I also find your analysis of pro-Israel sentiment among Jews problematic. You assume a lot. Some people support the Israeli government’s actions because they don’t know their full extent or see Palestinians at fault or think that the end – a Jewish state or a democracy in that region – justifies the means. Going by the people I know, the preservation of a Jewish homeland is not just a little side issue because we’re very comfortable here. In addition, your link between the politics you describe and Judaism as a religion as opposed to an ethnicity seems somewhat arbitrary. You also, might I add, are completely ignoring non-Israeli Jews outside of North America.

That being said, I’m active in the anti-Occupation movement, I’ve been called an Arab-lover, an Arab-fucker, a traitor, a self-hating Jew, an anti-Zionist and a lot of other bad things as well, simply because I believe my country (which I love and would not and cannot call another place home) does things badly and for the wrong reasons.
I go to University with Palestinians with Israeli citizenship, I’ve planted olive trees with Palestinians in the Occupied Territories and I’ve marched with Palestinians rallying against the separation wall. I go to University with Israelis from Sderot and the kibbutizim around Gaza, I’ve sat in solidarity with demonstrating against the gov. for the total neglect they show towards its citizens (and are in fact keeping them hostage in their own homes).

Fact, I live in luxury while another people, living just a few km away from me live in standards the UN considers “Third World”. Fact, the building and expansion of settlements in the West Bank and the building of the so-called “security” fence is illegal.

Another fact, anti-Zionism isn’t Antisemitism though it is often conflated because it is easy to clump together a country whose policies are racist, fascist and inhumane.

I’ve never experienced Antisemitism myself, because I am a part of the ruling class and race in my country, but there was a reason my family immigrated to this country and that was so that they wouldn’t need to go through that kind of prejudice.
Israel exists because of the Holocaust, to say otherwise is to ignore history, to say that certain anti-Zionist or anti-Israel remarks aren’t Antisemitism is to ignore reality… ditto though, if you can really justify everything Israel does in the name of “security” because, if you’ve been to the wall and the fence, or seen the rubble of a torn down house, or visited Sderot and seen the abandonment by the government of it’s people and how it’s all the Arabs fault because they don’t want peace, one would rethink the validity of the policies Israel puts forth.

I, btw, have yet to see Israel show any motivation towards lasting peace.
And don’t talk to me about Oslo or the Disengagement plan from Gaza.

I know I came late in the game and didn’t really touch that much on this really, really well written blog entry, but I just had to put in my two shekels (a Shnekel as they say ’round these parts).

Considering I didn’t say that, it would be the wrong thing to take away from that comment. The point was they aren’t comparable incidences and you don’t get to absolve one because the other happened.

Now if Palestine had started the war this would be valid. But they didn’t. Egypt, Syria, and Jordan are the one that started militarizing, and then Israel launched a pre-emptive strike. Palestine didn’t do anything. – hypatia

FWIW and I dunno how it affects either of our sides of the argument at hand, it didn’t do anything because it didn’t exist as a country. Those lands were occupied by Egypt and Jordan at the time.

I think the key word there is occupied, the people of Palestine have been the pawns in middle of a an ideological war that has seen their land and their safety flipped from one side to the other.

I am curious as to what you mean by “identify as Jewish”. Ironically, considering the secularist origins of Zionism, most Jews who actually are religiously involved, while not so pro-Israeli as the Zionist camp would like, are still reasonably attached to Israel to the point of viewing existential threats against Israel (and the Zionist camp is very good at being alarmists so that all threats are viewed that way) as threats indirectly against the Jewish people as a whole and hence against them.

Your statement that “ultra-orthodox groups” are the ones showing solidarity with Israel suggests that your perspective on who “Jewish youth” are might be different than where I am coming from (and I assume FreddyBak is coming from) as it indicates that you are in a different place on the spectrum of Jewish religious identity that you would find Orthodox groups that are pro-Israel to be “ultra-Orthodox”.

