Several times posters have attempted to point out the anti-Semitism in some of the types of attacks found in I/P diaries on DKos. Kossacks generally demand examples, make jokes about cirucular firing squads and complain that DKos is not anti-Semitic nor are complaints about Israel's policies.
They are right to an extant. DKos is not as a whole anti-Semitic nor are complaints about Israeli policy. But there is a vocal minority on DKos who are frequently repeating anti-Semtic rhetoric in the guise of concern over Israel's policy and we must acknowledge it for what it is. Of course, as in much of what we discuss on DKos, this is not a phenomenon found only on DKos.
This diary will only deal with one common form of anti-Semitism in these discussions the equation of Israel with Nazi Germany. There are a several forms that this takes:
- Gaza is a concentration camp or ghetto. (Remember the origin of ghetto!)
- Israel is commiting genocide.
- Victiim as victimizer.
- Israel's leaders painted as Nazis or Hitler himself. (this one is not as common on DKos)
There are many on the Left who are deliberately using language to evoke the Holocaust and Nazi Germany in an attempt to delegitimize Israel and at the same time legitimize their own anti-Semitism. There are some on DKos who are copying them. There is no policy criticism in this argument, none at all, only rhetoric.
As has been pointed out before, the European Union has a working definition of anti-Semtism which includes
Examples of the ways in which anti-Semitism manifests itself with regard to the state of Israel taking into account the overall context could include:
Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination (e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor).
Applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.
Using the symbols and images associated with classic anti-Semitism (e.g., claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterize Israel or Israelis.
Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.
Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel
In addition to the anti-Semitic nature of these comments, they are simply wrong. Jews in Germany were not commiting acts of terrorism against Israel, did not start a war against Israel, did not massacre Germans in mass, did not threaten to push Germany into the sea and did not have their kids listen to radio shows about killing Germans. The violence of Nazi Germany was unilateral and massive in scope.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has never been unilateral in nature and the Palestinians are not victims but full participants in an ongoing conflict. Before the state of Israel was formed, violence was commited by both sides. Those Palestinians in camps today were put there not by Israel but by their Arab cousins after the War of Independence and Israel attempted to dismantle the camps in Gaza after the 1967 War but were thwarted by Arafat. Palestinians indoctrinate their children with propoganda about the evil of Jews (not just Israelis but Jews) and the merits of killing. Palestinian groups target Israelis and occasionally Jews outside Israel with no connection to Israel with terrorism; these acts are often celebrated by the man on the street. No, the Palestinians are not mere victims. They are full participants with blood on their hands.
Israel does not kill Palestinians by the thousands. In fact, according to some figures (sorry only English version I found), Israel has been responsible for, at the most, the deaths of 60,000 Arabs. In the course of the War of Independence, the Sinai War, the Six Day War, the Yom Kippur War, the two Lebanon wars and the occupation, Israel has been responsible for only 60,000 Arab deaths.. 20,000 alone died in the Yom Kippur war. Far less than 10,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel over almost 60 years during a conflict that has rarely been cool. Yet this is equated with the death of 6 million Jews and this raises far more attention than the deaths in Africa.
Israel does not use Palestinians as slave labor. There was a time when Palestinians could freely travel into Israel to work and make an excellent living. That stopped, not because Israel was mean or racist or wanted to lock them up in camps, but because terrorist groups were sending in terrorists with the workers and because sometimes those very workers were killed along side Border Police when the terrorist couldn't get in through the crossings.
So why the dishonest analogies? To make the false accusation of genocide or the false analogy of Gaza as concentration camp is deliberate equation of Israel with Nazi Germany and Palestinian as the "new Jew" (a phrase I have seen used here on DKos) and an attempt to delegitimize Israel while at the same time legitimizing anti-Semitism. After all, many people believe that Israel was founded out of European guilt for the Holocaust but if Israelis are the new Nazi, not only is that collective guilt in allowing six million Jews to go up in smoke no longer necessary but a dislike of those Jews left behind is even justified. To the extreme, it means that an end to Israel's existence like the end to Nazi Germany would be desirable.
From the Stephen Roth Institute For the Study of Contemporary Anti-Semitism and Racism:
The most extreme expression of the demonization of Israel is its equation with Nazi Germany, which became, after the onset of the al-Aqsa intifada, one of the central themes of anti-Israel propaganda. Jews living in Israel are perceived as the incarnation of Nazi mentality and ideology. The key motif here is a kind of Holocaust inversion in which the Israelis are the Nazis and the Palestinians become their victims, the new Jews. Thus, those who support Israel, namely Jews, are the Nazis’ accomplices. The most common allegation is to accuse the Jews of “doing to the Palestinians what the Nazis did to you.” The worst crimes of antisemites in the past – racism, ethnic cleansing, attempted genocide, indiscriminate slaughter, crimes against humanity – are now attributed to Jews and the State of Israel. Again, this equation is not only used by the political margins of western European, but has become a legitimate claim in European public discourse. In the UK in early June 2003, MPs Oona King (Labor) and Jenny Tonge (Liberal Democrats) compared the living conditions of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip to those of Jews in the Warsaw ghetto in World War II.
I am asking that we stop uprating these comments (equating Israel with Nazis, Gaza with concentration camps, victims turned victimizer) and that we ask others to do so as well. I don't think this kind of anti-Semitic rhetoric should be supported on Dkos.