When Anti-Zionism slips into Anti-Semitism

People are losing all perspective.

On the right, people bless everything Israel does. Every bombing deserved. Every murder explained. Every cruelty necessary. And everyone who disagrees is a closet Hitler.

On the left, Israel is accused of being worse then the Russians in Chechnya, or the American in Iraq: equivalent in fact to the Nazis.

The right wing Jews claim that any attack on Israeli policy or on the idea of Zionism is, by definition, anti-Jewish and therefore antisemitic. Zionism is an integral part of what it means to be Jewish - claims the Jewish right - and an attack on Israel or Zionism is an attack on all Jews. The left takes the right wingers at their word, and has begun equating Judaism with Zionism: and if Zionism is evil than so must the Jews be.

There is no nuance. No recognition that not all Jews support the Israeli right. No recognition that Jews may have legitimate national rights in Israel AND they may be oppressing Palestinians: that Palestinians may have legitimate national in Palestine rights AND they may be threatening Israelis. No recognition that all Muslims are not xenophobic anti-western anti-modern terrorists, and that all Jews are not power mad self righteous colonialists.

How far this has gone was driven home to me by an email I received from a Palestinian friend. This is a person who works cooperatively with many Jews (and others of course) to promote economic well being for Palestinians. This is a person who has never condoned violence, and who truly desires peace. In a mass email he forwarded a link to a blog article, with a note that he found it instructive re the ways in which anti-Israel voices are silenced. So far so good. I agree that anti-Israel voices are under-represented in the main stream media and in most official discourse.

But the article itself was an over the top anti-Semitic rant: 5% useful insight, and 95% hateful incite - simplification, exaggeration, generalization, and outright falsehoods - in short classic racism. It included statements and phrases such as these:

• "... Jewish-American genocidalism"
  
  
• "Jews in America are socially empowered to [engage in] typical reactionary behavior. They actually participate in group behavior that is deliberately manipulative and abusive - aimed at punishing activists who stand up for human equality and justice. Over the years, US Jews have become increasingly nutty not only due to current events but due to the internet "alerts" coming to them from Jewish lobbyists, who solidify their brains in this self-righteous fantasy world where Hamas is a terrorist organization, where Israel has some kind of right to kill and rob non-Jews." [ sn: Jews - not the Israel Lobby, not Zionists, not right wing Jews, not some Jews, just all American Jews ! ]
  
  
• "American Jews are actually being trained since childhood to interact with non-Jews in a deceitful and arrogant manner, in coordination with each other, to emotionally destroy Gentiles and Israel critics, in addition to wrecking their careers and interfering with their social relationships."
  
  
• "... someone as disloyal to the United States Constitution like Charles Jacobs of CAMERA or the psychotic racist freaks at HonestReporting ..."
  
  
• " But the Jew doesn’t care how much he or she hurts others. Jews only care about what's good for the Jews."
  
  
• "... given the UN's past record of backing up Israel and neocon wars in general and the previous example of Bosnia. Instead of helping Bosnians, NATO dismantled their country and now uses it as a CIA base for kidnapping white prostitutes to sell to Israel."
  
  
• "Getting rid of Israel would not solve the problem of this Jewish international crime network. If they lost Israel they would just find something else to mess up. The American Jews are arming the rebels in Darfur now."

You can read the whole disgusting piece here.

To make matters worse, when I showed this email to my wife, she told me that she had received two emails from other anti-occupation activists (both Jewish in her case) recommending the same piece. (I guess it was making the rounds among the anti-Zionist crowd.) That none of these people saw the racism, antisemitism and blind hate in this piece, and that they would recommend it to others, is very disturbing.

I wrote my colleague, who had sent me the original email, and told him that I thought the piece was antisemitic and that I was shocked he would send it out. To his credit, he agreed with me (sort of) and sent out a follow-up email to all his original correspondents, dissociating from the antisemitism in the article

But still he found the that the antisemitism was merely "injudicious", and "detracted from the core argument". It was a minor point in an otherwise good essay - in his opinion.