When speaking about “identifying as Jewish” I mean people who choose to actively participate in the religion, not just those who are Jewish by birth or ethnicity. Now they certainly don’t want to see Israel blown up or extremist on TV screaming “Death to the Jews!” Many have some relative or another living there, but very few of them would actively support the Israeli government actions. Part of this has to do with the fact that in reality most of these people are very well established here and don’t see a point in trying to “fight” for a Jewish ‘homeland’ when they are really quite happy in North America.

Quite honestly those I term “ultra-orthodox”, are those who not only follow the orthodox teaching but will also try very strongly to keep out any varying opinion even from within their own group, and go through great pains to segregate themselves. In my area there are very few groups that fall under that category but those that do are very pro-Israeli government to the point that they think Israel should do more to remove the Palestinians so that they may have a true Jewish homeland.

So you can leave a snide, pointless remark, or you can respond to the substance of what I posted. Your choice!

But no, us Jews we’re not allowed to say, this is our narrative, our history, our intrepretation, our experience. Nope, you and Jack, get to tell us what Zionism is, and what a Jewish state is, and what it should be allowed to be…

So somehow, being anti-Zionist/opposing the state of Israel as it exists is telling Jews, in general, that you’re not allowed to have your narrative, history, interpretation, or experience? That’s a really huge leap, especially because Jewish narrative, history, and experience are by no means monolithic.

I’m actually thinking that I need to step back from this conversation. Admittedly, activism around Palestine and Israel is not my personal focus, nor is Palestinian or Israeli history my area of expertise. Interestingly, most if not all of the pro-Palestinian/anti-Israeli/anti-occupation activism that I’ve come into contact with has come from my Jewish friends, from whom I’ve learned most of what I know about this stuff. Many of them belong to the organization Jews Against the Occupation, so I thought to look at their website for some help in this conversation. I’ll leave you with information from that site, words that represent a different set of Jewish narratives and experiences, ones that acknowledges the complex dynamics of power, privilege, and oppression at play in this issue and do not privilege the rights of Jewish Israelis people over and to the detriment of the rights of Palestinians.

In their mission statement, they have a section entitled “Anti-Semitism vs. Critiques of Israel” in which they state:

Judaism is a cultural and religious identity, which must not be equated with Zionism, a political movement. Criticism of the state of Israel, its policies, or the idea of a Jewish state does not by itself constitute anti-Semitism. Dismissing critics of Israel or of Zionism as “anti-Semitic” is a means of stifling debate and masking the impact of the occupation.

They also have a section on their site completely devoted to the question “Is it Anti-Semitic to be Anti-Zionist?”, with viewpoints from different anti-occupation Jewish activists. In one of the pieces, Hadas Their, who identifies as “a Jew, as someone who was born in Israel and has family living today in Jerusalem,” says:

And for those of us who are active in the pro-Palestine movement, the onslaught of attacks claiming that we’re all anti-Semites has reached a fever pitch.

From Ariel Sharon, who accused anyone who demanded an investigation of Israel’s war crimes in Jenin of committing anti-Semitic “blood libel,” all the way to liberal newspapers like the Voice which ran an article by Alissa Solomon that accused pro-Palestine activists as “tipping towards hate.”

All these accusations attempt to cover the real story of Israel’s continued aggression and occupation; they deflect criticism from Israel’s actions by attacking the critics.

…

Anti-Semitism does exist. It exists in the Arab world, just as it does elsewhere in the world, including among racists who support Israel because they hate Arabs even more than Jews. But there’s no necessary correlation between opposing the racism, occupation and repression of Israel and anti-Semitism. And there’s absolutely no contradiction at all between opposing anti-Semitism and opposing the political project of Zionism—that is, the construction and defense of a Jewish state on stolen land in Palestine.

And I’ll leave you at that, since I honestly don’t think I have more to offer a conversation that doesn’t seem to be terribly constructive at this point.