Criticism of Israel and antisemitism

[psychomath]

This is not a TAAT - it's something I've been thinking about recently anyway with the accusations of antisemitism in the Labour party, and after reading this article in Spiked magazine. The thread about Israel killing a journalist reminded me that I'd been intending to post it, but it's not a response to that thread in particular or any posters in it. Just wanted to get that out of the way before anyone thinks I'm having a passive-aggressive go at them personally.

I do think there's a disproportionate focus among parts of the left on criticising the actions of the Israeli government compared to those of (other) oppressive regimes, both in the Middle East and across the world. I'm sure that the vast majority of individuals involved in this criticism are not remotely antisemitic, and in fact I'm not entirely convinced that antisemitism is the main root of the issue at all. On the other hand, it does seem like there's something strange going on in the wider picture.

It's a tricky issue to discuss because, obviously, criticism of Israeli foreign policy doesn't in itself make you antisemitic, and a lot of it is valid. In addition, everyone has their own particular areas of interest, and it would be ridiculous to require that people know about every single global conflict before being allowed to comment on the Israel-Palestine one specifically. It's also perfectly reasonable for people to want to be able to discuss Israel without others immediately jumping into the conversation to say 'why do you only ever talk about Israel and not Saudi Arabia/ISIS/whoever?' So no individual is doing anything inherently wrong by having these conversations, and in and of themselves they're good and important conversations to have.

However, if it were simply a case of people having different interests, you would expect to see a number of groups devoted to criticism of various regimes - some people would be interested in Israel, but there would be similar numbers whose biggest concern was the Saudi bombing of Yemen, or Turkish attacks on Kurdish regions of Syria. Instead, there's a huge amount of support among the left generally for the Palestinian cause - numerous student unions officially support BDS, for example, and Israeli Apartheid Week is often marked by events on campus - whereas there seems to be (comparatively) far less attention drawn to or even understanding of the other issues. Among the left-wing people I know personally, everyone has an opinion on the Israel-Palestine conflict, but very very few are even aware that there is a civil war in Yemen, never mind angry about the Saudi involvement in it and our own continuing ties with the Saudi government. That's anecdotal of course, but from reading left-wing pages and blogs it seems to be reflected in wider society as well.

So when people complain about 'whataboutery' in conversations about Israel, or how they should be able to discuss the actions of the Israeli government without being accused of antisemitism, I don't think they're entirely wrong to be annoyed by it. But at the same time, I think people need to understand that these conversations don't happen in a vacuum. When you're confronted by what feels like a constant steady drip of anti-Israel sentiment, and simultaneously see very little criticism of other countries' policies even when they're arguably as bad or worse, it's hard not to feel under fire sometimes. And because it's such a widespread and decentralised phenomenon, there's often no place to direct this frustration except (perhaps unfairly) at the individuals participating in these conversations. AIBU to see it this way?

psychomath - It is debatable how impartial the BBC actually is where Israel is concerned.

Back in 2004, the BBC commissioned the Balen Report - an investigation of all its coverage of Israel in response to accusations that it was unfairly biased against Israel. The report cost £200,000 of taxpayers' money.

So what did it find?

Well, that is the problem. We don't know. Because the BBC refused to release the report, and despite being taken to court multiple ties, over FOI, they have still refused to release the report. Now, that does seem a little odd,, as you'd think that if the Report had found that everything was hunky dory and there was no bias at all, it would have been released, wouldn't you?

You can read more here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balen_Report

*GhostsToMonsoon: I never said anything about Lebanon and Palestinian rights. I simply said that Lebanon is a democracy just like Israel.

As for the poster who claimed that Erdogan is a dictator and Turkey is not a democracy, that is just delegitimisation of Turkey as a state. After all, in the last decade, Israel has had a convicted rapist as president and a prime minister that most of Israeli society recognises as corrupt and venal. Those who live in glasshouses shouldn't throw stones.* he is a dictator and Lebanon last had an election 9 years ago
' his Catholic church in Great Yarmouth was attacked in the past week: www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-43584783

*:Catholics are a vulnerable minority group that have historically been the subject of persecution and legal discrimination in the U.K.