The author goes over the top on many of her statements and can be racist in some. She writes for effect and she could have stopped on many before going into overstatement. The points could have been made more simply & effectively.

It is sad that otherwise good people have been so embittered by the Israel/Palestine struggle that they can't see hate and racism for what it is: a kind of crazy paranoia - but one that can be hurtful and very dangerous. That my colleague had to have me point out the obvious antisemitism is sad, and that he made only a lukewarm retraction is sadder still. That this sort of stuff is happening all the time is very worrisome. It bodes badly for the future.

Sigh ...

Analogy?

I saw the photo above, and immediately thought of the photo below.



My bad? I hope so.



Hamevin yevin.

The Eleventh Hour

The majority of Israelis no longer believe in peace.

That is the only conclusion one can reach from the recent Israeli elections.

It is the only conclusion one can reach from a recent poll done for Israel's Channel 2 TV station. According to Angus/Reid, 51 percent of "Israeli adults" oppose the creation of a Palestinian State, while only 32% support it. (I think it goes without saying that virtually all the 51% do not envision giving Palestinians the right to vote in the "one state solution". The numbers are even worse than they appear, if we take the report at face value: that the survey included all "Israeli adults", including Israeli Arabs. If we assume that the 18% of the Israeli population that is Arab is all buried within the 32% who support a Palestinian State, then the number of Israeli Jews that oppose the idea of a Palestinian State is 62% versus 17% for. )

That most Israelis have given up on peace, is also the only conclusion one can reach from this story in Haaretz - about Israel rejecting an offer for $850 million (yes, almost 1 billion !!) to build and operate a hospital and "Peace Campus" on the Israel/West Bank border. The hospital would serve both Israelis and Palestinians. The campus was to be built in the Israeli side of the border, and was to serve residence of the Jenin area of the West Bank and the Afulah area of Israel. But it has been nixed by the Israeli security establishment. Their reason:

Why should we look for trouble? What will happen if Hamas takes control of the West Bank? And what will we do if a terrorist infiltrates the compound and kidnaps a doctor?

The project organizers, the Turkish government (yes Turkey: one of Israels only friends in the Muslim world) has offered to pay for the construction and operation of any security measures the Israelis wanted. Still no approvals. The projects sponsor, Prof. Ali Dogramaci, rector of Bilkent University in Ankara, is saying that if Israel does not approve the project soon (he has been in negotiations for 2 years) he will take his project elsewhere.

The Haaretz article concludes with:

An aide to the director general of the Prime Minister's Office informed Paz [Dogramaci's representative in Israel] that due to "a lack of security feasibility," the project was not approved. This was at the height of Operation Cast Lead, which sparked a severe crisis in Israel-Turkey relations. Dogramaci continued to believe, however, that the Israeli side would keep its promises.

After repeated requests for comment, Paz offered this reply: "It's too bad that after so many of the country's leaders welcomed the project, they're letting the defense establishment sabotage it. I certainly don't belittle security considerations, but the time has come to stop viewing everything through the hole of the gun-sight and to understand that a political-security reality is not built solely by means of targeted assassinations and checkpoints. Anyone who claims that the compound will constitute a security hazard hasn't bothered to read the plan."

Namik Tan, the Turkish ambassador to Israel, confirmed that all the politicians who met with Dogramaci praised the project, but said that unfortunately, "for practical reasons," it did not take further shape, so that now all he can do is hope that the new government will approve it. He said he also hoped that the political echelon would take advantage of the opportunity to also instruct the security echelon to remove the obstacles standing in the way of plans to build industrial zones in Tarkumiya and Jalama, on Palestinian land.

