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Zionism Is Racism
Eyad Kishawi from the Free Palestine Alliance was recently invited by student activists at SF State to speak on the topic "Zionism Is Racism" as part of a week of action and education. Here is the talk, 40 minutes with Eyad, 1 hour and 20 minutes discussion with the crowd.
Listen now:
For more information:
http://www.earthalliance.org
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Tahnks Indybay for keeping it real
It is racism.
Wasn't this deleted once already?
Why do the zionist want to delete this so bad???
Since it was deleted by Indybay, does that mean that to you, Indybay is zionist?
Read the posting date, sport.
It amazes me that people say things about Judaism (i.e. comparing Orthodox Jewish practice to Jerry Falwell) that are so shallow and ignorant, and yet they have no qualms about saying it in public. Its better to sit silently and be thought a fool than to open you rmouth and eliminate all doubt.
http://www.albalagh.net/current_affairs/zionism_racism.shtml
Read. Does a mind good.
Read. Does a mind good.
In Israel, according to the law Jews are not permited to sell land to Arabs. This is one of many examples of Zionism as racism. Zionism is the belief that one people are 'chosen' and have special rights.
We still have the freedom to agree that Zionism is racism, I hope.
Just because all-consuming immersion Judaism is different in specific doctrinal terms doesn't mean it's inherently less extreme. All the monotheisms seem to have their extremist sects. Also, zionism has taken on apocalyptic theological proportions and there are CLEARLY extremist zionists out there. Anyone blinded to the Palestinians' moral case for example
"In Israel, according to the law Jews are not permited to sell land to Arabs."
I'm doubting that is true since I dont know what the definition of "Arab" would be. Most Palestinians are from the same background as most European Jews. When Islam moved into what is now Israel/Palestine some poeple were converted and the common spoken language changed to Arabic. By the 1800 most Jews and Muslims in Israel/Palestine spoke Arabic and the only real difference between the groups was that one group had converted to Islam while the other remained Jewish (and others stayed or converted to Christianity or converted from Christianity to Islam). While there were migrations of Christians, Muslims and Jews into the region the background of most Palestinian "Arabs" and most Middle Eastern Jews is identical. Of course most doesnt mean "all" so people like to play games by pointing to small migrations of peopel from the Arabian Pensinsula recently but aside from the marked cultural differences between "Arabs" in Palestine 100 years ago and Arabs from Arabia, recent genetic studied of the populations show a closer relationship between Palestinian "Arabs" and Eastern European Jews than between Palestinian "Arabs" and Arabian Arabs.
I'm doubting that is true since I dont know what the definition of "Arab" would be. Most Palestinians are from the same background as most European Jews. When Islam moved into what is now Israel/Palestine some poeple were converted and the common spoken language changed to Arabic. By the 1800 most Jews and Muslims in Israel/Palestine spoke Arabic and the only real difference between the groups was that one group had converted to Islam while the other remained Jewish (and others stayed or converted to Christianity or converted from Christianity to Islam). While there were migrations of Christians, Muslims and Jews into the region the background of most Palestinian "Arabs" and most Middle Eastern Jews is identical. Of course most doesnt mean "all" so people like to play games by pointing to small migrations of peopel from the Arabian Pensinsula recently but aside from the marked cultural differences between "Arabs" in Palestine 100 years ago and Arabs from Arabia, recent genetic studied of the populations show a closer relationship between Palestinian "Arabs" and Eastern European Jews than between Palestinian "Arabs" and Arabian Arabs.
Although its simply a myth that Arabs can't buy land in Israel,its is ironically true that it is a capitol offense for a Palestinian to sell land to a Jew and its illegal for Jews to own land, by land or hold citizenship in Jordan. Funny how Arab propaganda works. Its funnier that people buy it.
Saturday, January 07, 2006
Radical Left Antisemitism
Tomorrow I am to participate in a discussion on why the Left hates Israel.
Here is my analysis:
Of course, it is not the whole Left that hates Israel. The left-wing of this country can not be said to hate Israel. People who support Israel's right to exist but believe Israel was correct to withdraw from Gaza and should withdraw from the West Bank can not be said to hate Israel. In the minds of many on the hard right who have adopted Israel as a pet cause, and are always looking to demonize someone, those who fail to silence any criticism tend to labelled negatively as either anti-Israel, and by some whackjobs, as antisemitic. I have been clear in the past on what I consider antisemitism and have been vocal in this space on the many instances of it around the world, particularly in Europe.
