Israel/Palestine
Related: About this forumWistrich takes aim at ‘anti-Zionist mythology’ of left in posthumous essay
Wistrich went on the attack against what he saw as one of the most pernicious dogmas of Israel’s critics, firmly rejecting any comparisons between the Jewish state and European colonialists.“Many misguided Western liberals” in the anti-Zionist camp have a “seriously distorted perception of Israel as the last Western colonialist project,” Prof. Robert Wistrich, the world’s foremost authority on anti-Semitism, claimed in a posthumous article published in the Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs.
Wistrich, who was widely acknowledged as the doyen of anti-Semitism researchers, died in May after suffering a heart attack while waiting to address the Italian Senate on the issue to which he devoted his professional life. As head of the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Anti-Semitism at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, he was a much sought after lecturer and the author of dozens of books and scholarly essays on anti-Semitism.
In his final essay, Wistrich went on the attack against what he saw as one of the most pernicious dogmas of Israel’s critics, firmly rejecting any comparisons between the Jewish state and European colonialist regimes. “Jews who arrived in British Mandated Palestine manifestly did not come in order to destroy or displace the Palestinian Arab ‘nation’ – contrary to the myth propagated by the pro-Palestine radical Left, until today,” he wrote, asserting that economic modernization spurred by Jewish national revival turned Palestine into a land “attracting substantial Arab immigration.”
According to Wistrich, there were around six hundred thousand Arabs in the entire British Mandated Territory in the early 1920s, rising to well over a million by 1940, “hardly an example of colonial dispossession of the ‘indigenous’ population.” Most Palestinian Arabs during the Mandatory period were “either immigrants from neighboring Arab lands or descendants of immigrants who had arrived since the late 19th century,” he added. “Not only were they not Palestinian ‘natives,’ but at the time of the Balfour Declaration there was no clear or distinct concept of a Palestinian Arab nation. The left-wing narrative, especially since 1967, has consistently sidelined such inconvenient realities, replacing them with ideological fictions,” he asserted.
more...
http://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/Wistrich-takes-aim-at-anti-Zionist-mythology-of-left-in-posthumous-essay-411759
= new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight:
NoneDon't highlight anything
5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
Wistrich wrote that he believed Israel’s victory in the Six-Day War to be a turning point for much of the liberal and democratic Left in their approach to Israel, with the state’s image turning into that of an occupier. This “began to erode an unwritten taboo against open anti-Semitism since the Shoah.”
“A much harsher anti-Israel rhetoric” emerged both on the Right and the Left, including “an increasingly aggressive and vituperative anti-Zionism” on the part of radical “progressives.”
At that point, Israel’s self-definition as a Jewish state came to be seen as “a priori racist,” with leftist anti-Zionists pointing to Israel’s “theocratic character” as a factor that “allegedly obstructed the integration of Israel into the Arab world.”
Wistrich also took issue with those who labeled Jews as “European colonialist interlopers,” noting that “at least half of the Israeli population has its origins in the Middle East, and is historically more ‘indigenous’ to the Levant (including Palestine) and the Maghreb than the conquering Arabs, who only swept into the region from the Arabian peninsula in the seventh century CE.”
more...
http://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/Wistrich-takes-aim-at-anti-Zionist-mythology-of-left-in-posthumous-essay-411759
In 1980, PLO chief Yasser Arafat famously stated that “peace for us means Israel’s destruction, and nothing else.” Such statements, Wistrich contended, “did not disturb the sleep of left-wing or Western ‘humanist’ intellectuals then, nor do they today.”
“The anti-Zionist Left never had any problem with the demonization of Zionism, with the libeling of Israel as a state that engages in ethnic cleansing, or with the threats to wipe out the Jewish state leveled by the ayatollahs in Tehran or other Islamist radicals.
