Crying wolf
Sep 22, 2002
The president of Harvard, Lawrence H. Summers, has in a speech a few days ago confronted, as he see it, the supposed rise of anti-semitism in the world.
He iterates a number of arguments, some of which I do not disagree with (or don't know anything of) and therefore don't bring up here. However, the ones I do find kind of peculiar are the following:
Hundreds of European academics have called for an end to support for Israeli researchers, though not for an end to support for researchers from any other nation. Israeli scholars this past spring were forced off the board of an international literature journal.
At the same rallies where protesters, many of them university students, condemn the IMF and global capitalism and raise questions about globalization, it is becoming increasingly common to also lash out at Israel. Indeed, at the anti-IMF rallies last spring, chants were heard equating Hitler and Sharon.
Events to raise funds for organizations of questionable political provenance that in some cases were later found to support terrorism have been held by student organizations on this and other campuses with at least modest success and very little criticism.
And some here at Harvard and some at universities across the country have called for the University to single out Israel among all nations as the lone country where it is inappropriate for any part of the university’s endowment to be invested. I hasten to say the University has categorically rejected this suggestion. The Harvard President
I doubt the President of Harvard, who himself is Jewish, has missed out on current events. But it does seem like he is blissfully oblivious of the fact that some people think Palestine are being oppressed by Israel.
So, is it "anti-semitic" to disagree with Israel or the actions of it? No, it is not. Anti-semitism is about hating, disliking and discriminating Jews as an ethnic group. What he is seeing is boycotts of Israel, not boycotts, intolerance nor hatred against Jews.
Some people, organisations and even countries have openly declared that they condemn the actions of Israel in this respect. In some cases this has led to boycotts of different kinds.
Is it anti-semitic to boycott a nation due to one condemning the actions of it then? Would it be anti-semitic to boycott, say, Norway, because one condemns their seal-clubbing or their whale-hunting? No, it would not. Those actions would not be actions of hatred, intolerance nor discrimination. Israel does not get special treatment in this department, either.
How about comparing Sharon to Hitler then, is that an implication of hating, disliking or discriminating Jews? No, it is not. It is a way of strongly condemning and objecting to the way Sharon is acting, and I guess to point out that some of his objectionable actions were those of Hitler as well. To compare a person to Hitler, or Sharon, or Mickey Mouse, does not imply one hates, dislikes nor discriminates against Jews.
Lastly, hundreds, maybe thousands of groups and organisations has been labeled "terrorists" by the US without any proof or explanation for it.
I'm against racism, anti-semitism, fascism and any other derogatory ism you can think of. But boycotting Israel on political grounds is not anti-semitism.
Comments
I think the problem is less about Israel being right or wrong, and more about punishing independent researchers because of their heritage or nationality.
Surely this must be called discrimination.
Comment by msse at 01:53, 23 Sep, 2002 #
Well, this is one thing you'll never succeed in, Tomas. Convincing people that actions against Israel as a state is not equal to anti-semitism. Because of USAs strong support of the "state" of Israel everyones intimidated into silence, or worse, indoctrination. Few people dare to cross USA and Israel, and condemning their actions. US because "those who are not with us, are against us" and Israel because of the easy way out of calling everyone who disagrees with their politics and murderous ways as "anti-semitic". I am not sure I have succeded in making a point.
What I want to say with the rant above is that people are stupid and tend to believe what Sharon and right-wing people are saying; that Israel's actions against Palestinians are carried out because Palestinians are terrorists. Thus making it easy for anyone opposing this to call them anti-semitic since Israel is only ridding the world of "terrorists".
I don't know if this rant clarified anything. It probably didn't. I think I will have to explain myself later on in a better way.
Comment by talisyn at 16:11, 23 Sep, 2002 #
msse: if that's true, that they are punishing individuals due to their heritage, then that is very much so anti-semitism. however, if they are boycotting israel as a nation due to political protest, then it is not.
talisyn, and msse: boycotting a nation for political reasons, wether it's israel or an other, is not a form of intolerance nor discrimination and therefore not anti-semitism, by definition.
wether people in general are intelligent enough to grasp that simple concept or not, is an entirely different issue.
Comment by Tomas at 17:19, 23 Sep, 2002 #
Do you think ending "support for Israeli researchers" is an acceptable way of protesting against the Israeli policy? What about burning synagogues? (the part of the article you did not quote).
