AIPAC's new definition of "anti-Semitism"

[FakeViking]

The armenian genocide led to the deaths of 1.5 million Armenians at the hands of the Turks. Iraq gassed and slaughtered 110,000 Kurds. Nothing that even comes close to those figures applies to Palestinian deaths since 1948.

Nice bit of benchmarking there. Well done.

[L'Chaim]

Ok we'll try again. Third time a charm. Since when does being oppressed win you a state?

This time try and answer the actual question without the irrelevant whataboutery. Whatever the merits of the other states nowhere have I heard it suggested that any of them deserve a state because they are oppressed as opposed to that simply being the place they already live in

Sometimes it does win you a state, and in the case of the Armenains and Kurds sometimes it doesn't. It depends on the support the oppressed have in the international community to their claims for a state. Jews didn't just get their state because they were oppressed. The League of nations recognised the "historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine" and the "grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country."

[former wesleyan]

Ok we'll try again. Third time a charm. Since when does being oppressed win you a state?

This time try and answer the actual question without the irrelevant whataboutery. Whatever the merits of the other states nowhere have I heard it suggested that any of them deserve a state because they are oppressed as opposed to that simply being the place they already live in

Aren't you forgetting the migration of people to acquire citizenship of newly formed nations ? Hindus and Muslims in India and Pakistan , Turks and Greeks in Turkey and Greece and Cyprus , Anglo-Irish and Catholic nationalists in the two states created by the Ireland Act, and so on ? And since the world we live in today is the creation of the aftermath of WWII why wouldn't the most extreme event of ethnic - or religious if you like - cleansing require a remedy ?

[eyelight]

I thought of starting a new thread, but given the current climate on P.ie, it might get sent to the "zoo" for no reason.

Anyway, to continue this debate, there's a excellent article by Justin Raimondo this morning over at Antiwar.com, in which he puts those who cry "anti-semite"in t

Putting Israel First

An attack on Iran would deprive the world economy of a significant portion of its energy needs, and would likely result in an economic catastrophe in this country – to say nothing of the costs of the war, in blood and treasure. War-weary Americans are not in the mood for another invasion and occupation in search of nonexistent “weapons of mass destruction.” This is the War Party’s Achilles’ heel.

How to get around this is the problem at the heart of the War Party’s current project, and in order to do so they are employing the deadliest weapon in their well-stocked arsenal: the accusation of “racism,” the most toxic accusation anyone can make about someone in the current political climate. Specifically, they are accusing war opponents of “anti-Semitism.” After all, if Israel is the Jewish state, and that state’s very existence is threatened by the specter of Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program (which US intelligence has stubbornly failed to detect), then opposition to US military action is “anti-Semitism,” pure and simple.

Today’s war propagandists have figured out a way to make the issue of American interests, as opposed to Israeli interests, go away, and that is by policing the language of the debate. Are you calling someone who wants to pursue Israeli interests over and above those of his or her own country an “Israel firster”? Well, then, you are “anti-Semitic,” you are employing the oldest “anti-Semitic tropes” and echoing “neo-Nazis,” who – James Kirchick assures us – are the originators of the phrase. This is the argument made by “progressive” Spencer Ackerman in a recent issue of the Tablet, in which he joins the neoconservative assault on Glenn Greenwald, M.J. Rosenberg, and four bloggers over at the Center for American Progress who got slapped down for daring to wield (or imply) this supposedly “toxic” phrase.

There’s just one problem with this argument: it isn’t true. Ackerman cites Kirchick as the authority in this matter, but as a researcher the man Time columnist Joe Klein called a “dishonest ******************************” and a cheap “propagandist” leaves much to be desired. Kirchick claims the phrase originated with Willis Carto’s Spotlight newspaper, a cesspool of anti-Semitism, but this is false: it originated, as one can see here, with Alfred M. Lilienthal, an anti-Zionist Jew who wrote several books in the early 1950s and 1960s, notably What Price Israel? Lilienthal’s 1953 book was brought out by Henry Regnery, the noted conservative publicist and pioneer publisher, whose press also printed a number of other anti-Zionist and pro-Palestinian works, including Freda Utley’s Will the Middle East Go West? – which presciently argued American support for Israel would alienate the Arab world

In 1949, however, when Lilienthal wrote “Israel’s Flag is Not Mine” for Readers Digest, his critique of Zionist propaganda was shared by mainstream conservatives as a matter of course:

“Today we see Zionists boasting of ‘Jewish’ political strength, Zionist picket lines around British consulates, Zionists demonstrating against Foreign Minister Ernest Bevin when he arrives here to sign the Atlantic Pact, New York stores plastered with posters screaming ‘Do Not Buy British. Made Goods.’

