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rfmcdonaldThis is the fruition of a combination of postings made on the comments page, here and here at Angua's First Blog, in response to postings which seemed to me to be identifying criticism of Israeli policies via-á-vis Palestinians and its Arab minority as anti-Semitic.
It's true that people aren't criticizing Syria, or Saudi Arabia, or Sudan. The thing is, none of those countries claim to be Western countries; Israel is. Bret Stephens, in an article in the Jerusalem Post, pointed to the progress made by non-heterosexuals and same-sex couples in Israel as a reason to support Israel, inasmuch as such would be impossible elsewhere in the Middle East. This is true. On a whole range of other indicators (languages spoken, status of women and non-citizens, membership in international organization, preferred orientations in foreign politics and international culture) Israel is a Western state.
Far from singling out Israel for criticism unfairly among its peers, it seems quite possible to conclude that many critics of Israel are criticizing it among its peers; Turkey aside, Israel is the only country with an occupation problem. Quite a lot of people believe that they are applying the same standards to Israel as to other Western countries, being as skeptical of Israel and Israeli intentions in the Palestinian territories now as they would have been of (say) French and French intentions in Algeria in the 1954-1962 period, or of Portugal and Portuguese intentions in Africa in the 1960s and early 1970s.
Do I believe that anti-Semitism is a factor in the European Union's criticism of Israel? Yes, but a relatively minor one, and certainly not the major one; in the top ten, but not the top three. The anti-Semitic violence in France seems to be the product of Maghrebin street youth; compare, say, the treatment of Koreans by African-Americans in the early 1990s in southern California. In other respects, Europe is a good place for Jews--the French Jewish community is the second largest in the diaspora and has provided at least one head of state (Léon Blum), more Jews immigrated to Germany last year than to Israel, et cetera. There's problems, but I'd wager that most European hostility towards Israel comes from the Palestinian problem. If Israel was able to disengage itself, I'd be quite willing to bet that EU-Israeli relations would improve sharply.
Most critics of Israel, at any rate, believe that they are applying ethics regarding colonial and quasi-colonial situations consistently. Whether they actually are can't ever be proved, but we must give them the benefit of the doubt since that's what they believe. Proving "objective" anti-Semitism doesn't really work, unless you can find documented proof: If you read Amos Oz and eat Israeli oranges and have Jewish friends, the case becomes weak.
Certainly worse humanitarian crises exist that the Palestinian (though in the Western context, the current Israeli sufferings are close only to the terrorist bombings by the colons and their supporters in late Fourth Republic France). However, that's because Israel is a First World democracy, with extensive penetration of domestic and foreign media and a very large and visible diaspora in any number of other media-intensive countries (the US, UK, France, Germany, Russia). The Palestinian diaspora is smaller, but it also exists; media penetration is also high; as well, the Palestinian territories are located adjacent to countries (Egypt and Lebanon) which are the main media-intensive societies in the Arab world. To round it all off, Israel and the Palestinian territories are located in an area of the world which is disproportionately visible, inasmuch as the three Abrahmic religions, which have managed to acquire the nominal allegiance of half the world's population and influence most of the remainder, all trace their sources to that small territory.
The Israeli/Palestinian conflict is one that is highly publicized, one that would virtually have to be highly publicized given the high visibility of the two populations and the land which they share. If Kashmir, or Algeria, or even Yugoslavia had comparable importance, then news from Srinigar and Algiers and Sarajevo would be just as polarizing as any news from Jerusalem. As it is, those conflicts tend to be of mainly local importance. The Kashmiri conflict comes closest to equalling the Israel/Palestinian conflict, inasmuch as two major nuclear-armed states with a combined population of almost 1.5 billion are involved. Yugoslavia was important only because Yugoslavia was a fairly media-intensive society with close relations to western Europe. Algeria, well, it mainly involves Algeria, its neighbours, and the France which colonized it and hosts a Maghrebin immigrant community of some five million people.
To emphasize: The Israeli/Palestinian conflict is simply much more likely to achieve sustained attention than conflicts in relatively more obscure areas of the world. If Jerusalem was located in the south Sudanese marshes, you can be certain that the Sudanese question would similarly dominate the international news media.
Do I think this is anti-Semitic? Well, it can contribute to anti-Semitism, if you a) assume that's the only conflict of note and b) don't attribute to Palestinians their share of the blame. It can certainly contribute to intellectual laziness.
I don't believe that it's intrinsically anti-Semitic, though, and I don't believe that most people who concentrate on this are intrinsically or otherwise anti-Semitic. The 2003 Transatlantic Trends report (key findings available here, in PDF format) gives interesting suggestions on this. 60% of Americans, versus 43% of Europeans, feel "warmly" towards Israel; 43% of Europeans and 40% of Americans, though, feel warmly towards the Palestinians. To quote the report:
This would reflect, it seems, the general sentiment I've gotten from Europe and from my peers who are critical of Israeli policies. They don't fetishize the Palestinians, as has been argued; they simply hold the two sides in equal disregard. This might well be cynical, but it's hardly anti-Semitic (or anti-Palestinian, for that matter).
