the Palestinians do understand this. It is a minority we are talking about but it is a minority I wish to see reduced to insignificance.
Well clearly there are some associated with Palestinian politics, including PSC, who are not confused at best, for the reasons I have given above. In fact I believe that nearly all of them, including Gill Kaffash, are primarily motivated by opposition to the primary racism of Israel and Zionism and when Jewish organisations say that Jews AS Jews are responsible, that there then begins a process of what Marxists call false consciousness. The co-existence of 2 contradictory trends inside one’s head.
When I speak ‘as a Jew’ against Zionism I don’t imply that all other Jews are bad. I speak for myself alone but I do so, because there are others, speaking ‘as Jews’ who attack things like Boycott because they are Jewish. That is the context in which I speak as someone who is Jewish.
But certainly, if someone proclaims that they are shackling children, confiscating homes, expelling refugees etc. in the name of all Jews I do think it is incumbent on Jews to speak out. Certainly morally but I’ve never criticised someone who remained silent.
But we could contextualise this. Was there an obligation on Germans to oppose Nazi policies, despite the terrible risks between 1933-41?
Neturei Karta’s oosition is different as it stems primarily from their religious not political views, though religion and politics cannot be separated.”
3 January 2012
” So yes, of course PSC is an anti-racist organisation. But it is also a solidarity organisation and people come into it from varied backgrounds and opinions. That is a fact. There is so much any organisation can do and we have proposed a modest programme of education. Our activity is the best guarantor.
I should add that the most vociferous opponents of Atzmon, many of whose young activists were on the picket of Atzmon’s book launch were the same people decried as ‘Jew haters’ by Geoffrey Alderman when he rejoiced in the death of an Italian activist, ie the ISM. It is often those who less active and older who seem attracted by Atzmon who in fact opposes solidarity actions.
So when you ask whether I accept that ‘no racial, ethnic or religious group speaks with one voice even if some members of that group claim that it does’ then of course the answer is yes. But the real problem, as I think u understand, is that there are many others who are insistent that Jews are a collective and do speak with one voice and, as you know, there is great pressure in the Jewish community not to rock the boat or criticise Israel.”
3 January 2012