I have also written on the radical left (and it is really the radical left, not the "Left" that we are talking about) tendency to guiltily accuse supporters of Israel of accusing them of antisemitism when no such accusations have been levelled.
It is a major myth that antisemitism on the radical left in the West, the brand found on college campuses and amongst pinkish activists, is anything new. Benjamin Epstein and Arnold Forster, two ADL leaders of the last generation, wrote about it in the early 1970s in their book, "The New Anti-Semitism", which made Phyllis Chesler's recent book of the same title somewhat passe. Epstein and Arnold's book included chapters that could have been written yesterday: "The Radical Left", "The Media and the Arts", "Arabs and pro-Arabs", and only one chapter given over to "The Radical Right".
I agree somewhat with those who see the new antisemitism partly as a post-Communist search for meaning; though I would say that the leaders of those on the radical left responsible do not see themselves as "post-Communist". These are the International Action Center types who pine for the USSR. They are the unreconstructed radical left. They have long seen Zionism in its early 20th century form as a competitor to Communism and like good Stalinists, have treated it with the appropriate venom. A typical text is the volume of Marxist essays, "Antizionism and Antisemitism", published not long before the fall of the Soviet Union in 1987. In its introduction, Daniel Rubin, the editor of the volume refers to Soviet persecution of Jews as a "lie". In includes such comical sentences as this: "[Jewish-Americans] are unaware that socialism long ago eliminated all governmental and organized expression of anti-Semitism and all other forms of national oppression and that anti-Semitism is a crime in the Soviet Union." If antisemitism is the socialism of fools, sentences like these would certainly inspire the sentiments of those zealots on the hard-right, who promote the unfair converse of that statement: socialism is the antisemitism of fools.
And yet, one thing about Rubin is notable: his firm support for the two-state solution. He calls for a Palestinian homeland alongside Israel, not in place of it, even as he and his co-authors criticize Zionism as a form of chauvinistic nationalism that exists because of imperialism and pulls the wool over the eyes of the Jewish masses.
Today's radical left is not so accommodating. They by and large appear to prefer one state and a full right of return for Palestinian refugees, long Arab code for a reversal of 1948, ie, a reversal of Israel's founding. People seem to have little capacity for critical thought. They adopt the ideologies of others nowadays. It is not enough to want a Palestinian homeland, no, they must out-Palestinian the Palestinians and call for the right of return, demonize the Jews, and make utterly unfortunate comments about how it is not their place to criticize tactics like suicide bombings.
The other major difference is the proliferation of deceptive language. The radical left, always tending toward the self-delusional as we see from Rubin's fanciful account of Soviet treatment of Jews, have convinced themselves that as long as they call it anti-Zionism, it can't possibly antisemitic. This allows them to say the most outrageous things about Israel, its history, its people, and the 90 percent or so of the world's Jews who support its existence. The internet has allowed them to become more organized and to read more about some of bad things Israeli soldiers have done in the territories, with little context. They have less shame, less of a impetus to educate themselves about the entire picture, and in the post-Communist world of US superpower, an impetus to see Israel, a close US ally with too many people with white faces (forget Israel's nearly unparalleled racial and religious diversity), as an evil.
My response to all of this is the following:
1. The age of the problem suggests that it is not anything to be very worried about. These are not, by and large, grassroots movements. The people running them have always been more interested in running their mouths than in getting anything done. That's why they have accomplished nothing in more than three decades of the same thing.
2. We have to do a better job in the Jewish community of reaching left-leaning college students to keep them out of radical left clutches. Expanding Birthright Israel is a good idea. Disseminating literature is a good idea. Sending speakers from the Israeli mainstream is a good idea.
3. We have to do a better job of getting the same mainstream Israelis in the rooms of the progressive churches, and other large organizations who have the ability to move anti-Zionism from the fringe to left-wing mainstream.
http://mlbrenner.blogspot.com/2006/01/radical-left-antisemitism.html
Radical Left Antisemitism
Tomorrow I am to participate in a discussion on why the Left hates Israel.