It's true that people aren't criticizing Syria, or Saudi Arabia, or Sudan. The thing is, none of those countries claim to be Western countries; Israel is. Bret Stephens, in an article in the Jerusalem Post, pointed to the progress made by non-heterosexuals and same-sex couples in Israel as a reason to support Israel, inasmuch as such would be impossible elsewhere in the Middle East. This is true. On a whole range of other indicators (languages spoken, status of women and non-citizens, membership in international organization, preferred orientations in foreign politics and international culture) Israel is a Western state.
Far from singling out Israel for criticism unfairly among its peers, it seems quite possible to conclude that many critics of Israel are criticizing it among its peers; Turkey aside, Israel is the only country with an occupation problem. Quite a lot of people believe that they are applying the same standards to Israel as to other Western countries, being as skeptical of Israel and Israeli intentions in the Palestinian territories now as they would have been of (say) French and French intentions in Algeria in the 1954-1962 period, or of Portugal and Portuguese intentions in Africa in the 1960s and early 1970s.
Do I believe that anti-Semitism is a factor in the European Union's criticism of Israel? Yes, but a relatively minor one, and certainly not the major one; in the top ten, but not the top three. The anti-Semitic violence in France seems to be the product of Maghrebin street youth; compare, say, the treatment of Koreans by African-Americans in the early 1990s in southern California. In other respects, Europe is a good place for Jews--the French Jewish community is the second largest in the diaspora and has provided at least one head of state (Léon Blum), more Jews immigrated to Germany last year than to Israel, et cetera. There's problems, but I'd wager that most European hostility towards Israel comes from the Palestinian problem. If Israel was able to disengage itself, I'd be quite willing to bet that EU-Israeli relations would improve sharply.
Most critics of Israel, at any rate, believe that they are applying ethics regarding colonial and quasi-colonial situations consistently. Whether they actually are can't ever be proved, but we must give them the benefit of the doubt since that's what they believe. Proving "objective" anti-Semitism doesn't really work, unless you can find documented proof: If you read Amos Oz and eat Israeli oranges and have Jewish friends, the case becomes weak.
Certainly worse humanitarian crises exist that the Palestinian (though in the Western context, the current Israeli sufferings are close only to the terrorist bombings by the colons and their supporters in late Fourth Republic France). However, that's because Israel is a First World democracy, with extensive penetration of domestic and foreign media and a very large and visible diaspora in any number of other media-intensive countries (the US, UK, France, Germany, Russia). The Palestinian diaspora is smaller, but it also exists; media penetration is also high; as well, the Palestinian territories are located adjacent to countries (Egypt and Lebanon) which are the main media-intensive societies in the Arab world. To round it all off, Israel and the Palestinian territories are located in an area of the world which is disproportionately visible, inasmuch as the three Abrahmic religions, which have managed to acquire the nominal allegiance of half the world's population and influence most of the remainder, all trace their sources to that small territory.
The Israeli/Palestinian conflict is one that is highly publicized, one that would virtually have to be highly publicized given the high visibility of the two populations and the land which they share. If Kashmir, or Algeria, or even Yugoslavia had comparable importance, then news from Srinigar and Algiers and Sarajevo would be just as polarizing as any news from Jerusalem. As it is, those conflicts tend to be of mainly local importance. The Kashmiri conflict comes closest to equalling the Israel/Palestinian conflict, inasmuch as two major nuclear-armed states with a combined population of almost 1.5 billion are involved. Yugoslavia was important only because Yugoslavia was a fairly media-intensive society with close relations to western Europe. Algeria, well, it mainly involves Algeria, its neighbours, and the France which colonized it and hosts a Maghrebin immigrant community of some five million people.
To emphasize: The Israeli/Palestinian conflict is simply much more likely to achieve sustained attention than conflicts in relatively more obscure areas of the world. If Jerusalem was located in the south Sudanese marshes, you can be certain that the Sudanese question would similarly dominate the international news media.
Do I think this is anti-Semitic? Well, it can contribute to anti-Semitism, if you a) assume that's the only conflict of note and b) don't attribute to Palestinians their share of the blame. It can certainly contribute to intellectual laziness.
I don't believe that it's intrinsically anti-Semitic, though, and I don't believe that most people who concentrate on this are intrinsically or otherwise anti-Semitic. The 2003 Transatlantic Trends report (key findings available here, in PDF format) gives interesting suggestions on this. 60% of Americans, versus 43% of Europeans, feel "warmly" towards Israel; 43% of Europeans and 40% of Americans, though, feel warmly towards the Palestinians. To quote the report:
"On the European side, the one significant change [from prior surveys] was the growth of warm feelings in Germany with regard to Israel. Relatively cool feelings toward the Palestinians do not appear to differ in any substantial way across the Atlantic. Unlike Americans, Europeans do not feel differently toward Israel and the Palestinians, with both rating 43. Transatlantic views of Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Iran are broadly similar."
This would reflect, it seems, the general sentiment I've gotten from Europe and from my peers who are critical of Israeli policies. They don't fetishize the Palestinians, as has been argued; they simply hold the two sides in equal disregard. This might well be cynical, but it's hardly anti-Semitic (or anti-Palestinian, for that matter).
