By Charles Jacobs
April 13, 2007
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We repeat once more: Not all criticism of Israel is anti-Semitism. But it also needs to be repeated that anti-Zionism is all-too-frequently a reflection of anti-Semitism. Recent events in England show how thin the line really is.
The Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) has been around for years demonizing Israel in the worst possible terms: "apartheid," "Nazi," you name it.
Leading figures like Sue Blackwell are well known for regarding all Israelis, men, women and children, as colonialist tools who deserve to be shunned by "civilized" society. Others like Tony Greenstein are, predictably, Jews who use their Jewishness as a tool to attack Jews who live in Israel. All these people believe that Israel is a racist state that should be dismantled by whatever means necessary.
But now the anti-Israel Jews are on the defensive because -- surprise, surprise -- the Palestine Solidarity Campaign has rejected several of their resolutions that condemned the racist anti-Semites and Holocaust deniers that now dominate the movement and infest much of the British far left.
Jewish Israel-haters routinely condemn the idea that Jews are a separate people and deserve their own state. But they also demand that the movement disassociate from openly anti-Semitic groups like "Deir Yassin Remembered," avoid cross-posting articles by Holocaust deniers on their web sites, and refrain from talking about world Jewish conspiracies. Why? Because, they say, these things would aid the Zionists. Nice.
When racist anti-Zionists are the voices of reason against racist anti-Semites, whose goals they share, the world has gotten even crazier than we thought. And when Jews argue against anti-Semitism because it looks bad for the anti-Zionist cause to hang out with Nazis, one is speechless.
These "reasonable" Jewish anti-Zionists spent decades preparing the ground for their own defeat by demonizing Israel in the worst conceivable terms. They endlessly insinuate their hateful views into the British media, universities, labor movement and beyond. They really shouldn't be so surprised.
What are the lessons for us? Anti-Zionism is not necessarily anti-Semitism, but when it starts using terms like Nazi, apartheid and conspiracy, that is exactly where it will lead. These demonic terms must be combated wherever they occur before they end up infecting the entire political Left. This is already underway in the United States where it is common to hear these words thrown around in religious groups, labor unions and universities, thanks in part to the dedicated work and inspiration of those British anti-Zionists who are now confronted by the monster they created.
On purely logical grounds, this sad situation shows that anti-Zionism that isn't accompanied by a uniform standard of opposition to all nationalism, a uniform standard of behavior applied to all states, and a uniform concern for all refugees everywhere and not only to Jews, is, de facto, anti-Semitism.
Any satisfaction we might feel seeing the hateful Jewish anti-Zionists squirm will be temporary. They will find a way to spread their own brand of hate -- new and improved! -- for Jewish peoplehood while leaving the racists to continue spreading their poison.
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