Tan says that his government invited experts and officials from Israel to Turkey so they could see similar projects built by Dogramaci that have been a great success. "My government, including the most senior echelon, considers the Peace Campus in Gilboa to be a most important project. The entire Turkish establishment wholeheartedly supports it," says the ambassador. ...

Danny Atar is from the mainstream of the Labor Party, and was among the first to press the political echelon to build the separation fence. Still, he believes that such barriers alone are not a long-term answer. "For years, every time terror increased, we told the Palestinians that as long as we have no quiet, they would pay the price. Now, in the past year, thanks to a courageous and wise governor, Jenin has become the quietest place in the territories. Governor Kadura Musa's message to his population has been that economic well-being and health services go hand-in-hand with law and order. If we kill the Turkish peace compound, we'll be showing them that he was mistaken."

Atar emphasizes that Dogramaci asked him for nothing at all except for a suitable piece of land near the seam line. As for the security officials' arguments, he says: "As a former military man, I say with full confidence that there is no security problem here. This is just an invented excuse and everyone can see that. It's a policy of fear befitting unenlightened regimes."

As I said, most Israelis no longer believe in peace. The only question is: is this just a reflection of their assessment of the short term prospects, or is it a value statement about the "way the world works"? In any case, the former attitude always slides towards the latter: "pragmatic" cynicism quickly turns into a permanent hardening of the heart; and acting on the belief that peace is impossible can quickly become a self fulfilling prophecy: war becomes the permanent state of being, and the only question is how to effectively manage it: kindness is for fools.

We are at the 11th hour.

Sudanese in Tel Aviv

I loved these photos taken at a wedding of Sudanese refugees in Tel-Aviv. Note the Obama T-shirt on the drummer in the lower photo.

(As it happens the sister of a good friend works for the U.N. agency dealing with Sudanese refugees in Israel. A relatively easy job after three years in Somolian refugee camps in Kenya.)

See more photos in this article from Haaretz.

Who's duping whom?

The headline in the Jerusalem Post reads: "World duped by Hamas death count." (See the full article here.)

The article goes on to say that the IDF has now "proved" that only 1/3 of those killed in the Gaza War where civilians. This, as opposed to the 2/3 figure promoted by Hamas and the approximately 50% figure claimed by the U.N.

First of all, is 1/3 - 400-500 innocent civilians killed OK? In the 2006 Lebanon 2 war Hezbollah killed 43 Israeli civilians, just over 1/3 of all Israeli casualties (the rest where soldiers.) Did anyone say this was acceptable? No! Everyone condemned it, and it cemented peoples opinions that Hezbollah was a dangerous terrorist organization.

Second, the IDFs arithmetic is suspect.

According to the Post, the IDF now has "identified of more than 1200 Palestinian casualties" of the war. This out of the 1338 dead. Of these

"The [IDF] said 580 ... had been conclusively "incriminated" as members of Hamas and other terrorist groups."

Another 300 had been classified as civilians (though the Post helpfully points out that some of these may in fact have been guilty of being the wives and children of Hamas officials, as if no one should be outraged if - for instance - Hamas bombed the house of Tzipi Livni and killed her husband and children.)

The remainder of the Palestinian casualties had yet to be classified. But, the IDF points out, if we assume that 2/3 of them are in fact "terror operatives" then the overall percentage of those killed in the war who are civilians is about 33%.

Well duh! If you assume that 2/3 of those killed are terrorists it no surprise that you will conclude that only 1/3 are civilians.

But what do the numbers really say? That 580 of 1338 people killed are members of "Hamas or other terrorist groups." That is 43% - leaving 56% as civilian casualties! More civilian casualties than even than the U.N. estimate.

And who does Israel include in this count? According to an article in Haaretz on the same IDF report, this count includes police cadets killed on the first day of the war. So we can safely assume that other such "terrorist operatives" are also civil servants working for the Hamas government - we know that many government buildings where targets of Israeli air force bombings in the early days of the war. By international law, government workers and police are considered civilians.

