I agree with much of what Jim wrote below.
I should emphasize that I don't have problems with an open and
honest debate about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. However, what
makes me uneasy is that whatever their motivations, many of today's
critics of Israel invariably turn to arguments that are hauntingly
similar to arguments made by yesterday's anti-Semites against Jews
in general.
A good example of old style anti-Semitism is Henry Ford's
The International Jew: The World's
Foremost Problem and other writings in his Dearborn Independent from the early 1920s.
Today, the argument is that wealthy Jewish donors from New York
City influence politicians in both parties, and no politician is
willing to challenge them on Israel. Back then it was, "the Jews have been strong
in all parties, so that whichever way the election went, the Jews
would win. In New York it is always the Jewish party that
wins."
Today, we have complaints about the "Israel Lobby," but back
then it was the "Jewish Lobby."
Today, critics of Israel lament that honest debate is being
stifled in the media, and people are afraid to speak up out of fear
of being labeled anti-Semitic. Those who wanted to discuss the
"Jewish Question" in Ford's day had the same beef:
Anyone who essays to discuss the Jewish Question in
the United States or anywhere else must be fully prepared to be
regarded as an Anti-Semite, in high-brow language, or in low-brow
language, a Jew-baiter. Nor need encouragement be looked for from
people or from press. The people who are awake to the subject at
all prefer to wait and see how it all turns out; while there is
probably not a newspaper in America, and certainly none of the
advertising mediums which are called magazines, which would have
the temerity even to breathe seriously the fact that such a
Question exists. The press in general is open at this time to
fulsome editorials in favor of everything Jewish (specimens of the
same being obtainable almost anywhere), while the Jewish press,
which is fairly numerous in the United States, takes care of the
vituperative end.
Of course, the only acceptable explanation of any public
discussion at present of the Jewish Question is that some
one-writer, or publisher, or a related interest-is a Jew-hater.
That idea seems to be fixed; it is fixed in the Jew by inheritance;
it is sought to be fixed in the Gentile by propaganda, that any
writing which does not simply cloy and drip in syrupy sweetness
toward things Jewish is born of prejudice and hatred. It is,
therefore, full of lies, insult, insinuation, and constitutes an
instigation to massacre.
I fear that the pushback by Israel's critics is slowly but surely
creating an environment in which anti-Semitic views are becoming
acceptable as long as they are framed within a discussion of Israel
and are said to arise from sympathy for the plight of the
Palestinians.
topics:
Environment, Books, Israel