I do not agree with everything Sharon does, but it always surprises me to see so many people condemning the actions of Israel, and being blissfully oblivious of the heinous crimes commited by Palestininan terrorists on a daily basis.
Comment by Teekay at 17:38, 23 Sep, 2002 #
Like I've already stated, I did not bring up the arguments I do agree with, and burning synagogues being an anti-semitic act is one of them.
However, "ending support for Israeli researchers" could very well be a form of boycott of Israel due to the political reasons I mentioned. "Could be", I don't know for sure, I assume you don't, either.
I wouldn't jump to the conclusion that it must be a form of anti-semitism, though.
Condemning Israel does not imply one is oblivious to the actions of Palestine, one can very well condemn Israeli actions while condemning Palestinian ones, too.
Comment by Tomas at 17:47, 23 Sep, 2002 #
Teekay: The awful deeds carried out by Palestinian "terrorists" may have a reason, ever thought of that?
It's so easy to just write them off as "terrorists", then you don't have to ponder on why palestinian men and women blow themselves up on Israeli soil. It's even easier to label Arafat a bad leader in order to justify the fact that the Israeli occupation of Palestinian soil has gone on almost since Israel was founded. Pointing to the horrible atrocities done by Arafat does not diminish the even greater atrocities carried out by Israelian leaders, the current one is even labeled "Butcher" Sharon. Don't simplify the matter by painting the Palestinians out to be some sort of monsters. They're just as human as the Israelis.
Comment by talisyn at 19:19, 23 Sep, 2002 #
It's not human to blow up a bus carrying children to school, ever. I understand the reason Palestinians have to feel anger, but the attacks on Israeli civilians are organized by "professional" terrorist groups like the Islamic Jihad and Hamas, and Saddam Hussein pays $25.000 to the families of suicide bombers. I do not consider this to be a legitimate way to protest.
Comment by Teekay at 19:31, 23 Sep, 2002 #
Teekay: Imagine the oppression _you_ would stand before your only percievable way to protest it was to blow yourself up in doing so.
You know, just for the sake of perspective.
Comment by Tomas at 19:38, 23 Sep, 2002 #
Believe me, guys, I had experienced oppression (the communist bastards), I was just too young to blow up anything.
Even if I really had to use violence, I'd engage enemy forces, not the civilians for god's sake! No soldier worth his uniform would ever kill a civilian.
And as I said, these terror attacks are organized, it's sort of an enterprise, the difference being that Hamas is unlikely to be ever traded on NASDAQ.
Comment by Teekay at 19:58, 23 Sep, 2002 #
Teekay: No soldier worth his uniform, indeed. And Israel has their fair share of those.
If the oppression you have experienced (Czechia, was it?) is as severe as the one experienced by Palestinians the last fifty or so years is comparable, I don't know, do you?
I'm not entirely convinced the difference between a corporation and Hamas is as small as you describe it to be.
Either way, I believe the Palestinians, and the Israelis, to be humans too.
Comment by Tomas at 20:30, 23 Sep, 2002 #
Speech-acts
Trackback from mymarkup.net at 20:36, 23 Sep, 2002 #
I tend to agree with Tomas.
I mean... boycotting Israel on political ground is not anti-semitism. Afterall the state of Israel is based on Zionist ideology not Jewish. It is the ideology and the policies, not the religion or the people.
Whereas antisemitic is hatered and discrimination for the people, the religion, and the race, like what happend in Spain during the Inquisita, and in Germany during Hitler's reign.
On the other side, being anti-semite is not only anti jews, but also anti-arab, as Arabs are of Semitic origin as well.
Comment by KaZ at 06:25, 24 Sep, 2002 #
Teekay: No soldier worth his uniform would ever kill a civilian.
Well, in theory, in a perfect world, that's what it should be. That is, i believe, what they teach in military school.
But in reality, in the real world, it happened all the time. In Chechnya, Bosnia, Indonesia, not to mention Afghanistan and of course Israel.
However, i dont believe the so called "terrorist" ever attended military school.
Comment by KaZ at 06:32, 24 Sep, 2002 #
We all see they headlines flashed across the bottom of our television sets... suicide bombing in ramat aviv... seige in ramallah. And we all see the pundits's reactions... arafat the terrorist, sharon the war criminal.
It's our responsibility as citizens to discern the facts behind the headlines. Good, debate the points, et. al... Just do not cloud your arguements with mindless repitition of falsehoods.