If this had been a synagogue that was attacked half the politicians and media in London have been there. Did one single politician speak out about the attack on this church? No.

The sheer narcissism and paranoia of a large chunk of British jewry is breathtaking.* whats any of this got to do with the thread and btw i happen to be catholic myself

multiple times

It would be like if virtually all feminist groups became obsessed with campaigning against FGM, to the exclusion of any other issues that affect women, and issues like domestic violence and sexual assault were barely mentioned or even widely known about among people who hadn't experienced them. You might suspect that there was some racist or Islamophobic sentiment underlying this apparent fixation, or at least some non-coincidental factor that explained the disproportionate attention given to it, particularly as the number of women and girls affected by FGM in this country is comparatively small. And yet were you to question the fact that it seemed to be the constant focus of these groups' attention, they could also quite reasonably tell you that their criticism was entirely legitimate, that if you wanted to talk about DV you should start your own conversation rather than interrupting theirs, and that bringing Islamophobia into it was just a tactic to shut down the conversation. Do you see how that would make it difficult to draw attention to the potential problem? Especially as on an individual level, none of those people would be wrong to think/say those things.

The sheer narcissism and paranoia of a large chunk of British jewry is breathtaking.

But the poster who wrote that is not an anti-Semite.

Oh no.

Dolorous Edd I saw that report about the church in Great Yarmouth and the film footage and it looked like an unpleasant youth performing a nasty prank in a place of worship by placing symbols of satan. I really did not see it as an attack on Catholicism. There were no anti-Catholic slogans daubed anywhere. I viewed it as ‘anti-established religion’.

Your subsequent comment The sheer narcissism and paranoia of a large chunk of British jewry is breathtaking comes across to me as bigotry. That is why it is very difficult to have open discussions. The thread last night did descend with very unpleasant language used.

Cross-post with Cuisant

(My last post was supposed to be a follow-up to the reply to pinkvoid before it, but the conversation moved on so now it's out of place, sorry!)

I don't know much about this but isn't it right that Israel is zionist?

Is it not good to have a place where Jews are safe from persecution?
I'm guessing that it's the way that people have gone about achieving their goals?

I think disproportionate focus on Israel, as previously discussed and documented, does lead to anti-semitism in the wider world and possibly the disproportionate focus is in itself arises from anti-semitism. Tho', I think, as far as the Left is concerned, anti-Israel sentiment originates more from the fact that Israel is so closely associated with the USA and the West, whereas its enemies, e.g, Iran, are under the Russian sphere of influence.

The current furore in the LP is closely associated with Corbyn, because of his long-standing support for the Palestinian cause, appearances on Iranian Press TV and reluctance to engage with the Jewish community and Israel itself. The LP has a sister party in Israel, with which we have always had close links. JC routinely avoids contact, turns down invitations. This behaviour is excusable, perhaps, in a back bencher, but has caused a lot of offence, particularly when, at one event he was obliged to attend as leader, he managed to speak for 20 mins without mentioning the word 'Israel'.

The number of incidents has increased under his leadership, and he has been demonstrably apathetic in tackling it. The launch of the Chakrabarti report at which a Momentum supporter and LP member aggressively berated Ruth Smeeth while Corbyn stood by and was later filmed chatting amicably with the heckler was splashed all over the national news. Two years later, she is still waiting for her complaint to be resolved.

Again and again, he has come out with a generic response: 'I am against all racism' without addressing anti-semitism as a specific offence. It's as if he either doesn't see anti-Semitism as racism or believes that because he is anti-racist he can't possibly be anti-semitic. As the mural incident shows, he doesn't recognise anti-semitic imagery when it's staring him in the face. But then, he really isn't the sharpest tool in the box. Those around him, tho, know exactly what they are doing.

His political opponents will obviously seize on any weakness. But they couldn't do that so effectively if he had given them so much ammunition.

wonderstuff that was a thoughtful and interesting post, thanks.

cuisant that's fascinating about the report - I hadn't ever heard of it before, and I thought I was reasonably well informed about the issue. I will definitely be reading up on it. Actually all your contributions to both this and the other thread have been interesting and informative, so thank you very much for sharing.