Hasbara

At least some Israelis can make fun of themselves.

Election Notes

The results are in, and pending the soldiers votes, and calculating the excess vote sharing agreements between the parties (all of which will move one or two seats) the seat counts are known.

Kadima 28
Likud 27
Yisrael Beteynu 15
Labour 13
Shas 11
UTJ (Agudah) 5
National Union 4
Hadash 4
UAL (Raam-Taal) 4
Meretz 3
Jewish Home (3)
Balad (3)

Observations:

1. The biggest loser in the election was the Zionist "left." Labour (which is barely "left" in any case) sank to an all time low – despite Barak’s technically competent performance as Defense Minister. Meretz lost over half its strength.

2. The biggest winner was Kadima – which survived, and did much better than anyone expected. It is now the de-facto leader of the “peace camp” (sic!) – the party of choice for people who think of themselves as nice liberal middle of the roaders (i.e. those who want their cake and to eat it too.)

3. Other winners where the Hadash (mixed Arab Jewish Communist lead coalition) and the two Arab parties – UAL. and Balad. Together they control 11 seats, up from 8 in the last Knesset. This seems to indicate a stronger vote turnout among the Arabs – despite a call to boycott the elections. Perhaps a reaction to the predicted strong showing of Y.B. and its open anti-Arab campaign. In the case of Hadash it may also mean that they succeeded in drawing Jewish votes from Meretz – which vacillated in its support/opposition to the recent war in Gaza.

4. Mixed results can be ascribed to the right wing Y.B. and Likud parties Objectively both made significant gains. But both also fell short of expectations and of the late poll numbers. Apparently enough Israelis still don’t trust Netanyahu (they know him too well), and enough people where scared of Leiberman, that they came out in higher than expected numbers to vote for other parties, thus diluting the Y.B. vote.

5. There is no realistic way that Kadima can form a 61 seat coalition without including Y.B. and Shas: a difficult task since both have expressed a preference for a Likud lead government and in any case these parties hate each other.

6. There is not much point, from a progressive perspective, in having a Kadima lead government with Y.B and Shas since it would mostly be paralyzed from making any meaningful moves re peace with the Palestinians, better Jewish-Arab relations, government reform, or any other "progressive" issues. Kadima's positions alone are not far reaching enough to reach any kind of deal with the Palestineans, and Shas and Y.B. would make them even less likely to do so. If Kadima could do so much damage in the past two years (two wars, no progress on peace negotiations, continued growth of the settlement project,) there is no reason to believe that they will be better with the addition of Y.B., and its racist and hyper agressive policies, to their coalition.

7 . Better to hope for a "narrow right wing" gov't without Kadima and Labour. Let them try their "tough"/"no compromise" positions, and fail. At least the choices made and their consequences will be clear.

8. Despite the fact that a narrow Likud or narrow Kadima lead government appear unstable - don't count on either to fall soon. The self interest of governing parties usually dictates that all Israeli coalitions - whether narrow or broad - last longer than anyone expects.

9. The worst option would be a "National Unity Government". It would squabble internally, screw up externally, and the blame would completely diffuse. Each participant would blame the other for its failures - "If only we had been allowed to carry out our platform as we wished ..." Thus when it failed, the public would learn no lessons whatsoever.

Lenin Would Aprove

Vladimir Lenin would approve of the results of the upcoming Israeli election.

Only someone who believes that "the worse it is the better it is" could be happy about what is to befall us. Under any realistic scenario, this week's Israeli elections will be a victory of the hawks and the right. Among people who hope for peace and justice, only those who believe that "sharpening the contradictions" and "exposing the true face if Israel" will bring enough external pressure to bear so as to impose a solution, can be pleased.

For the rest of us, hope will be a lot harder.

The table below summarizes the probable election results in terms of seats in the 120 member Israeli Knesset.

