Of Jonathan Cook
Source: Comedonchisciotte
To what extent the international community's approach towards Israel has reversed over the last half century, it can be measured simply by looking at the fate of a single word: Zionism. In the 1975 to the United Nations General Assembly, much of the world turned against the United States and Europe by declaring that Zionism, the ideology behind Israel, “It is a form of racism and racial discrimination”.
Westerners were generally shocked. Zionism, that they had told him up to that point, it was a liberation movement that needed the Jewish people to free themselves, after centuries of oppression and massacres suffered. With his creation, of Israel, they had simply made up for the terrible wrongs they had suffered which culminated in the horrors of the Holocaust. But Zionism looked very different in the eyes of those countries that, all over the world, they had lived through centuries of European colonialism and then, more recently, of US imperialism. The long history of crimes against Jews that led to the creation of Israel took place primarily in Europe. Yet it was Europe and the United States that sponsored and pushed the Jews to settle in the homeland of another people, in a land far from their own shores. For the entire south of the world, the great purges of Palestinians against the natives carried out by European Jews in 1948 and in 1967 they were too reminiscent of those made by white Europeans and against indigenous populations in the United States, in Canada, in Australia, in New Zealand and South Africa.
A colonial anachronism
In the 1975, at the time of the vote at the United Nations, it was already clear that Israel had no intention of returning to the Palestinians the occupied territories it had conquered eight years earlier. Rather, Israel intended to entrench the occupied territories, illegally sending its civilian population to settle in the Palestinian territories.
In much of the world, these Jewish settlements seemed an anachronism, a memory of the "white pioneers" who went to conquer the far west, passing through seemingly empty lands of the United States, or those white farmers who took over vast areas of South Africa and Rhodesia as if those had been their lands; or those white people, just arrived in Australia, who locked up Aboriginal people in reserves, making them become a spectacle for tourists. The UN resolution “Zionism is racism” only lasted 16 years – until the fall of the Soviet Union, when the USA became the world's only superpower. After many diplomatic retaliations from Washington, including promises that Israel would engage in a peace process with the Palestinians, the Resolution 3379 was finally repealed in 1991. Decades later, the pendulum is swinging vigorously the other way. The elites of the USA and Europe have moved from an attitude that, he once said that Zionism is not racism, to an attacking attitude, with the presumption that anti-Zionism – the position of much of the international community 44 years ago – is synonymous with racism. O, more specifically, the idea that anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism are two sides of the same coin is increasingly accepted.
An Apartheid style system
This trend was consolidated last week when Emmanuel Macron, the president, of center, of France has gone beyond simply reiterating its repetitive confusion between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. This time he threatened to outlaw anti-Zionism.
Macron's confusion between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism it's blatantly reckless. Antisemitism means hatred of Jews. It's bigotry pure and simple. Anti-Zionism, Instead, it is an opposition to the political ideology of Zionism, a movement that persists, in all its political forms, to prioritize Jewish rights in a homeland that was created on Palestinian-occupied land, who already lived on those lands. Anti-Zionism does not mean racism against Jews, but it is opposition to the racism of the Zionist Jews. Naturally, an anti-Zionist can also be anti-Semitic, but one is more likely to be anti-Zionist purely for rational and ethical reasons. This point was made clearer last summer, when the Israeli parliament approved a basic law that defines Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people (PDF). This law asserts that all Jews, even those who have no connection with Israel, enjoy the right to self-determination, what they deny to all Palestinians, including that fifth of Israel's population who are Palestinian and formally Israeli. In other words, this law created two statuses in Israel – and implicitly also in the occupied territories – based on an ethno-religious classification system-tax that gives all Jews rights superior to those of Palestinians. In constitutional terms, Israel is explicitly implementing an apartheid legal and political system, even wider than what existed in South Africa. At the very least, those who governed at the time of apartheid in South Africa never stated that that was the homeland of all whites.
Criminalize BDS
Macron's threat to ban anti-Zionism is the logical extension of European and US behavior to penalize those who support BDS, the nascent international solidarity movement with the Palestinians that calls for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel. Many members of the BDS movement, although not all, they are anti-Zionists and partly they are also anti-Zionist Jews. The movement not only overrides decades of Western elite complicity, but it highlights the extent of this complicity, this is why BDS is so disliked by those elites.
