The apartheid myth

[FarrenH]

47. The nerve you hit

Is the one that twitches when people make completely false allegations about your character and beliefs. And you do neither yourself nor your apparent cause any favours when you keep deploying that slander over and over.

That I take the time to enlighten you about how wrong you are about many of the people you carelessly fling these falsehoods at is not a signal of any denial at all, but a perhaps misguided attempt to get you to realise that you are in fact wrong. Utterly wrong. I know that. I'm not looking for your validation. I'm illuminating reality for you.

That antisemitism exists and that it sometimes manifests itself under cover of anti-Israeli sentiment (and I'm not denying that anti-semites sometimes hitch a ride on that train) does not mean that the majority of flack Israel catches from the left is premised on antisemitism. But that is the self-serving fiction that people like you are inured to. And its false. It's just false.

The gap between the reality that gives rise to most left criticism and the fantasy that somehow a political quarter that is defined by its egalitarian, anti-bigotry sentiments is riddled with antisemites is so wide that its actually inevitable that left criticism, along with political and economic action against Israel, is only going to grow.

Many on the left have bitten their tongues on this issue for a long time precisely because they don't want to deal with accusations of antisemitism, but the tide is turning, at least in the left circles I move in, and for an increasing number of left critics the deployment of these lies only strengthens our resolve, for reasons that should be obvious. Just making you aware that such criticism is pushing people in the opposite direction to the one you intend.

Year on year, the chorus only grows louder, despite the efforts of people like you. And economic and political action against the occupation by the same people you're pushing away is having an impact on Israel's economy and will continue to have even greater impact in future. While an eternal victim narrative that paints even egalitarian critics as monsters and hatemongers may serve the short term goals of ethnic nationalists, the disconnect with reality means that its ultimately self-defeating.

Because defenders of Israeli Apartheid are fighting opponents that don't exist, tilting at windmills, instead of recognizing that a large part of the opposition they're dealing with is sincerely premised on ideas about everyone enjoying the same human rights.