Much the same can be said of the contemporary ‘liberal’ mainstream in the West, including many prominent intellectuals who ridicule any concern with anti-Semitism as mere ‘scaremongering’ or playing the so-called ‘Zionist card.’” According to Wistrich, part of the Left’s distorted perception lays in its “willful refusal to face the reality of the ‘ethnic cleansing’ of Jews from Arab lands in the Middle East after 1945,” just as many today remain “stunningly indifferent to the endemic intolerance of Sunni Muslim Arab majorities, not only to Jews but also toward Middle Eastern Christians, Shi’a Muslims, Kurds, Yazidis, Bahai’s and other minorities.
“Despite the evidence, there are still many observers and critics who refuse to believe the reality of the anti-Semitic passion within the Left. In truth, it has existed ever since the birth of European socialism in the 1830s and ‘40s,” he contended. “But its revival has been accelerated by the centrifugal processes that followed the collapse of Soviet Communism after 1989. A revamped, if grossly distorted, ideology of human rights, transnational ‘progressivism,’ post-national cosmopolitanism, and identity politics stepped into the vacuum left by the ‘bankruptcy of Marxism.’” While anti-Zionism and hatred of Israel is “not, of course, confined to the Left,” the anti-racist “pretensions of the anti-Zionist Left... make their specific betrayal of socialist values particularly repugnant and shameful,” he concluded.
more...
http://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/Wistrich-takes-aim-at-anti-Zionist-mythology-of-left-in-posthumous-essay-411759
shira
(30,109 posts)Here is the Socialist Workers Party theoretician John Molyneux instructing the members in the finer points of reactionary anti-imperialism:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/palestinianauthority/11243168/Blaming-Israel-for-Palestinian-violence-is-racist-it-denies-that-Arabs-are-moral-agents.html
is now part of the progressive anti-imperialist “resistance” to imperialism. Once in thrall to this ‘theory’, parts of the left redefined themselves as (not very) critical supporters of, or at least apologists for, the reactionary forces doing the shooting, including radical Islamists.
Little Tich
(6,171 posts)Source: Jewish Political Studies Review 16:3-4 (Fall 2004)
Anti-Zionism has become the most dangerous and effective form of anti- Semitism in our time, through its systematic delegitimization, defamation, and demonization of Israel. Although not a priori anti-Semitic, the calls to dismantle the Jewish state, whether they come from Muslims, the Left, or the radical Right, increasingly rely on an anti-Semitic stereotypization of classic themes, such as the manipulative "Jewish lobby," the Jewish/Zionist "world conspiracy," and Jewish/Israeli "warmongers." One major driving force of this anti-Zionism/anti-Semitism is the transformation of the Palestinian cause into a "holy war"; another source is anti-Americanism linked with fundamentalist Islamism. In the current context, classic conspiracy theories, such as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, are enjoying a spectacular revival. The common denominator of the new anti-Zionism has been the systematic effort to criminalize Israeli and Jewish behavior, so as to place it beyond the pale of civilized and acceptable conduct.
The question of whether anti-Zionism can or should be equated with anti-Semitism is one of those pivotal issues that refuse to go away. It is of considerable importance in any effort to define the nature of the "new Judeophobia" and strategies to deal with it. Recently when I addressed British MPs in the House of Commons, this was the first order of business. Surely, they wanted to know, doubts about Zionism or alarm at Israel's policies must be distinguished from loathing toward Jews? Was it not true that anti-Semitism was frequently confused with "anti-Sharonism," as The Guardian likes to claim? Did not Jews themselves often engage in the fiercest opposition to Israeli government policy without being accused of anti-Semitism? Finally, exaggerated use of the Judeophobic charge, it was suggested, might raise the suspicion that Israel's leaders were seeking to deflect or even silence justified criticism.