Party	Max	Min	My Prediction
Likud	33	27	26
Kadima	28	23	25
Yirael Beiteynu	17	20	19
Labour	14	17	14
Shas	11	10	10
Meretz	8	5	5
Agudah	6	5	5
Nation Union	4	3	4
Habayit HaYehidit	4	3	3
Hadash	4	3	4
Raam-Taal	4	3	3
Balad	3	0	2
Green-Meimad	2	0	0
Pensioners	2	0	0
Total			120

For those not familiar with Israeli parties, here are short descriptions of each:

• Likud - "mainstream" right wing hawkish party. One both the economy and foreign affairs equivalent to the right wing of the U.S. Republicans. Margret Thatcher and Paul Wolfowich would both feel comfortable in this party. Against a two state solution.
  
• Kadima - party of Olmert and Tzipi Livni. Says it is for a two state solution, but not willing to give up major settlement block in the West Bank. Trigger happy (started two wars in two and half years.) Right of centre economically. A "pragmatic" as opposed to an "ideological" party. May fall apart if left in opposition, as it has has no deep roots, having been founded only in 2005.
• Yisrael Beytenu - Russian based far right party. Extreme Jewish nationalist and openly anti-Arab. Racist and para-fascist are accurate terms IMO. Militantly secular as well. Believes Israel should treat Gaza the way Putin treated Chechnya. Believes in transfer of Arabs out of Israel, or stripping them of their vote.
  
• Labour - remnant of the party that once ruled Israel. Now the party of the Tel Aviv business elite and some old trade union bosses, and nobless oblige. In practice, only slightly more dovish than Kadima. Lead by Ehud Barak as a person fiefdom and who seems at odds with everyone else in the party leadership.
• Shas - Sefardi ultra-Orthodox Party. Against any territorial concessions in Jerusalem, and against any "major" concessions in the West Bank. But mostly concerned with funding for religious institutions and promoting religious issues.
• Meretz - left/dovish Zionist party. Now the home base of Amos Oz and Peace Now.
• Agudah - Ashekenzi ultra-Orthodox Party. Officially neutral on issues of the West Bank, though quite happy to keep them. Mostly concerned with funding for religious institutions and promoting religious issues.
• National Union - pro settler - "not one inch" party. Strong religious influence.
  
• Habayit Hayehudit - "National Religious" party. Like the National Union, but more polite, and also more concerned with promoting religious issues.
• Hadash - Arab/Jewish front party - dominates by the Israeli Communist Party - making a concerted bid for the Jewish alternative left and the environmental vote.
• Raam-Taal - Coalition of Palestinian nationalists and moderate "Southern" Islamic parties.
• Balaad - Pan Arab Nationalist Party: secular socialist.
  
• Green-Meimad - Coalition of Green Party and the moderate religious party Meimad (formerly allied with Labour)
• Pensioners Party - currently part of the Kadima government, but willing to support any government that will support positions favorable to pensioners.
  

Below is my analysis of possible coalitions.

Party	Hard Right 1	Hard Right 2	Right	National Union 1	National Union 2	National Union 3	Centre Right	Centre
Likud	26	26	26	26	26	26		0
Kadima	0	0	0	25	25	25	25	25
Yisrael Beiteynu	19	19	19	19	19	0	19	0
Labour	0	0	14	14	14	14	14	14
Shas	10	10	10	10	0	0	10	10
Meretz	0	0	0	0	0	0		5
Agudah	0	5	5	5	0	0		5
Nation Union	4	4	4	4	4	0		0
Habayit HaYehidit	3	3	3	3	3	0		0
Hadash	0	0		0	0	0		0
Raam-Taal	0	0		0	0	0		0
Balad	0	0		0	0	0		0
Green	0	0		0	0	0		0
Pensioners	0	0		0	0	0		0
Total	62	67	81	107	93	68	68	59

The last three columns represent possible coalitions that are only realistic if Kadima somehow manages to get a chance at forming the government - if for instance they get one more seat than the Likud, or if they offer Yisrael Beytaneu so much that they prefer a Kadima lead coalition to a Likud lead one, or if the Likud somehow fails to form a coalition within the allowed 40 days. All these scenarios are extremely unlikely.