Everyone else - this thread is moving too quickly for my ancient phone to keep up with so I can't comment on everything, but I am reading all the replies and appreciate them.

if he hadn't given them so much ammunition.

Thank you, Cuisant, for the point you raised about the BBC and the Balen report - I confess I'd forgotten about that

In fact, thank you for all of your insightful and measured posts on this thread and the last. While ploughing through the simplistic good guy/bad guy silliness this subject always attracts, I imagine I'm not alone in being reminded of some important points, and even learning a few I didn't know before

Aw, thank you - I'm learning lots too. :)

By the way, I looked again at the link to the Balen report I posted earlier and realise I need to correct my post - it wasn't the Report that cost £200,000 of taxpayers' money, it was the cover up that cost that - truly shocking. No idea what the actual report cost but obviously not free.

it wasn't the Report that cost £200,000 of taxpayers' money, it was the cover up

Quelle surprise ... not

As you suggested earlier, it's hard to imagine the BBC would have been quite so keen to hide it, had it said what they hoped

I mentioned bias at the UN on the other thread. This link lists some delightfully insane bias against Israel at the UN: www.unwatch.org/top-ten-egregious-u-n-anti-israel-actions-2016/ - eg.

In 2016, "UN women’s rights commission condemned Israel as the world’s only violator of women’s rights, ignoring real abusers of women’s rights such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and many others."

In 2016, the "UN’s World Health Organization (WHO) singled out Israel as the only violator in the world of “mental, physical and environmental health. ."

In 2016, the "UN's ILO effectively singled out Israel as the world’s only violator of labor rights, through its production and debate of a massive report—to which no other country is subject—on “the situation of workers of the occupied Arab territories, including the occupied Syrian Golan.” Meanwhile, the plight of Syrians suffering in Syria was ignored."

In 2016, in its ritual scapegoating of the Jewish state each year, the UN General Assembly adopted 20 resolutions against Israel, and only 4 resolutions on the rest of the world combined ." (In 2017, the figures were 15 resolutions condemning Israel out of 21 in total.)

And finally, in that same year, "UNESCO negated its mandate to protect world heritage by adopting a resolution which used Islamic-only terms for Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism, denying thousands of years of Jewish and Christian heritage, religion and culture."

You'd have to be pretty naïve/hopeful to believe that all of that is just accidental, and displays no bias against Israel - which entirely coincidentally happens to be the world's only Jewish State - on the international stage.

I'm a member of the Palestinian solidarity campaign. I hate what the Israeli government is doing. I would like to protest and stand up more for Palestinians and I wish western governments would.

I have nothing against the ordinary people of Israel, but the occupation of Palestine and the pushing of an entire nation into a small corner is horrendous. Trump does not help matters. I feel deeply connected to this. I don't know fully why. Maybe because I worked on a Kibbutz in my late teens when I had no idea about all the politics! maybe I harbour some guilt, definitely I have memories of hitchhiking with both young Palestinians and young Israelis who wanted the conflict to end. Definitely I have memories of a beautiful land. Definitely I have memories of Jerusalem and how at one point it was shared beautifully by the different quarters.

Governments please start standing up for Palestinians. They need you to.

NameChange - Thank you for your thoughtful post. I would also like the Palestinians to achieve peace and a good quality of life. However, I don't wish that at to be at the expense of the Israelis also enjoying both those things.

Re your point about 'pushing an entire nation into a small corner', I wonder what you feel about Jordan and Egypt's responsibility for this (given that they also both share borders with Gaza/the West Bank). And of course, all the other Muslim countries, which treat their own Palestinians horrendously (although curiously, this is never reported in the west, and those who care so much about Israel's treatment of the Palestinians curiously never seem to remark on it either).