My answer to such objections is that anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism are two distinct ideologies that over time (especially since 1948) have tended to converge, generally without undergoing a full merger. There have always been Bundists, Jewish communists, Reform Jews, and ultra-Orthodox Jews who strongly opposed Zionism without being Judeophobes. So, too, there are conservatives, liberals, and leftists in the West today who are pro-Palestinian, antagonistic toward Israel, and deeply distrustful of Zionism without crossing the line into anti- Semitism. There are also Israeli "post-Zionists" who object to the definition of Israel as an exclusively or even a predominantly "Jewish" state without feeling hostile toward Jews as such. There are others, too, who question whether Jews are really a nation; or who reject Zionism because they believe its accomplishment inevitably resulted in uprooting many Palestinians. None of these positions is intrinsically anti-Semitic in the sense of expressing opposition or hatred toward Jews as Jews.
Nevertheless, I believe that the more radical forms of anti-Zionism that have emerged with renewed force in recent years do display unmistakable analogies to European anti-Semitism immediately preceding the Holocaust. One of the more striking symptoms has been the call for a scientific, cultural, and economic boycott of Israel that arouses some grim associations and memories among Jews of the Nazi boycott that began in 1933. (Indeed, such actions go back at least fifty years earlier when anti-Semitic organizations first used economic boycotts as a weapon against Jewish competitors.) There are other highly visible manifestations. An example is the systematic manner in which Israel is harassed at international forums such as the United Nations, where the Arab states have for decades pursued a policy of isolating the Jewish state and turning it into a pariah. An offshoot of this campaign was the hate-fest at the UN-sponsored Durban Conference against racism of September 2001, which denounced Zionism as a "genocidal" movement, practicing "ethnic cleansing" against Palestinians. In these and similar public forums, as well as in much of the Western mainstream media, Zionism and the Jewish people have been demonized in ways that are virtually identical to the methods, arguments, and techniques of racist anti-Semitism. Even though the current banner may be "antiracist" and the defamation is being carried out today in the name of human rights, all the red lines have clearly been crossed. For example, "anti-Zionists" who insist on comparing Zionism and the Jews with Hitler and the Third Reich appear unmistakably to be de facto anti-Semites, even if they vehemently deny the fact! This is largely because they knowingly exploit the reality that Nazism in the postwar world has become the defining metaphor of absolute evil. For if Zionists are "Nazis" and if Sharon really is Hitler, then it becomes a moral obligation to wage war against Israel. That is the bottom line of much contemporary anti-Zionism. In practice, this has become the most potent form of contemporary anti-Semitism.
Read more: http://www.jcpa.org/phas/phas-wistrich-f04.htm
Note: Straight from the horse's mouth, so to speak. It's up to you to decide if he's hot or not...
Little Tich
(6,171 posts)I still get the feeling that he's just another revisionist pseudo sholar like David Irving.
Robert Wistrich doesn't seem to understand what anti-Semitism is, and he manages to confuse it with anti-Zionism. He seems to be intentionally ignoring historical fact about the origins of the Palestinians. He also seems to have it in for the political left.
I have put up an article by him in another post in this thread, where he fails spectacularly at understanding the difference between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism.
shira
(30,109 posts)You deny that Gilad Atzmon is an antisemite, and yet you believe you know better than one of the foremost experts on the planet? Come on now. Really?
Tell you what. Name a better expert on anti-Semitism. I'll wait.
Now that's a vile comparison.
What fact? That they descend from the Philistines? Or Canaanites? Please. Where's the evidence for this "fact"? Hell, we may as well claim all Egyptians, Jordanians, Lebanese, and Syrians also descend from the Philistines and Canaanites. Just as much evidence for that as the claim for Palestinians.
Yes, the anti-Imperialist "global progressive" hard Left. If you read Wistrich's bio, he grew up in a family of Leftists & bought into all of it at one time.
Little Tich
(6,171 posts)It all depends on our ability to think critically. Some people use their critical thinking in the "opposite" way than I do, and they probably all love love Wistrich (or Irving, depending on which team you root for).
Revisionist scholars are a dime a dozen, and I've encountered them before. I can't find anything of value in what I've read of Wistrich - it's all garbage...