But now France has gone further by criminalizing BDS as a form of economic discrimination. In this way he confuses a state – Israel – with an ethnic group, Jews – just like anti-Semites do. This type of legislation could be assimilated, by hypothesis, to the behavior that France may have adopted in the 1980s, if he had not accepted the boycott of South Africa for its apartheid, on the grounds that this would discriminate against whites.
The Israeli lobbies in action
However, France is the first to move, but she's not the only one, in the USA, at least 26 states have already enacted laws to punish or sanction people or organizations who want boycotts. Others are about to do the same thing 13 states. But no one seems worried about violating America's cherished First Amendment and making an exception to the right to free expression, only in this case, that of Israel. This month the US Senate also entered the fray by approving a bill - a bill - to push individual states to inflict economic punishment on those who implement a boycott against Israel. These victories against the nonviolent BDS movement are the result of powerful and evil efforts by Israeli lobbies working behind the scenes to confuse anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism.. So while respect for Israel has plummeted in the West as a result of the shift to social media, of countless videos showing the violence of the Israeli army and settlers, filmed with cell phones, where you also see people dying of hunger in Gaza, Israel's lobbies are moving to make it increasingly difficult to talk about this topic.
Redefining anti-Semitism
The widespread acceptance in the West of a redefinition of anti-Semism that intentionally confuses it with anti-Zionism was like a coup d'état. Israel's imprint is found throughout the work presented by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA, It is therefore not surprising that the IHRA's long and vague definition of antisemitism was accompanied by 11 examples, seven of which refer to Israel.
An example - the one who claims that there is a "drive towards racism" in Israel suggests that i 72 UN member countries that in 1975 voted for the resolution “Zionism is racism” and i 32 who abstained, they were anti-Semitic countries, even if they didn't want to declare it. Western governments, the local authorities, political parties and public bodies are now all rushing to accept the IHRA definition. The result is a growing fear among Westerners about what they can – or cannot – say about Israel without being accused of anti-Semitism.. This was the purpose. If people are afraid that others will consider them anti-Semitic for criticizing Israel, la prossima volta starà zitta e così Israele avrà più margine di manovra per continuare a commettere i suoi crimini contro i Palestinesi.
L’Immagine dell’ “Ebreo che odia se stesso’
Se Macron e l’HIRA avessero ragione – cioè che antisionismo e antisemitismo non sono distinguibili – allora dovremmo accettare anche qualche altra scomoda conclusione. Una sarebbe che i palestinesi dovrebbero essere condannati in modo univoco come antisemiti perché chiedono il loro diritto all’autodeterminazione, Meaning what, sarebbe impossibile per i palestinesi pretendere di avere gli stessi diritti degli ebrei nella loro stessa patria, senza che questo venga chiamato razzismo. Benvenuti nel paese di Alice che guarda attraverso lo specchio. Another conclusion could be that good art from Jews all over the world, those who oppose Israel's self-determination as a Jewish state, they are also anti-Semites, because they suffer from an irrational hatred against their Jewish brothers in Israel. This is the “self-hating Jew” model., what Israel has long pursued to discredit all criticisms made by other Jews. According to this point of view, those Jews who want Palestinians to enjoy the same rights as Jews must be considered racist, in fact they are racist against themselves. What if Macron's efforts to criminalize anti-Zionism prove fruitful, this would mean that both Palestinians and Jews could be punished – perhaps even put in prison – if they demanded equality between Palestinians and Jews in Israel. Equally ridiculous is this reasoning which condemns the disapproval of anti-Semitism presented in such a frank manner and in any case immediately accepted in Europe and the United States.
The extent of this madness was revealed in all its evidence in the decision of the Bank für Sozialwirtschaft, o Bank for the Social Economy, to close the account of an anti-Zionist Jewish group, Jewish Voice for a Just Peace in Medio Oriente, for giving his support to the boycott of Israel. Era la prima volta che una banca tedesca chiudeva un conto di un’organizzazione ebraica dai tempi dei nazisti. La banca ha preso questa decisione dopo una denuncia che affermava la Jewish Voice era antisemita, inviata dal Centro Simon Wiesenthal, un gruppo che maschera il suo feroce sostegno a Israele dietro una campagna per i diritti degli ebrei.