Here's my view: Palestinians do not hate Israeli's because they occupy "their" land. They hate Israel because they are Jewish. Debate human rights, if you will, but take a good hard look at the Palestinian Authority's record with it's own citizens. Rally against Sharon, if you will (he's no friend of mine), but while you are at it, ask yourself why Arafat has negotiated with Sharon, Netanyahu, Barak, Peres, Begin, and dozens more Isaeli leaders, and yet he only blames the Jewish ones for intransigence. Ask yourself, why can Arab Muslims and Arab Christians can live in PEACE in Tel Aviv but why Jews can't live in Bethlehem or Hebron?
Then let's talk about why anti-Israeli rheotoric isn't anti-Semitism.
Comment by Mason Allen at 09:30, 25 Sep, 2002 #
By the way, Kaz,
Equating anti-semitism with anti-Arab is sophmoric and disingenous. There is no such thing as "Semite" as a race - "Semite" is a linguistic group. In common parlance, anti-semitism IS anti-Jewish. Saying an Arab can't be anti-Semetic is like saying the "Sun's not yellow, it's chicken."
Comment by Mason Allen at 09:35, 25 Sep, 2002 #
Thanks Mason, note taken...
Semite is a linguistic group as described by Columbia Encylopedia;
"Semite - originally one of a people believed to be descended from Shem, son of Noah. Later the term came to include the following peoples: Arabs; the Akkadians of ancient Babylonia; the Assyrians; the Canaanites (including Amorites, Moabites, Edomites, Ammonites, and Phoenicians); the various Aramaean tribes (including Hebrews)"
My humble comments are based on this definition.
Comment by KaZ at 10:32, 25 Sep, 2002 #
Mason: Regarding your "opinion" (I'd call it a "theory") that Palestinians hate Israelis because they're Jews; are you aware of the fact that Jews and Muslims lived side-by-side, for a thousand years, up until the post-war creation of Israel and dividing of the area?
I'm sure _now_ they hate one another for all the reasons they can possibly come up with, but this whole mess started with the creation of Israel, not the appearance of Jews.
Comment by Tomas at 11:09, 25 Sep, 2002 #
Tomas,
Well, this is a common misperception, the idea that "this whole mess started with the creation of Israel." There were anti-Jewish pogroms in Palestine in 1926 and again in the 30's - years before the creation of Israel.
The Arab League began the assault on Jews in Jerusalem months before the creation of Israel - sending mortar fire into civillian neighborhoods (not settlements) while the British sat by, thus initiating a longstanding tatic in the Middle East of targeting civillians. The local Arabs of the West Bank blocked off access to Jerusalem in an attempt to literally starve the Jews out - this siege occured forty-some years before the "humiliating seige" caused by Isreali closures of the West Bank (which never the less does not stop food and medicine from getting to the Palestinians).
The Arabs accepted Jews living alongside them so long as they where second class citizens and the Turks, British, and whomever imposed peace. More to the point, I, too, would like to see a 2 state solution to this problem, but it cannot happen now as the Palestinians (and most other Arabs, for that matter) have not and will not accept the existance of a Jewish State, period.
Another point: Israel's policies deserve scrutiny. But the Arab propoganda machine is so intense that repetition of the same blandisms (Palestinian humiliation... Massacre in Jenin... It's the settlements, stupid...) only serve to fuel anti-Semetic rhetoric and appease the worst elements in Arab society, and do a disservice to other attempts to negotiate a peace in the region.
Comment by Mason Allen at 16:02, 25 Sep, 2002 #
Mason: Interesting, I'll have to look into that some more.
Comment by Tomas at 16:23, 25 Sep, 2002 #
Interesting indeed. A good book to read on the subject: A History of Jerusalem by Karen Armstrong.
However, I beg to differ from Mason's "opinion". I believe the Arabs hate the Israelis not because they are Jews, but because they adhere to Zionism. Even the ultra-orthodox Jews oppose to Zionism and the state of Israel. as they believe tht the formation of Israel should not be hasten until the coming of the messiah.
But personaly, I don't think there will be peace in the region in the near future. It has been a hot bed and killing field for the last 4,000 years. It would be hard to have peace especially with the current events.
Let's hope for the best.
Comment by KaZ at 19:56, 25 Sep, 2002 #
The discussion has been closed on this entry. Thanks to everybody who participated.