BTW, the view that Palestinians are not the direct descendants of the original population and come from somewhere else is an absolute revisionist lie. You can't find a single reputable source that supports that view, simply because it's false. Try to Google it if you don't believe me.
shira
(30,109 posts)1. If Wistrich is not a legit scholar (and just a fascist revisionist) then find the biggest, worst lie (bullshit) that he wrote and let's test your theory. I don't think you're going to like the results, so you'll probably punt.
2. Name a legitimate, well respected & well known expert on anti-Semitism other than Wistrich who you trust. Still waiting on that one. I'm betting you can't name anyone, and I'll explain why later.
3. Name a better historian on the I/P conflict who you trust.
So if most or all Palestinians are descendants of the Philistines & Canaanites, then what's your actual [font color = "red"]evidence [/font]for this?
This should be good, considering all the waves of non-Jewish immigration into the land over the centuries (Egyptians, Libyans, Sudanese, Lebanese, Armenians, Syrians, Turks, Circassians, Georgians, Bosnians, Kurds) ........as well as all the invasions & massacres after the 7th century Arab conquest (Crusaders, Turks, Fatimids, Mongols, Mamelukes, Tartars, etc...). And yeah, all that actually happened.
Your claim that all Palestinians have roots dating back to prehistoric times is absurd.
Little Tich
(6,171 posts)Here are some links that prove my point (thanks, Bemildred!)
All links from this thread: http://www.democraticunderground.com/1134109586
Jerusalem Post: The lost Palestinian Jews
http://www.jpost.com/Magazine/Features/The-lost-Palestinian-Jews
PNAS: Jewish and Middle Eastern non-Jewish populations share a common pool of Y-chromosome biallelic haplotypes
http://www.pnas.org/content/97/12/6769.full
National Center for Biotechnology Information: The Y Chromosome Pool of Jews as Part of the Genetic Landscape of the Middle East
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1274378/?tool=pubmed
The complete refutal of all of Wistrich's historical argumentation should follow naturally from the facts in the above links.
shira
(30,109 posts)As to DNA and genetics, I'll be the 1st to agree Jews share the same chromosomes with their Levantine neighbors. Palestinians and Jews are related, but moreover, Jews and Palestinians are related to Lebanese, Syrians, Saudis, Jordanians, and Egyptians. Are you willing to re-cast people in these other foreign countries as Palestinians? That is to say, are all these people in neighboring countries Palestinian, or do Arabs in general within that part of the world (including Jews) share the same DNA? What's to say all these people of the region (Jews included) aren't Palestinian, but just Arabs in general? Jews aren't necessarily Palestinian as much as they are Jewish Arabs. Same for Palestinians.
Seems we're arguing past each other.
King_David
(14,851 posts)Very rare exceptions to this such as the Nature Karte who object to a Jewish State before the Messiah comes.
Little Tich
(6,171 posts)My position against anti-Semitism is grounded in a strong belief that racism is wrong. Likewise, my position against Zionism (and all other nationalist movements) is also grounded in that very same belief in the wrongness of racism.
For me, the idea of Jewish exceptionalism is a racist one, and therefore, I'm against it. No people is more of a people than another people, and I think it's absurd to give rights to peoples that are not directly grounded in their individual rights. For me, promoting Zionism is racist, as it's a denial of equal rights for everyone who's native to the area.
Anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism are two different things that are not connected in any way.
King_David
(14,851 posts)Identical
From the extreme right and left
An antizionist would be kicked out of the Democratic party faster than they could pronounce themselves such... Not sure why they tolerated in DU.
Little Tich
(6,171 posts)I don't have any actual problems with expressions of Zionism that are not racist. It would be discriminatory to discriminate against the discriminators.
My conscience is clear.
shira
(30,109 posts)shira
(30,109 posts)That's what one-state is all about. An Arab majority within Palestine has sovereignty while Jews have none. Mainly due to the fact anti-Zionism is racist in that it doesn't believe Jews are a nation or people who merit a state of their own (like Palestinians). Meanwhile, the vast majority of Zionists believe in a state for both Jews & Palestinians.
So who are the racists?
You have it backwards, as usual.