Cancellare sinistra e estrema destra
L’antipatia di Macron nei confronti dell’anti-sionismo – condivisa da molti altri che cercano di confonderlo con l’antisemitismo – ha una causa esplicita ed un’altra nascosta, ma entrambe sono collegate alla crisi politica che sta vivendo: dopo due anni al potere, è il presidente più impopolare nella storia della repubblica. Secondo Macron, the rise of anti-Zionism, or rather opposition to Israel, is swelling the ranks of those who want to attack the Jews in France, or by attacking them with scribbles of swastikas on Jewish graves, both polluting the dialectic, particularly in the social media. Two groups that, both him and the Franco-Jewish Lobbies, have identified as the heart of the problem, these are French Muslims, often those who have just immigrated, who are seen as people who carry the same racist attitudes that Middle Easterners have towards Jews and the historical left who are the first to support BDS.
Although the number of French Muslims who have taken extremist positions is very small, most of them feel hostility towards Israel for its role in destabilizing and oppressing Palestinians. The same sentiment also dominates among BDS activists. But the thinking of Macron and the lobbies is that these two anti-Zionist groups are in reality closely aligned with far-right anti-Semitic groups and neo-Nazis, regardless of their obvious differences in ideology and attitude towards violence. The fog through which Macron views anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism serves to sow doubt as to what the obvious distinctions between these three different electoral ideologies actually are.
Macron's dexterity
Macron's dexterity follows an agenda for personal and particularly specific use, which clearly emerges from the improper way - used as if it were a weapon - of hurling anti-Semitic insults taking place both in Europe and in the United States.
Macron is faced with a popular uprising known as the Yellow Vests, o Yellow Vests, who has been blocking French roads for many months and these protests are shaking his government. Like other recent popular uprisings, like the Occupy movement, the Yellow Vests have no leader and it is difficult to decipher their demands. They represent more of a state of mind, a frantic dissatisfaction with a can't-touch political system since the financial meltdown a decade ago, when it became clear to everyone that it was broken and beyond repair. The Yellow Vests embody a desperate quest to hitch their wagon to a new political star that has a different and more just vision for how to reorganize our societies. The fact that the movement is disjointed is its strength and its threat. Those frustrated by austerity policies, those angry at a political and financial elite that is too arrogant and insensitive, those who want to return to a clearer sense of frankness, everyone can seek refuge under that flag.
But in the same way it also allowed Macron and the French elite to throw all their ills at the Yellow Vests to try to demonize the movement. A spokesperson for the movement denies this, but given the growing wave of nationalist and far-right movements across Europe, the choice to call the yellow vests anti-Semitic was an opportunity that the belligerent French president was unable to resist.
Macron presented left-wing and anti-racism activists who support BDS as if they were all in cahoots with neo-Nazis, just like the yellow vests with the far-right white nationalists and a large part of the French media willingly and happily recycled this nonsense.
L’amore per l’autorità di chi si mette al Centro
Per chi ritenesse che i leader di centro come Macron agiscano non per puro interesse politico ma per una preoccupazione che vuole sradicare i pregiudizi e proteggere una comunità più debole, vale la pena fare qualche valutazione sugli atteggiamenti politici globali. L’anno scorso il New York Times ha pubblicato un commento di David Adler che dimostrava che, contrariamente a quanto pensa la gente, si collocano al centro – in generale – quelle persone che sono meno sensibili verso la democrazia, di quante ce ne siano all’estrema sinistra e all’estrema destra. Sono persone meno attente ai diritti civili e alle ” libere ed eque elezioni “. These trends are particularly pronounced in the USA, Great Britain, France, Australia and New Zealand, but they are also evident in many other Western liberal democracies. Furthermore, in most Western countries, including France, the desire for the strongman and authoritarianism is much stronger in the center than on the far left. Same thing in the UK and USA where authoritarian figures are more liked by the center than by the far right.
Adler conclude: “Support for “free and fair elections” runs down the political center in every single country sampled. The size of the gap is astonishing. In the case of the USA, fewer than half of centrists view elections as essential. …Centrists…seem to prefer strong, efficient government rather than messy democratic politics.”.
The stranglehold of the lobbyists
This is perhaps why it is not surprising that centrist leaders like Macron are among the most ready to avoid fair and open confrontations, to throw mud at their opponents and not wanting to find the ideological differences between those to their left and those to their right. And the same way, those who support centrism are more likely to accept even the most unfounded accusations of anti-Semitism, in order to maintain his status quo which he perceives as advantageous for himself.
