I want to start this column by making clear my abhorrence of Hamas’s barbaric October 7th murder of 1,200 Israelis. And by stating that Israel does have a right to defend itself, though by proportionate means.
That needs to be said because it is perilous, in the current atmosphere, to attempt a critique of the propaganda war that is raging around defining the limits of acceptable speech on this topic. Specifically, anti-Semitism and, for the left particularly, whether anti-Zionism is inherently anti-Semitic.
Zionism began as the secular nationalist movement in the 19th century in response to widespread anti-Semitism to promote Jewish self-determination and the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. Since Israel’s founding 75 years ago, it has been defined as the political ideology of supporting Israel’s continued existence as a Jewish state. Not a few of its current more extreme adherents also see it as the basis for their expansionist support for illegal settlements in the West Bank and the legitimacy of their demand for annexation of the West Bank and Gaza.
What then is Zionism, and what is anti-Zionism?
Critics say that inherent in the definition of Zionism, even in its more limited form, is the denial of that right which it demands for Jews to self-determination of the Palestinian people, not only in legitimising expropriation of Palestinian land, but in the insistence on Israel’s right to exist specifically as a Jewish, ethnocentric state. And that it is legitimate for many Jews both to defend Israel’s right to exist, flawed and all, while vigorously opposing Zionism and its most virulent representation, the hard-right government of Binyamin Netanyahu.
[ Gross diplomatic negligence led to war between Israel and Hamas ]
[ Irish unilateral recognition of state of Palestine will be dismissed, Varadkar says ]
The struggle over the definition of anti-Semitism is a diplomatic sideshow, a successful campaign by Israel’s supporters internationally to frame as tightly as possible the supposedly acceptable limits to criticism of Israel and muzzle its opponents. If criticism can successfully be characterised as anti-Semitic, arguments can be delegitimised and politically stigmatised. They do not need to be answered.
Jonathan Greenblatt, the chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League, the US’s predominant campaign against anti-Semitism, sees anti-Zionism, by definition, as anti-Semitism. “Zionism is fundamental to Judaism,” he says. But he insists that you can be a harsh critic of the Israeli government without being anti-Zionist; he says that he, like many others, supports Palestinian identity and Palestinian nationalism while also being a Zionist.
Yet non-Jewish critics of Israel find in practice that these are distinctions they are not being allowed to make. Liberal Jewish voices are dismissed as “self-hating”. On US university campuses, academics have been silenced for promoting Palestinian voices – the head of the University of Pennsylvania, Elizabeth Magill, was forced to resign after testimony to Congress that was interpreted as ambivalence about disciplining students who advocated genocide against Israel. She had merely said, quite properly, that any such decision needed to be considered in its specific context.
Two weeks ago, Republicans, in a bid to embarrass Democrats with their Jewish supporters, pushed through the House of Representatives a resolution stating “that anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism”. The resolution passed by 311 to 14, drawing the support of all but one Republican. Ninety-two Democrats abstained while 95 supported it.
[ Twenty-five inevitable consequences of Binyamin Netanyahu’s barbaric tactics in Gaza ]
[ Israel steps up bombardment of Gaza as Netanyahu calls for further military pressure on Hamas ]
And last month, the House censured Representative Rashida Tlaib, Democrat of Michigan, for promoting a pro-Palestinian slogan, “from the river to the sea”, that is seen by some as calling for the destruction of the state of Israel. The slogan has been widely seen on banners in pro-Palestinian demonstrations in Ireland and the UK, and Palestinians insist its meaning to the majority of supporters is not a denial of Israel’s right to exist, but a call for justice and statehood for Palestinians. But they are not being allowed to set the language of the debate.
That curtailing of language and legitimate arguments has been facilitated by the success of the drive to get international acceptance by many states and the EU of an agreed working definition of anti-Semitism from the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). It was also central to the debate inside the British Labour Party to cleanse it of alleged Corbynite anti-Semitic tendencies.
While the definition itself is largely unobjectionable, some of the widely cited IHRA examples of its application cause concern to free speech advocates. The examples include claiming that the existence of a state of Israel is a racist endeavour, applying double standards by requiring of Israel behaviour not expected or demanded of other democratic states, and comparing Israeli policy to that of the Nazis. Such positions may be wrong-headed, and indeed obnoxious to some, but they do not go beyond the bounds of legitimate debate. They do not expressly incite hatred or violence. Nor indeed does the boycott and disinvestment campaign against goods produced for export from the illegal settlements of the West Bank, which the Israeli government also characterises as anti-Semitic.
Characterising criticism of Israel as anti-Semitism shuts down debate
11
4
23.12.2023
I want to start this column by making clear my abhorrence of Hamas’s barbaric October 7th murder of 1,200 Israelis. And by stating that Israel does have a right to defend itself, though by proportionate means.
That needs to be said because it is perilous, in the current atmosphere, to attempt a critique of the propaganda war that is raging around defining the limits of acceptable speech on this topic. Specifically, anti-Semitism and, for the left particularly, whether anti-Zionism is inherently anti-Semitic.
Zionism began as the secular nationalist movement in the 19th century in response to widespread anti-Semitism to promote Jewish self-determination and the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. Since Israel’s founding 75 years ago, it has been defined as the political ideology of supporting Israel’s continued existence as a Jewish state. Not a few of its current more extreme adherents also see it as the basis for their expansionist support for illegal settlements in the West Bank and the legitimacy of their demand for annexation of the West Bank and Gaza.
What then is Zionism, and what is anti-Zionism?
Critics say that inherent in the definition of Zionism, even in its more limited form, is the denial of that right which it demands for Jews to self-determination of the Palestinian people, not only in legitimising expropriation of Palestinian land, but in the insistence on........
© The Irish Times
visit website
login
who are we?
contact us
qosheapp
Toi Staff
Gideon Levy
Belen Fernandez
Andrew Mitrovica
Mort Laitner
Rami G Khouri
Ali Fathollah-Nejad
Nikkei Editorial