Little Tich
(6,171 posts)Just being against something doesn't mean that you support something else. That's a false dichotomy.
aranthus
(3,385 posts)If there is one state, it will either be majority Jewish or majority Arab, yes? Is there another alternative? You may not like it, but states, especially democratic states, are supposed to, and in fact do, take on the national character of the majority nation. And if the state is majority Jewish it is by definition a Jewish state, isn't it? Likewise a state with an Arab majority is going to be Arab, Isn't it? Now you could argue that if you are anti-Zionist, that doesn't mean that you are for one state, but what is the alternative there?
Little Tich
(6,171 posts)It looks to me, however, as if the one-state solution is the logical conclusion to the current situation. It doesn't seem likely to me that the one-state solution would lead to discrimination of one ethnic group or the other.
That a state must have a sort of national character based on ethnicity is pure nonsense. Look at South Africa for example - the race war never happened, and you can be a proud South African regardless of your ethnicity.
aranthus
(3,385 posts)While it is possible that that a single Arab state (which is what a single state would be) could be non-discriminatory, it's totally naïve to think that is the likely result. South Africa is a poor example because neither White nor Black are national identities. They are races. Jewish and Palestinian are national identities, so the problems of melding them into a single society are much greater. Switzerland and the US are better examples, but they are exceptions that prove the rule. In both countries a single national identity was forged over many years, where every ethnicity gave up some of its identity and adopted the national culture. Israel may actually be moving to that kind of a state as an evolutionary development, but there is still no reason to force people to live in a society that they don't want, especially just to satisfy the false notion that national states are racist or inherently violent.
shira
(30,109 posts)...Palestinian nationalism over Jewish nationalism. IOW, Palestinians have a right to self-determination while Jews do not. That's discrimination. The correct anti-racist viewpoint should be that these 2 peoples both have a right to their own sovereignty.
And there's NO EVIDENCE that a future Palestine (with Jews as a minority) wouldn't discriminate against Jews. All evidence points exactly to that, based on the history of Hamas and the PLO, as well as the reality for Jews all around the mideast.
You're confusing nationality with race. I don't believe you've really thought this one through.
aranthus
(3,385 posts)The former is bigotry based on group identity, not race. The latter is the rational and reasonable association of people by identity, belief, and way of life.
Little Tich
(6,171 posts)but once it's out its cage, it will always go on a rampage and cause a lot of damage.
Beware.
shira
(30,109 posts)Be very clear, within a few sentences or one paragraph.
Please.
Let's debate how much better your solution is for I/P....
doxyluv13
(247 posts)nt
shira
(30,109 posts)doxyluv13
(247 posts)To deny Palestinian nationhood, which in the context of the occupation is an excuse to deny them the rights nations have. Someone who does that qualifies as a bigot. To restrict myself to the piece at hand. The whole thrust of it is that Palestinians are responsible for their own suffering
A couple quick examples:
Wistrich seems to think anti-Zionist Leftists believe/argue that Jewish immigrants to Palestine upset an established Palestinian state. This is nonsense. The region was under Ottoman, then British control so no such state was possible.
Wistrich is probably right that economic activity from Jewish settlement increased the Arab population, but so what? This is even less than a half truth since he never mentions things were generally friendly between Jews and Arabs until the Colonial Power, Britain, gave Palestine to the Jews in their Balfour Declaration.
King_David
(14,851 posts)shira
(30,109 posts)The Palestinians are a people, sure. But 100 years ago, if you asked the people of that region if they were Palestinians, very few if any would say they were. They would've identified themselves by their tribe and/or religion. If anything related to nationality came up, they identified as part of (southern) Syria, not Palestine.
In fact, Palestinians were known in the Western as well as Arab world to be Jews. For centuries. That's Imanuel Kant, BTW, not some ordinary Joe-Blow schlub. The "Palestinians Among Us" were the Jews.
Now that doesn't mean the Palestinians aren't a people now. And I don't remember Wistrich ever coming out against a 2 state solution. You've been misinformed about the history of that region.