Though the Howard Gutman incident is still something the New York Times hasn’t bothered to report, the effort by the left to push back against complaints about the egregious nature of the remarks made by the U.S. ambassador to Belgium last week have continued. In the latest one, Justin Elliot in Salon singles out my comments about Gutman’s attempt to distinguish between “classical” anti-Semitism and Jew-hatred by Muslims that is rooted in resentment of Israeli actions.
Elliot does not even bother to defend Gutman’s attempt to draw a moral equivalence between Palestinian terrorism and Israeli home building and measures of self-defense. But he does try to claim, as did a writer at Think Progress yesterday, that Gutman was misquoted about anti-Semitism. This is a risible assertion and is easily dismissed. More interesting is his attempt to claim there is nothing controversial about linking the Middle East conflict with anti-Semitism. He agrees with Adam Serwer who wrote in Mother Jones, “Gutman’s suggestion that anti-Semitism would subside if a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict could be reached isn’t the same as saying Israelis or Jews are ‘responsible’ for anti-Semitism.” But to say this as if it were self-evident misses the point. Far from being morally neutral, the whole focus on Israeli actions that he claims fuel anti-Semitic incidents, does just that.
To back up Gutman, Elliot points to research by Britain’s Community Service Trust that documents incidents of anti-Semitism. It concluded “much contemporary anti-Semitism takes place in the context of, or is motivated by, extreme feelings over the Israel/Palestine issue” and spoke of the spike in incidents after the Gaza flotilla incident in 2010 or Israel’s counter-offensive against Gaza-based terrorists in 2008.
But the conclusions reached here are misleading. It is true that those who express hatred for Jews and give vent to these feelings are more likely to do so when Israel is in the news. Then they claim it is the conflict or specific actions undertaken by the Jewish state that is the cause of what they say and do. But, as with the “classic anti-Semitism” that Gutman saw as different from contemporary Arab hate, Israeli actions merely provide an excuse for this prejudice. Israeli actions are not its cause.
The anti-Semitism growing in Britain and throughout Europe did not arise in an ideological or cultural vacuum. Nor did it come to life only after 1948 or 1967. It sprung from Arab propaganda about Israel and Jews virtually identical to the old anti-Semitism and even has used texts such as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion as its sourcebook. The calumnies thrown at Israel and its supporters abroad are not the stuff of diplomatic complaints about specific incidents in which Israelis are wrongly alleged to have misbehaved, such as the Gaza offensive or the flotilla. Rather, they are rooted and often expressed in the language and spirit of “traditional” anti-Semitism in which the Jew is a foreign body who is falsely thought to be oppressing innocent gentiles, in this case the Palestinians. European anti-Semites, a growing group comprised of both Muslim immigrants from the Middle East and homegrown leftist intellectuals, aren’t merely upset with Israeli policies. They believe the Jewish state has no right to either exist or defend itself.
Such views give the lie to Elliot and Serwer’s beliefs that Middle East peace would diminish Euro Jew-hatred because such an event — in which Israel and its foes would agree to coexist and recognize each other’s legitimacy — is antithetical to the haters’ notion of justice. While their hate is exacerbated when the conflict rages, it is not the absence of peace that drives them to hate. It is the existence of Israel, no matter where its borders might be drawn. It is the refusal of the Jews to give up Israel and their insistence on defending themselves against terror that is fueling European anti-Semitism. But instead of focusing in on the bigoted motivations of the Jew-haters, what Gutman did was to treat their wish to eradicate Israel as morally equivalent to the desire of the Jews not to lose their state or their lives.
Treating this expression of anti-Semitism as a function of a political disagreement is fundamentally mistaken. Those who promote the canard that Israel is a racist entity that must be expunged from the map will not be appeased by a peace agreement the Palestinians have shown time and again they have no interest in signing. Solving the Middle East conflict will no more calm contemporary anti-Semites than any pacific gestures towards Germany by Jews would have satisfied the Nazis. The haters hate Israel because it is the Jewish state, not because of lies about conditions in Gaza.