This process has been clearly seen in the UK and US in recent times. For decades in Washington, quelli di centro hanno dominato la politica, schierandosi su entrambi i lati di una presunta divisione politica ed uno dei punti che hanno goduto di un forte appoggio bipartisan negli Stati Uniti è il sostegno a Israele. La ragione di questo stretto consenso di Washington su tutta una serie di questioni, incluso Israele, è la morsa sul processo politico americano che arriva dai soldi delle corporation e dalle Lobby. Le lobby preferiscono lavorare nell’oscurità, esercitando la loro influenza lontane dall’occhio della gente. Nel caso di Israele, but, le lobby sono diventate sempre più visibili anche agli estranei per la loro difesa aperta di Israele che appare sempre più difficile da sostenere, given that the abuses committed against Palestinians can now easily be seen documented on social media. Which, around you, has spurred the growth of the BDS movement and a new, albeit small, wave of political reaction.
Ilhan Omar attacked
Ilhan Omar, a Muslim female member of Congress, it demonstrated how the establishment system tries to tame rebellious freshmen, in fact after sending a tweet in which he commented on an obvious fact, that is, the pro-Israel lobby AI-PAC – like other lobbies – uses their money to reinforce Washington's political orthodoxy in the fields in which it cultivates its own interests. Or as she wrote : “It's all about the Benjamins“, a figure of speech to indicate banknotes $ 100, those with the image of Benjamin Franklin.
She was immediately overwhelmed by an avalanche of protests over her comment, which was supposed to be evidence of anti-Semitism. All the criticism came from the so-called broad political spectrum, from the leaders of his own Democratic Party to President Trump. In the end, tired from too much criticism, she apologized, justifying his decision and saying that it is up to the Jews to decide what is anti-Semitic. In an era of rampant identity politics, this seems superfluously plausible. But it doesn't actually make any sense. Anche se una netta maggioranza di ebrei in effetti pensa che le critiche a Israele o alle sue lobby siano un sintomo di antisemitismo – ipotesi altamente discutibile – questo non significa che abbiano un qualche diritto speciale o esclusivo per poterlo affermare.
I palestinesi sono la vittima di Israele e questo è stato documentato anche troppo. Nessuno ha il diritto di rivendicare la propria superiorità morale perché in passato il suo popolo è stato vittima di razzismo se usa questa stessa altitudine per ostacolare una indagine sui crimini compiuti, in questo caso da Israele contro i palestinesi. Non pensarla in questo modo sarebbe voler dare priorità alla difesa degli ebrei, even in the presence of their possible racist behavior and against the concrete evidence of racism perpetrated against the Palestinians. But to be more precise, these apologies made by Omar accept the concept that the Jews who shout the loudest – that is, those who have more means and more money than the others – represent all Jews. This acceptance makes organized American Jewish elites – whose vigorous support for Israel has proven unwavering even as Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu has pushed the country into far-right positions – sole arbiters of the thinking of all Jews. Effectively, it goes even further: It allows Israel's lobbies to decide whether it exists, or if it doesn't exist, an Israeli lobby. It allows the lobby to protect itself, hiding completely from people's sight and making its influence reach in an even more deep-rooted and veiled way.
Omar was left alone. Other prominent critics of Israel, often black, they found themselves at the center of accusations of anti-Semitism just for criticizing Israel, including recently Marc Lamont Hill and Angela Davis. A stream of accusations follow Omar every time she speaks, calling it “anti-Semitic”, with the aim of ensuring that she begins to self-censor, to become "moderate" like his political colleagues, and to join a bipartisan consensus that allows Israel to move forward and continue its abuses against the Palestinians. Se non si allineerà, ci si può aspettare, che sarà finita politicamente, buttata fuori dalla burocrazia del suo stesso partito o dagli elettori.
