It is almost predictable that the ‘darling’ of the modern Canadian left, Naomi Klein, has chosen to deflect the responsibility of the battle against anti-Semitism, which she acknowledges will never go away, onto the shoulders of the Palestinians and their supporters. People who are battling for their lives, their land and their heritage, (against de facto ethnocide) must now bear the burden of anti-Semitism because Ms. Klein feels uncomfortable.
Having cultivated a particular indisposition towards religion in general (in its rabid or milder formats) I believe that Israel and its ideological raison d'etre (Zionism) breeds anti-Semitism by itself. Never mind the exacerbations of the war-mongering Sharon.
As a person of Indian origins, even when Muslim fundamentalists or semi-lunatic, anti-Indianists rage against India's sub continental high-handedness, I am in no rush, nor in-Klein-ed to sympathize with either the murderous politics of Hindu right wing mobs that run India or their apologists.
Which begs the question: where do you stand in this gamut of relationships between globalization, American foreign policy, Eurocentric arrogance and Israeli self-centered jingoism? Someone ought to remind Ms. Left Baby-Boomer-Baby that the Palestinians have other more immediate concerns than to worry about the noble battle against anti-Semitism. Can they please be excused for the time being? It may come as a surprise to some, that Palestinians and their supporters ‘are not’ disposed to steeping themselves in academia/bookpublishing/article-propaganda-selling/intellectual word games or supply intricate fig leafs to cover the diseased crotch of the Israeli state. They are fighting for their lives against a planned holocaust (not a proprietary word, by the way) perpetrated against them. Sabra/Shatila and now Jenin. Word has it that Jenin has been downgraded to something less than a massacre. If only bulldozer drivers could be asked to authenticate history.
In the last fifty years, the Indo-Chinese, Guatemalans, East Timorese, Kurds, Indonesians, Chileans, various African ethnic groups, South Africans under apartheid (duly supported by the Israeli state at the time), Palestinians and other groups and peoples to a lesser degree have suffered from some form of mass extermination. And guess which spectrum of the political bandwidth perpetrated or tacitly backed the politics of mass murder and/or genocide? Surely not those who opposed American foreign policy for the past fifty years, nor those who continue to support the Palestinian struggle? The last time I checked nothing like that had happened against the Israelis and surely not against North American Jews in this post WWII period. Every time the Le Pen mobsters or British Nazis or Italian fascists (or for that matter the various white power groups and their cohorts) dig up graves or carry out attacks against Jews in Europe, the whole debate is methodically shifted back to the pre-war holocaust against Jews. Suddenly, Jenin is no longer in the news!!
When 15,000 people, not once but twice, marched in Montreal (including a large number of Jewish leaders, Rabbis and refusenik supporters), calling for an end to the Israeli occupation, there was no mention of it in the papers. Yet Israel's Independence Day was featured on the front page with an oversize photo, as if that was the only thing that happened on planet Montreal that day. ‘Remembrance’ was the evocative catch-word. Do Palestinians have no memory going back to Dar-Yasein and several other massacres where Israel's later day Prime Ministers’ hands are soaked in blood. Is it not relevant to ask whether or not the politics of Izzy Asper prevents or promotes anti-Semitism?
Progressive Jews ‘outside Israel’ must take on their own (Jewish) power structures. Progressive Jews are keenly aware of this. The Israeli left is doing a heroic job in Israel. In fact inside Israel there is far better comprehension of what’s really at stake than in Brooklyn/Hampstead or TMR.
Anti-corporatists such as Naomi Klein and her kind ought to stop pretending that their critical insights into class structures, logo-politics and the power politics of the IMF don’t apply to the racist politics practiced by the state of Israel. It’s like telling an ‘untouchable’ that he should be a better socialist before he fights against upper caste, landlord rapists. Can the Palestinians be allowed to play hooky from anti-Semitism 101 for now?
How ready as an intellectual must you be before you decide to take to the gas filled streets of Quebec City or bullet ridden West Bank and not lecture the people who are filling the streets?
For now, the battle against anti-Semitism is a North American problem for its Jewish leaders. If 65,000 Israelis can show their humanity by protesting against the occupation, why can’t Montreal or New York Jews show their solidarity? Palestinians and their Jewish and non-Jewish supporters are busy taking care of other pressing issues. Can the Jewish left, please, in their spare time, do what their ancestors did in the past and stand up for justice over tribal affiliation?
I am not a Semite, but I find the Naomi Klein article particularly disgusting. Blaming the victim has always been the tactic of the oppressor. Saying that somehow those who suffer injustices have brought the afflictions on themselves is a clear indication of a closed and prejudiced mindset and usually that of the KKK, Skinheads, Gay bashers, misogynists and fascists of all kinds. Obviously the author or authors of that piece are amongst their number.
Linton Garner treetop@videotron.ca