Far from being “smeared,” as Elliot alleges, Gutman has given Europe’s Jew-haters a rationale and a sort of legitimacy they do not deserve. Turning the discussion about hatred for Jews in today’s Europe into one about what Israel can do to give the anti-Semites less ammunition as Gutman did misreads the problem. It is also an expression of irritation with Israel that has become commonplace in the Obama administration. Both Gutman and the president he serves need to be held to account.
If what Gutman said was true, anti-semitism should have declined (1) when Israel unilaterally left Lebanon, (2) when Barak made a generous offer in 2000 that was rejected without a counteroffer (3) ditto 2001 when Sharon made a better offer (4) when Israel unilaterally left Gaza and clearly stated that if this worked there, ot would be duplicated in the West Bank and (5) endured years of rocket launches from Gaza with retaliating.r nr nNone of these events abated anti-semitism or evoked much sympathy from Europe. Gutman’s remarks are particularly reprehensible coming from a child of Holocaust survivor. Proving once again that American Jews, by and large, practice the dogma of the Democratic Party as their religion, and if it conflicts with the well being of their Israeli cousins, so be it.
This whole argument over the exact nature of Muslim anti-Semitism is futile. Let it suffice to understand that no matter its roots, it will only be assuaged when the last Jew is either killed or driven out of what is now the State of Israel. Nothing short of that will extinguish the fire.
I am a long time philoSemite. Anti-Zionism is another term for anti-Semitism. Clearly Gutman is anti-Semite. President Obama is likewise. Historically the reason there is no Palestinian state is because its leadership has never wanted a two state solution but has always aimed for one state, Palestine. Whether or not Obama has ever read a nonideological history of the Middle East or for that matter a history of Islam is unknown and ultimately unimportant. As far as he is concerned it is all the Jews fault as it always has been and always will be. This is the progressive dogma and has been since at least Marx if not earlier. It is, however, alarming to experience the unimpeded rise of anti-Semitic opinion in American mainstream political life. Obama blames Israel for the lack of a peace plan. Gutman blames Jews for anti-Semitism. OWS blames Jews for the bank crisis and hard economic times. Certain fringes that post on a finance website I visit, Zerohedge.com, are convinced that the neocoms will soon start WWIII, Iran being ground zero. Armeggedon is around the corner. For awhile I tried to argue with these people, but I gave up because it became clear they were not amenable to rational thought, but preferred the comfort of their conspiracy theories. A more recent post at Zero Hedge gave me a little hope. Jews are not entirely to blame. This one was quite certain that the US government was controlled by Great Britain. I was outraged at the utter ignorance of British life in these postmodern times. It’s weakness, its cowardice, its cultural emptyness, its crushing political correctness, the craveness of its welfare class, and the amorality of its intellectualoids. Is it any different here? OWS, SEIU, the teacher’s unions and other public service unions, the Democratic party, the crony capitalists,Obama’s unrelenting mendaciousness, Congressional insider trading is getting, the steady dumbing down of our people somehow in the belief that it’s not important enough to do anything effective about it. If this keeps up, the US won’t be here at the end of the century. No one seems to care. I’m being a bore. r nr nThe point is,how can we make it clear to Obama that his not so subtle anti-Semitism is utterly unacceptable? How do we confront him and his co-ideologues with the immorality of it? I’m at a loss. He is so convinced of his own righteousness that he’s unreachable. Maybe it’s a waste of time to bother, and the best thing to do is to make sure he is either not reelected or that enough Republicans are elected to the House and the Senate that we can have gridlock for the next four years.r nr nI wish you and everyone at Commentary well. I’ve almost finished reading this month’s issue.