Corbyn sulla difensiva
Questo processo è molto più avanzato in Inghilterra, con una campagna concertata per più di tre anni, per stigmatizzare il comportamento di Jeremy Corbyn, con accuse di antisemitismo, da quando – cioè – è diventato leader del partito laburista. Si può considerare che Corbyn costituisca un ritorno alla tradizione socialista – che in Gran Bretagna, fu annientata con l’avvento di Margaret Thatcher nei primi anni ’80 – e che sia un fedele sostenitore della causa palestinese. In fact, sembrerebbe una grave anomalia: un politico europeo con velleità di potere che dà priorità ai diritti dei Palestini alla giustificazione della politica israeliana che opprime i palestinesi. La lobby israeliana ha molto da temere da quest’uomo che potrebbe far cambiare il clima politico europeo verso Israele.
In recent decades, in the United Kingdom, il partito conservatore al potere si è spostato implacabilmente verso destra, lasciando occupare al partito laburista il posto al centro del parlamento, quello che si era scolpito negli anni ’90, Tony Blair, durante la sua leadership. Benché goda di un enorme sostegno tra i membri del Labour che lo hanno portato alla leadership, Corbyn è in guerra con la maggior parte dei suoi parlamentari. Quelli di centro che hanno felicemente usato l’antisemitismo come arma per combattere dall’interno Corbyn e le centinaia di migliaia di suoi seguaci, proprio come fa Macron contro i suoi oppositori politici.I parlamentari di Corbyn lo hanno accusato pubblicamente di indulgere in un “institutional antisemitism” nel Labour Party, o addirittura di essere antisemita egli stesso. Lo hanno fatto anche se tutte le prove indicano che c’è molto poco antisemitismo tra i sostenitori del Labour Party e comunque ce n’è molto meno che nel partito conservatore attualmente al governo. In ogni caso i laburisti si sono sentiti più liberi per la presenza di Corbyn e sono molto più espliciti nel criticare Israele.
L’ Appeasement fallisce
Questo mese un gruppo di otto parlamentari Labour sono usciti dal partito per costituire una nuova fazione, il gruppo indipendente, prendendo come una delle ragioni principali il “problema del presunto antisemitismo” del Labour e contemporaneamente – sottolineando il loro programma di centro – tre parlamentari conservatori “moderati” si sono uniti a loro, contro la linea dura del PM Theresa May, sull’uscita dall’Unione Europea e altri parlamentari da entrambe le parti potrebbero seguirli.
In response, il vice di Corbyn, Tom Watson, altro uomo di centro, ha appoggiato i disertori, andando contro i suoi stessi colleghi di partito, reiterando le accuse di una crisi di antisemitismo nel partito, dicendo che è giunta l’ora di smetterla.
Corbyn ha cercato più volte di placare il centro, così come i gruppi di lobby filo-israeliane nel Regno Unito – sia quelle all’interno del suo partito, come i Labour Friends of Israel e il Jewish Labour Movement, sia quelle al di fuori, come il Board of Deputies, BICOM e the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism.
Dopo un’apparente opposizione interna, il partito laburista ha persino accettato la definizione antisemitismo dell’IHRA, compresi gli esempi intesi a proteggere Israele dalle critiche, ma non è bastato. Indeed, più Corbyn concede ai suoi critici, più i suoi critici strombazzato un presunto problema di antisemitismo nel Labour Party. Corbyn sta lentamente imparando, come tanti altri negli Stati Uniti e in Europa, che queste critiche non sono fatte in buona fede e che non esiste nessuna via di mezzo.
La macchina del fango non accetta commenti sull’antisemitismo, vuole che si torni a una cultura politica, dove il suo potere non deve essere sfidato e non deve essere messo in discussione. Per la lobby israeliana, significa la rinascita del clima politico che esisteva prima del discredito buttato sul processo di Oslo, quando in Israele si evitavano commenti pubblici e i palestinesi erano trattati da terroristi. Gli uomini di centro richiedono il trinceramento di una politica manageriale neoliberista in cui le grandi corporation e la finanza intrnazionale hanno la libertà di dettare le politiche economiche e sociali e quando sbagliano, i loro errori vengono indiscriminatamente scaricati sul pubblico, grazie ai programmi di austerità.
È un patto scellerato, dove gli ebrei vengono usati per oliare le ruote di una politica fallimentare, impotente e sempre più autoritaria voluta dagli uomini del centro.
Source: https://mondoweiss.net
Link: https://mondoweiss.net/2019/02/western-malevolently-antisemitism/
The text of this article can be freely used for non-commercial purposes, citando la fonte comedonchisciotte.org e l’autore della traduzione Bosque Primario