What is likely, is that:

(a) Netanyahu and the Likud will form the government - a leader and a party that has explicitly ruled out a two state solution. "There will be no Palestinian sovereignty as long as I am Prime Minister" Netanyahu has said; and the Likud platform speaks only of "limited autonomy of Palestinian areas." Netanyahu has also ruled out any Israeli concessions on the Golan, so we can kiss goodbye to any hope of a treaty with Syria, something that might have wrenched it out of the orbit of Iran, and brought some stability to Lebanon as well. And also, watch out for an Israeli attack on Iran if Netanyahu is Prime Minister. Netanyahu is obsessed with the Iranian nuclear threat, and believes Israel must do anything and everything, with our without U.S. backing, to stop Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

(b) Lieberman and other Yisrael Beytenu pols will get many, and important, ministry posts. This is true even if, somehow Kadima squeeks out a win over Likud. For the first time, Israel will have an openly anti-Arab party in an influential position in government. Lieberman himself was formerly a member of Rabbi Kahane's now banned racist party - Kach. More recently he has declared Russia's Putin as his role model. He has made "a racially homogeneous" state - code for transferring as many Israeli Arabs as possible to future Palestinian areas - a mainstay of his party's platforms. Y.B's current campaign slogan is "No citizenship without loyalty", code for revoking citizenship from Israeli Arabs who are deemed insufficiently loyal - like not singing the Jewish national anthem, or lobbying that Israel become a "state of all its citizens" rather than a formally "Jewish State". Y.B. lead the attempt to ban 2 of Israel's Arab parties from running in the current elections (a move stopped only by Israel's Supreme Court.) It is likely that Leiberman himself will become either Minister of Finance, Foreign Minister, or Interior Minister - positions that will allow him both to do much damage as well as hand out favours that will increase his party's power in future elections.

(c) There will be many more super hawkish ministers. The National Union, and Habayit Hayehudit, are both committed pro-settler parties. In the Likud itself, the hawks have trounced the moderates: Netanyahu is now in the weaker "left" wing of his party ! Over and above official governmnet policy, these Ministers will use their positions to grow the settler movement, and make Israeli withdrawl from the West Bank even more difficult than it is today.

(d) There will be more clericist / religious ministers, as Shas and Agudah appear in almost all possible coalitions. (Ironically, Y.B. - if it is in a strong enough position - may try keep Shas and Agudah out of gov't, since, in keeping with being para-fascists, Y.B. is militantly secular.

(e) No matter which coalition is formed, there will be a strong faction of the Knesset members against Palestinian sovereignty and/or major territorial concession to the Palestinians. This includes: Likud 26 (no Palestinian sovereignty), Shas 10 (no major land concessions and no concessions at all in Jerusalem), National Union 4 (no land concessions in the West Bank, and lets take back Gaza), Habayit Hayehudit 3 (no major land concessions in the West Bank). Add to that, Yisrael Beitenu - 19 - which is only willing to see Palestinian Sovereignty if Israel keeps all the large settlement block and the Palestinians absorb large chunks of Israel's Arab population into their State - and you have an effective road block to any sort of two state solution.

This will likely be the most right wing government Israel has ever seen, and it will likely kill any hopes for a two state solution.

For the radicals - on both sides - this may be good news. For the rest of us ... not so much.

If I am right, it will be interesting to see how liberal Jews in the diaspora continue to frame their support for Israel. It will be interesting to see how the Zionist opposition parties in Israel frame their opposition - as timid as in the past, or, finally, as a fighting opposition using all means at their disposal. It will be interesting to see if the Obama administration will confront the new Israeli political reality, or merely be content to pretend to promote a settlement.