Here is my analysis:
Of course, it is not the whole Left that hates Israel. The left-wing of this country can not be said to hate Israel. People who support Israel's right to exist but believe Israel was correct to withdraw from Gaza and should withdraw from the West Bank can not be said to hate Israel. In the minds of many on the hard right who have adopted Israel as a pet cause, and are always looking to demonize someone, those who fail to silence any criticism tend to labelled negatively as either anti-Israel, and by some whackjobs, as antisemitic. I have been clear in the past on what I consider antisemitism and have been vocal in this space on the many instances of it around the world, particularly in Europe.
I have also written on the radical left (and it is really the radical left, not the "Left" that we are talking about) tendency to guiltily accuse supporters of Israel of accusing them of antisemitism when no such accusations have been levelled.
It is a major myth that antisemitism on the radical left in the West, the brand found on college campuses and amongst pinkish activists, is anything new. Benjamin Epstein and Arnold Forster, two ADL leaders of the last generation, wrote about it in the early 1970s in their book, "The New Anti-Semitism", which made Phyllis Chesler's recent book of the same title somewhat passe. Epstein and Arnold's book included chapters that could have been written yesterday: "The Radical Left", "The Media and the Arts", "Arabs and pro-Arabs", and only one chapter given over to "The Radical Right".
I agree somewhat with those who see the new antisemitism partly as a post-Communist search for meaning; though I would say that the leaders of those on the radical left responsible do not see themselves as "post-Communist". These are the International Action Center types who pine for the USSR. They are the unreconstructed radical left. They have long seen Zionism in its early 20th century form as a competitor to Communism and like good Stalinists, have treated it with the appropriate venom. A typical text is the volume of Marxist essays, "Antizionism and Antisemitism", published not long before the fall of the Soviet Union in 1987. In its introduction, Daniel Rubin, the editor of the volume refers to Soviet persecution of Jews as a "lie". In includes such comical sentences as this: "[Jewish-Americans] are unaware that socialism long ago eliminated all governmental and organized expression of anti-Semitism and all other forms of national oppression and that anti-Semitism is a crime in the Soviet Union." If antisemitism is the socialism of fools, sentences like these would certainly inspire the sentiments of those zealots on the hard-right, who promote the unfair converse of that statement: socialism is the antisemitism of fools.
And yet, one thing about Rubin is notable: his firm support for the two-state solution. He calls for a Palestinian homeland alongside Israel, not in place of it, even as he and his co-authors criticize Zionism as a form of chauvinistic nationalism that exists because of imperialism and pulls the wool over the eyes of the Jewish masses.
Today's radical left is not so accommodating. They by and large appear to prefer one state and a full right of return for Palestinian refugees, long Arab code for a reversal of 1948, ie, a reversal of Israel's founding. People seem to have little capacity for critical thought. They adopt the ideologies of others nowadays. It is not enough to want a Palestinian homeland, no, they must out-Palestinian the Palestinians and call for the right of return, demonize the Jews, and make utterly unfortunate comments about how it is not their place to criticize tactics like suicide bombings.
The other major difference is the proliferation of deceptive language. The radical left, always tending toward the self-delusional as we see from Rubin's fanciful account of Soviet treatment of Jews, have convinced themselves that as long as they call it anti-Zionism, it can't possibly antisemitic. This allows them to say the most outrageous things about Israel, its history, its people, and the 90 percent or so of the world's Jews who support its existence. The internet has allowed them to become more organized and to read more about some of bad things Israeli soldiers have done in the territories, with little context. They have less shame, less of a impetus to educate themselves about the entire picture, and in the post-Communist world of US superpower, an impetus to see Israel, a close US ally with too many people with white faces (forget Israel's nearly unparalleled racial and religious diversity), as an evil.
My response to all of this is the following:
1. The age of the problem suggests that it is not anything to be very worried about. These are not, by and large, grassroots movements. The people running them have always been more interested in running their mouths than in getting anything done. That's why they have accomplished nothing in more than three decades of the same thing.
2. We have to do a better job in the Jewish community of reaching left-leaning college students to keep them out of radical left clutches. Expanding Birthright Israel is a good idea. Disseminating literature is a good idea. Sending speakers from the Israeli mainstream is a good idea.
3. We have to do a better job of getting the same mainstream Israelis in the rooms of the progressive churches, and other large organizations who have the ability to move anti-Zionism from the fringe to left-wing mainstream.
http://mlbrenner.blogspot.com/2006/01/radical-left-antisemitism.html
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