Reply #5: More from Gordon's article ... [View All]

[Coastie for Truth]

Finkelstein’s second move exposes how the rhetoric of the new anti-Semitism is used as a political tool to ward off and delegitimize all criticism of Israel. He writes:

The consequences of the calculated hysteria of a new anti-Semitism haven’t been just to immunize Israel from legitimate criticism. Its overarching purpose, like that of the “war against terrorism,” has been to deflect criticism of an unprecedented assault on international law.

While Finkelstein’s basic claims are on the mark, he makes a couple of serious mistakes. First, the Israeli case in no way constitutes an unprecedented assault on international law. Not only has the Iraq war, which Finkelstein mentions, led to more egregious violations, particularly if one counts civilian deaths, but one could easily come up with a series of other recent assaults on international law—Chechnya, Rwanda or Darfur—that have produced much more horrific results.

The second problem involves a non sequitur contained in Finkelstein’s argument. Finkelstein convincingly maintains that a connection has been drawn between Israel’s illegal actions in the Occupied Territories and the new anti-Semitism. This link has a dual character. On the one hand, the literature discussing the new anti-Semitism is used to fend off all criticism of Israel, while, on the other hand, Israel’s violation of the occupied Palestinians’ basic rights has generated anti-Semitism. I follow Finkelstein thus far, but he then proceeds to an odd and troubling conclusion: The Jews, Finkelstein implies, are also to blame for the rise of anti-Semitism. Using Jean Paul Sartre’s Anti-Semite and Jew as a reference point, Finkelstein criticizes the French philosopher in the following manner:

Sartre’s point of departure is that Jewish peoplehood lacks any content except what anti-Semitism endows it with: the anti-Semite,” in his famous formulation, “makes the Jew” (his emphasis). But from this premise Sartre goes on to argue that stereotypical Jewish vices are either the invention or the fault of the anti-Semite—which means (or can be understood to mean) that Jews possess no vices or don’t bear any responsibility for them.

This, Finkelstein claims, is a mistake. But a closer reading suggests that what Sartre actually means is that, as an ethnic group per se, Jews cannot be characterized or judged in moral terms and no Jew can be held responsible for anti-Semitism, even though individuals and their organizations should, of course, be held responsible for their actions. Neither world Jewry nor one’s Jewishness can be responsible for anything, regardless of what Israel or any single Jew does. Moreover, while Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and the state of Israel should be held responsible for oppressing the Palestinians, they are not responsible for anti-Semitism, and I take issue with Finkelstein’s insinuations that they are to blame for fanning the flames of anti-Semitism. No one is to blame for anti-Semitism except the anti-Semites. Finkelstein blurs this crucial point in a number of places, and therefore unwittingly provides an excuse for anti-Semitism. The crux of the matter, as Sartre cogently observed, is that anti-Semitism "precedes the facts that call it forth," so that even if Israel were the most law-abiding state on this planet, anti-Semitism would still exist. History has proven Sartre right.

One of my points of disagreement with Finkelstein is, as Gordon states,

The crux of the matter, as Sartre cogently observed, is that anti-Semitism "precedes the facts that call it forth," so that even if Israel were the most law-abiding state on this planet, anti-Semitism would still exist. History has proven Sartre right.