Friday, February 12, 2021
Elder of Ziyon
And that is a trend that took a giant leap forward when Jimmy Carter was
president.
Wisse points to Carter's surprising support for the construction of the
Holocaust Museum -- surprising on account of his support for a Palestinian
state and the sale of F-15 fighter aircraft to Saudi Arabia. In fact, when the
suggestion was first made to Carter, in 1977, to establish the museum, the
idea went nowhere. It was not until the following year after the suggestion was made a second time
that
Carter surprised a group of rabbis he was meeting in the Rose Garden by saying he had decided to appoint a commission to explore the construction of a Holocaust memorial.
A presidential aide suggested that the commission overseeing the project
should not be composed only of Jews. It had to have members who represented
all those who suffered at the hands of the Nazis. Otherwise, Congress wouldn't
support it. For example, the aide insisted that the membership had to include
Lithuanians because they were members of the resistance -- ignoring the fact
that the Lithuanians had been a part of the problem.
Wisse comments:
One should have appreciated the leverage this gave him to steer its mission in the universalizing direction he preferred.
Eventually, Elie Weisel quit the committee because it became too
politicized. And as it turned out, the only limit on universality was
Carter's insistence that when it came to
funding, that would have to come primarily from the Jewish
community alone.
This universalization of Jewish persecution is still alive and well.
In January 2019, New York Democratic representative Carol Maloney introduced
the "Never Again Education Act," which was passed near-unanimously by both
the House and Senate. On May 29, 2020, the bill was signed into law by
Trump, authorizing $2 million annually in support of Holocaust education for
5 years.
But just 3 months after Maloney introduced the bill, Democrats in Congress
responded to antisemitic comments by Ilhan Omar by putting together a
resolution condemning antisemitism generally, along with anti-Muslim
discrimination and bigotry against other minorities as well.
Now, the generalizing of antisemitism is being taken one step further, that
anyone can speak about and define antisemitism.
In 2017,
The New School invited Linda Sarsour to be on its panel to discuss
antisemitism. In case you may have forgotten,
that would be --
Linda Sarsour, who opined that “nothing is creepier than Zionism,” praised Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, and believes one cannot support the right of Jews to a homeland of their own and still be a feminist.
Perhaps they were just looking for the voice of experience.
Of course, if you can advise Jews on what is and isn't antisemitism,
there is no reason to stop there:
In fact, why should Sarsour be the only non-Jew who can lecture Jews on what
is -- and isn't -- antisemitism:
Appearing on the panel will be Rep. Rashida Tlaib, who supports a “one-state solution” in which Israel is replaced by an Arab state; Peter Beinart, the only Jewish panelist, who has openly rejected the existence of Israel in its current form; Marc Lamont Hill, who has publicly recited the slogan “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”; and Barbara Ransby, an academic who supports the antisemitic BDS movement.
And when the topic was described as dismantling antisemitism, the goal
is to dismantle the claim of antisemitism:
The panel, billed as “Dismantling Antisemitism, Winning Justice,” claims in the event description that, “Antisemitism is used to manufacture division and fear. While anyone can fuel it, antisemitism always benefits the politicians who rely on division and fear for their power.”Normally, identity politics dictates that members of a targeted group have shared life experiences which provide them with a special insight and understanding that outsiders don't fully understand when it comes to the racism that group suffers.
“We will explore how to fight back against antisemitism and against those that seek to wield charges of antisemitism to undermine progressive movements for justice,” it states.??
But if that does not apply to Jews, maybe it is no longer a thing. If non-Jews
can now define antisemitism, maybe in this progressive age of
intersectionality now all persecuted groups fully understand and
identify with all other persecuted groups.
Not according to Sarsour.
When Marc Lamont Hill started tweeting earlier this week about BDS, he went so
far as to claim that even the Palestinian Arabs themselves who work for
Israelis and enjoy superior wages favor boycotts against Israel.
Anila Ali, a Democratic activist and a Muslim, challenged him to debate the
issue, a challenge Hill declined.
Elder of Ziyon
notes that
Sarsour piped in.
But Sarsour would have no problem with Ali speaking for Jews.
So according to identity politics, when minorities cry racism -- they are to
be believed.
Yet when it comes to Jews, when they cry racism -- they are up to something.
And what could be more sneaky and underhanded than to describe what
antisemitism looks like using the IHRA working definition of
antisemitism?
Rejecting a formal definition of antisemitism are those -- not even
necessarily non-Jewish -- who warn Jews to just cut it out, because
unlike those minorities whose claims of racism are initially assumed to
be true,
By contrast, the Livingstone Formulation, named in 2006 after the then Mayor of London Ken Livingstone, is the standard articulation of the opposite assumption. The Livingstone Formulation says that when people raise the issue of antisemitism, they are probably doing so in bad faith in a dishonest effort to silence legitimate criticism of Israel. It warns us to be suspicious of Jewish claims to have experienced antisemitism. It warns us to begin with the sceptical assumption that such claims are often sneaky tricks to gain the upper hand for Israel in debates with supporters of the Palestinians. And this is the substantial position of the ‘call to reject’ the IHRA definition of antisemitism. [emphasis added]Jews just cannot win:
o Discussion of Jewish persecution must include all persecutionso Anyone can discuss and define antisemitismo When Jews insist they must define what antisemitism is, it's a tricko Antisemitism is being used as a way to deflect criticism of Israelo Anyone can define antisemitism, but not anyone can define how other minorities feelo Intersectionality is universal and encompasses all races, classes and genders into common discrimination -- except for Jews.
Maybe not all progressives are as anti-racist as they think they are.
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