Anti-Israeli statements have taken over some of the features of the so called classical antisemitism. Apart of their truth, lack-of it, pure hatred and nonsense, such statements assure, at least in the mind of the person who makes them, wide supportive audience. nHassan Nassralla, Bashar al-Assad, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Recep Tayyip Erdou011fan n know that in case of trouble blaming Israel or threatening it will find sympathetic audience in the Arab world and elsewhere. n nObjecting to female voice by the ultra-orthodox in Israel is wrong and cannot be tolerated. Still, it is a strange worry for the Secretary of State, in comparison to, say, Ashura massacres in Afghanistan and Iraq in the last 24 hours, on which we have not heard a word from Ms. Clinton. Some people may think that adopting the by-laws of Amnesty International, which refuse donations by foreign governments is a threat to democracy. It looks, though, much less serious than jailing Turkish journalists or transforming the Turkish Academy of Sciences into a Government run organization. Bashing Israel, our eternal ally, however, is so much sexier! n n n n
In fact, anti-Semitic incidents in Europe were at a all-time low during the first years of the Oslo peace process — despite the fact that Hamas was carrying out several suicide attacks during this period in the early 1990s. Incidences of anti-Semitics attacks also went down during the Gaza withdrawal. The only explanation Toban offers for this is that the radical Muslims were biding their time, waiting for the opportunity to hit at Jews when they gave them a pretext, as if killing 1400 wasn't cause enough. He can't give any evidence for this — so he resorts to lousy arguments. So what if there was Muslim anti-Semitic incidents before Zionism? The point is that there were a lot fewer. Nobody is claiming that Israel-Palestinian conflict is the only reason — but all experts inside and outside Israel, including the IDF, are not stupid and see the clear correlation. n nThe classic anti-Semites said that Jews's hatred of goyyim, and their desire to wound goyyim, was deep within their culture, their texts, and their behavior — and they wrote books to prove it based on cherry-picking texts and appealing to crime statistics. According to the anti-Semities, it didn't matter how the Jews were treated — if they were not given rights, they would rip off goyyim, and if they were given rights, they would still try to rip off goyyim, and that this hatred of goyyim went all the way back to the Talmud. Jonathan Toban has adopted the same bigoted and essentialist stance towards European Muslims that anti-Semites like Eisenmenger adopted towards Jews. And there were Jews who hated goyyim, who ripped them off, and who were criminals. n nBut not only is Toban's argument the stuff of anti-Semites, it is deeply anti-Zionist. For the Zionist said that for the first time in 2000 years, the Jews were not powerless, but the had power to influence events. Toban denies any causal efficacy to the actions of Israel. If they bombed Gaza, and the Muslims attacked Jews in Belgium, Toban would claim that the actions of Israel were merely a pretext for unleashing anti-Semitism. n nI am surprised that Toban doesn't simply say, as many Israelis do, that we know that we are responsible for outbursts of anti-Semitic violence in Europe, but that we cannot allow those consequences to determine our policy. If the Jews in Europe don't like it, they should move to Israel.
In fact, anti-Semitic incidents in Europe were at a all-time low during the first years of the Oslo peace process — despite the fact that Hamas was carrying out several suicide attacks during this period in the early 1990s. Incidences of anti-Semitics attacks also went down during the Gaza withdrawal. The only explanation Toban offers for this is that the radical Muslims were biding their time, waiting for the opportunity to hit at Jews when they gave them a pretext, as if killing 1400 wasn't cause enough. He can't give any evidence for this — so he resorts to lousy arguments. So what if there was Muslim anti-Semitic incidents before Zionism? The point is that there were a lot fewer. Nobody is claiming that Israel-Palestinian conflict is the only reason — but all experts inside and outside Israel, including the IDF, are not stupid and see the clear correlation.
Jerry considers himself — I'm paraphrasing — a "one-Arab-and-Israeli-state Zionist." Don't take anything he says at face value… unless you're Steven Walt. In that case, Jerry is a useful source of information about all things Israel..