For example, "Much of the Palestinian community in Lebanon does not have Lebanese citizenship and therefore does not have Lebanese identity cards, is legally barred from owning property or legally barred form entering a list of desirable occupations.[6] Employment requires a government-issued work permit, and, according to the New York Times, although "Lebanon hands out and renews hundreds of thousands of work permits every year to people from Africa, Asia and other Arab countries... until now, only a handful have been given" to Palestinians.["

In one of his series of articles accusing the government of Lebanon of practicing "apartheid" against the resident Palestinian community, the Israeli Arab journalist, Khaled Abu Toameh describes the "special legal status" as "foreigners" assigned uniquely to Palestinians, "a fact which has deprived them of health care, social services, property ownership and education. Even worse, Lebanese law bans Palestinians from working in many jobs. This means that Palestinians cannot work in the public services and institutions run by the government such as schools and hospitals. Unlike Israel, Lebanese public hospitals do not admit Palestinians for medical treatment or surgery."[16] Journalist Ben-Dror Yemini describes Palestinians in Lebanon as living "under various restrictions that could fill a chapter on Arab apartheid against the Palestinians. One of the most severe restrictions is a ban on construction. This ban is enforced even in the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp, bombed by the Lebanese army in 2007.[17] Calling on Lebanon to change the systematic discrimination against his people, Palestinian journalist Rami George Khouri, disregarding the past events of the PLO war against Lebanese Army and the current military presence on the Lebanese land, compared Lebanese treatment of Palestinians to the "Apartheid system" of South Africa.[18]

For an overview, see: www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/no-way-home-the-tragedy-of-the-palestinian-diaspora-1806790.html

Not that that excuses any maltreatment of Palestinians by Israelis, but it does bring into question how much opposition to Israel is really based on defending the rights of the Palestinians, if a blind eye is turned to everyone who harms the Palestinians who doesn't happen to be Jewish Israeli.

I don't think it is anti-semitism I think some people think the Palestinians have been badly treated. If they had been treated the same by Christians or Hindus or black or white people it wouldn't make it right.

Cuisant do the Palestinians in Lebanon want to go back to Palestine (Israel) or do they want to be Lebanese?

Namechange - when you say Jlem was shared by the quarters,It is still divided into Armenian, Muslim Jewish and Christian quarters, so not sure what you mean by "at one point".

I'm assuming you don't mean pre-1967, when Jews weren't allowed into the Old City at all, and therefore weren't permitted to pray at Judaism's holiest site?

peacheachpearplum - I have absolutely no idea and you'd need to ask them.

The problem is that we don't ever hear their voices, because the voices of Palestinians living anywhere outside Gaza/the West Bank are inconvenient to the narrative that all Palestinians are forced to live in those two spots only and it's all Israel's fault.

All I can guess, from my own perspective as a second-generation refugee family (both my parents were refugees) is that of course I wish history could be undone, but I know that we don't have a time machine and that's not realistic. Would I rather sit in a refugee camp in the Lebanon in the hope of one day returning to my family's home in what is now Israel, or would I rather have a good quality of life now in the Lebanon or wherever, with my children, and be able to get a job, own a home, access medical care NOW, I can tell you straight off that the latter would be preferred choice, rather than living in some sort of time-travelling fantasy.

Cuisant that is interesting as the Jews wanted to travel back 2000 years and fought for their time travel. They now don't like that other people want to time travel 70 years.

Cuisant I'm English and personally I wouldn't be happy and I can't imagine many would. Also how would the Welsh, Scottish and French feel with all the extra people flooding in needing help and support? I wonder if they would have been very welcoming? Easy to be critical of how others behave but would we be any different.

One rule for them?

Cuisant
There's video of Corbyn on Youtube conducting a phone-in on Press TV. He was standing in for George Galloway. Whenever a call came in questioning the treatment of Palestinians by their Arab neighbours, Corbyn would thank them politely for their call and move swiftly on to the next caller. No attempt to engage or discuss.

Namechange No one wants the conflict to end more than Israel. It's 70 years now and we can't turn the clock back. Now it looks as if Iran will soon have a base in Syria, making Israel even more insecure.

Has anything you've read on this thread made you see the situation differently?

Do you think Israel bears no responsibility for the displaced people?