“Are these people acting as Americans? Europe’s recovery through the Marshall Plan is the keystone of our bipartisan foreign policy, which the Communists are trying to sabotage. Any boycott of British goods, organized or unorganized, helps this destruction.”

It wasn’t any neo-Nazis, but Lilienthal, a political conservative and a devout Jew, who was the first to raise the question of “dual loyalty.” The “Israel Firster” meme originated, not with the neo-Nazi fringe, but with conservative Jews who, like Lilienthal, objected that:

“My one and only homeland is America. I am proud of my belief in the age-old Judaic concept of one God in Heaven and one Humanity here below. But my faith does not pull me into a feeling of narrowly tribal kinship with all others who worship God in this way. Whenever I read of Americans singing the Hatikvah, Israel’s national anthem, or see youth groups raising Israel’s flag beside the Stars and Stripes. I am outraged. For Israel’s flag and anthem are symbols of a foreign state; they are not mine.”

[eyelight]

Now the Israelis are calling their own media anti-semitic".


'Anti-Semitic media incites against Haredim'

On another issue, if you read through the article, it seems Arab Israelis are to consigned to tower blocks in the future.

Interior Minister Eli Yishai addressed in his speech the housing shortage within the Arab sector, saying that the State must begin to "build upwards" to solve the problem.

"I don't see it as a cultural issue," Yishai said during the session. "Tall buildings are present across the Arab sector. When there is no space and the population grows, building upwards is necessary."

[Lonewolfe]

This ludicrous slur, which according to a recent thread from a p.ie mod, now extends to everyone on the Left in Ireland, has now truly lost all meaning.

If you're opposed to Israeli State aggression, if you're in favour of Palestinian human rights, if you're weary of American foreign policy, if you're critical of fascistic and fundamentalist Zionism, if you're on the Left - guess what? Your an anti-semite!

Do the Zionists and their Christian Right supporters not realise that they are stripping the term of its potency?

Obviously not.

My suggestion is that those on the Left should simply stop arguing against the rediculous claim - let it slide!

[theloner]

They confuse anti-Semitism with anti-Zionism. The latter of which I am a unashamed, fervorous proponent of.

[Lonewolfe]

They confuse anti-Semitism with anti-Zionism. The latter of which I am a unashamed, fervorous proponent of.

I don't think they confuse the two at all. I think they use the slur as a means of stifling debate. It's similar to the "Anti-American" label that was given to anyone who criticiesd that country's attacks on Iraq and Afghanistan.

It's deigned to distract and create a smoke screen.

[NYCKY]

This ludicrous slur, which according to a recent thread from a p.ie mod, now extends to everyone on the Left in Ireland, has now truly lost all meaning.

If you're opposed to Israeli State aggression, if you're in favour of Palestinian human rights, if you're weary of American foreign policy, if you're critical of fascistic and fundamentalist Zionism, if you're on the Left - guess what? Your an anti-semite!

Do the Zionists and their Christian Right supporters not realise that they are stripping the term of its potency?

Obviously not.

My suggestion is that those on the Left should simply stop arguing against the rediculous claim - let it slide!

Why do you think "anti-semite" is a "ludicrous slur"?

[Pat Bun]

Its a tough one. I notice that it is now 'normal' for Israel to be subtitled , 'the Jewish state' in political speeches and stuff.
As a secularist democrat(in a general, not american sense) supporter of Israel I find this difficult to deal with.
Its a semantic minefield , this 'anti semitism' stuff.
I suspect there is indeed some mischief at play , to stifle genuine debate.
A kind of linguistic nazism ( appologies in advance for tastelessness).