Anti-Zionism is inherently antisemitism - opinion
Ultimately, that is what “anti-Zionism” is. Instead of visiting or residing in Israel, one is welcome to prefer a vacation in Saudi Arabia – and please don’t forget to bring home some sand for the kids. No one has to like people who write from right to left, who have emergency medical vehicles with red Stars of David instead of red crescents or red crosses painted on the ambulances.On The Theatrics Of Inversion: How Indigenous People Became ‘Settlers’
But to be “anti-Zionist?” That’s like being anti-kosher. Anti-matzo. Because, when it comes down to it, Zionism actually is a core part of the very definition of a Jew.
That is why “anti-Zionism” always is pure antisemitism. No one reasonable denies the Italian love for Venice, the French love for Paris, the British love for London, or the Spanish love for Barcelona. Even amid the COVID pandemic, expatriates’ hearts and minds remain fixed on lands of heritage.
To deny only Jews that simple human yearning shared by all others is to manifest something much deeper than a mere disagreement over where ice cream should be sold or fictional works should be translated. It is to be an antisemite.
Two days ago, activist JB Brager of the deceptively-named ‘Jewish Voice for Peace’ published an illustrated analysis of Zionism as an indigenous rights cause in Jewish Currents.Sally Rooney’s nonsensical anti-Israel statement
Their picture book (a fitting medium, I suppose) is not so much an analysis as it is a puerile, recalcitrant temper tantrum. If nothing else, it is as stark an example of Jewish self-hatred as anything I could imagine from a purported Jewish outlet.
For the sake of digestibility, I’ll address everything in a piecemeal fashion.
On the meaning of indigenous – From the very first panel, we see the authors attempting to spin Jewish discourse on indigeneity into a blood and soil argument — a calculated bid at misrepresenting Zionism as the Jewish version of German Volkisch nationalism. Attempting to place us on par with our worst abusers, the Nazis, appears to be a common theme for antisemites.
To wit, the authors deliberately pervert the meaning of indigeneity, arguing that (at least in our case) it is about nothing more than blood.
While common ancestry with the land’s original inhabitants is certainly part of the criteria, it is only one part. Indigeneity is first and foremost about ethnogenesis, or ‘where a people became a people’.
Jews do not, and never have, claimed indigeneity to Israel solely on the basis of blood. We claim it because we originated as an ethnic group on that land. Virtually everything about us, from our language and alphabet to our holidays and laws and core culture, is specific to the land of Israel/Palestine.
It is true that ethnic Jews — who comprise roughly 99% of global Jewry — trace the bulk of their genetic ancestry to the Levant (specifically to Bronze Age Canaanites, from whom the Jews and Samaritans emerged as subsets), but this alone does not qualify a population for indigenous status. Ethnogenesis, core culture, national language, collective spiritual ties, etc are equally important, if not more so. Indigenous status is a package deal.
That Rooney sides with Israel boycotters isn’t surprising. Her first two books included characters attending an anti-Israel protest during Israel’s war with Gaza in 2014 and expressing displeasure that “We end up asking like, is Israel ‘nicer’ than Palestine.”David Collier: Attack my site all you want – you won’t stop the truth being told
In May, while Israeli civilians were racing to bomb shelters to avoid Hamas’ rockets, Rooney signed “A Letter Against Apartheid,” which called for “an immediate and unconditional cessation of Israeli violence against Palestinians.” Rooney has also called the BDS movement an “anti-racist and nonviolent grassroots campaign.” That is, as opposed to, say, an antisemitic campaign that opposes the very existence of Israel (and vilifies Zionist Jews on American college campuses).
Rooney’s statement suggests that we imagine someone who might translate this novel into Hebrew while also being BDS compliant. A Hebrew-speaking Jew from Gaza? That wouldn’t work, because Jews haven’t lived in Gaza since Israel left in 2005. Perhaps a Hebrew-speaking Palestinian? No, such a person would incur the wrath of the BDS movement. So who does that leave?
Further, “there’s no such thing as a ‘BDS-compliant’ Hebrew publisher,” tweeted Anshel Pfeffer of the left-leaning Haaretz. “To be that, a publisher would have to agree to not selling its books in Israel and to Israelis who are ... the overwhelming majority of the Hebrew-reading market.”
Like Ben and Jerry’s announcing it will continue selling ice cream in Israel — just not beyond the Green Line — Rooney’s supposedly ideal translator and publishing house are absurd. Ben and Jerry’s has operated in Israel since 1987, and Rooney’s last two books were translated into Hebrew. However, neither Ben and Jerry’s nor Sally Rooney seem interested in continuing to do business in Israel.
When ice cream makers and novelists apply a double standard to the world’s only Jewish state, there’s a term for that — and it’s not “human rights defender.”
For those that don’t know, my website has been under attack again. For much of the last week, I suffered sporadic down-time – until by Thursday the site was taken off-line for almost two days straight.
Two years ago, I faced persistent, brute-force, distributed denial of service attacks, and I had to reinforce my website to resist them. This time around, it appears the attack was somewhat more sophisticated.
The motive behind the attack is a simple one. I produced an in-depth report exposing horrific levels of antisemitism in Ireland. The report captured politicians, academics and activists engaged in either spreading blatant antisemitism or helping it to spread through the Irish mainstream. Obviously some people simply wanted to stop the truth being told. As an additional handicap I had my gallbladder removed on Thursday, and rather than have an opportunity to rest – I needed to spend the first two days following the operation putting the pieces of my website together again – so as to get the crucial evidence back online. As you can see from reading this – the site is now operational once more.
So for those who may have missed some of what has been taking place, this post is here as both a reminder and a reference.
Last week I produced a blog to introduce the report. There is also the report itself – an in-depth 202 page study on antisemitism in Ireland. The report was uploaded to another location during the attack on the website so people could still access it (Open cloud link) – see also an upload on the website of the Israeli Embassy in Dublin. The Jewish Representative Council of Ireland published a statement on the back of the report calling for Ireland to adopt the IHRA definition of antisemitism.
The report laid bare the scale of anti-Jewish hatred in Ireland – running freely as it does wrapped up in the mask of a social justice argument. From politicians and academics – to the activists on the street, the word being spread through Irish towns is that Zionists are a demon race who must be eradicated from the earth. The evidence is all there – and the unbelievable story of the hounding of the Former Justice Minister Alan Shatter highlights the real world cost that Jewish people in Ireland pay for the Irish anti-Jewish obsession.