Self-hating Jews, and the issue of double loyalty

As a country built on immigrants, the USA has a large number of its loyal citizens with some other ‘homeland’ attachments. For the most part, the old homeland attachment is more emotional than material. It may present itself in the excited discussions about politics ‘over there’, in going crazy about how that country ranks in world soccer, or in sending some money for various overseas charities, etc.

For many Jews, born and raised in the United States, the situation is unfortunately more complicated. Israel claims them as citizens that should ‘come back to their ancestral homeland’, helps pay for their visits to establish association with Israel, grants them citizenship on demand, sends Israeli politicians to meet with them on regular basis and, above all, expects them to support Israel no matter what. That leads some to raise the issue of dual loyalty for American Jews; sometimes legitimately and sometimes not.

For example, a Jewish American politician that promotes pro-Israel interests to be totally aligned with the USA interests can be seen as merely expressing a political reality in the eyes of some, but for others -- who may see Israel as the greatest foreign policy liability to the United States -- that politician has ‘loyalty-confusion’ issues.

The subject of conflict between American interests and American foreign policy behavior when it come to Israel is rarely brought up because it could bring about the dreaded charges of anti-Semitism as raising the subject may imply double loyalty for many politicians, governments officials and foreign policy experts who happen to be Jewish.

The assumption made by the anti-Semitism accusers is that whatever is good for Israel is always good for the US, that whatever is not good for Israel is never good for the US. Questioning this divine dictum is not encouraged, to put it politely. Denying it is tantamount, in the eyes of die-hard pro-Israel crowd, to accusing Jewish American policy makers and advisors of double-loyalty – thus justifying for them launching the anti-Semitism screams.

But to be totally honest, the behavior and expectations of Israeli politicians -- and possibly conservative American Jews as well -- sometimes make one confused to the point of suspecting that there is some expectation of loyalty to Israel from Jewish American that goes far beyond what is healthy for our primary homeland, the US.

The most recent example of that kind of burden on some Jewish American is the statements by the Israeli prime minister published this Thursday (online) in Haaretz. Netanyahu had the audacity to accuse David Axelrod and Rahm Emanuel of being self-hating Jews. What that implies for Obama is not clear. But for Obama, as the man who relied on these two as presidential campaign strategist, senior policy advisors and highest ranking staff in the White House, employing self-hating Jews may be construed as anti-Semitism.

Strong anti-Obama feeling in some segments of the Israeli society and amongst conservative American Jews is not secret (see here for example). Many conservative American Jews and Republican Jewish groups have been behind some of the dirtiest, most racist and hateful presidential campaign ads and rumors about Obama, and I am sure they would love to see him fail at any cost. Slandering Obama’s Jewish advisors that virulently may be a way to slander Obama, or send him a message.

But to accuse an American Jew of being a self-hating Jew because they do not support what the Israeli government wants, or for not use their influence to sway things in Israel’s favor, goes to show what Israel has come to expect from American Jews: blind loyalty even at the expense of what their conscience or policy expertise tells them.

And if we, non-Jewish Americans, grow to believe that blind loyalty to Israel is what to be expected from American Jews in politics, then no one should scream anti-Semitism when Israel’s harmful influence on our foreign policy and the subject of American Jewish double-loyalty are raised.

Israel did that to American Jews.

Khaled

"What are the origins of Jewish hate for Muslims and Arabs?"

Does that title sound antisemitic to you as it does to me? Do titles like that get on your nerves? I hope it does. Why then do I choose a title that annoys me personally, and can even get me in trouble?
Well, I chose it to make a point.

This morning I came across an article in Haaretz that had the title “What are the origins of Muslim antisemitism?” That title got on my nerves. For whatever reason, generalizing against Jews in a negative way raises the concern of antisemitism, and the rabid voices of the likes of the ADL screech through our ears scaring the heck of those who are charged with the heinous crime. Yet, generalizations against Muslims and, in many circles, Christians as well, seem so benign and do not raise the eye brows of the morality police.

Sometimes I am not sure about a generalization I read - or about a statement I intend to make - that favors one group over another or seems to criticize one group more than the other. In such a case I try a quick test: I substitute the ‘hot words’ (e.g., Jews-Muslim, Sunni-Shia, or White-Black, etc) with a word that refers to the group on the other side of the argument in the statement I am testing. If it sounds morally wrong or over-the-top, then the statement needs to be revised.

That rule of the thumb I use is the equivalent to the Golden Rule: “Do unto other what you want them do unto you”. And if you apply my rule to that article title in Haaretz, the title does not sound right.

It is intertesting why generalizing a bad claim about Muslims, and even Christians, seems a lot more acceptable than generalizing about Jews. That seems very counter intuitive considering that there is about 70 times more Muslims in the world than there are Jews, and that near 60 countries claim a Muslim majority while only one country claims a Jewish Majority. The burden of proving a generalization should apparently be heavier in the case of generalizing against Muslims (or Christians).

What is even more baffling is that most of the newspapers, visual media and literature produced by Muslims are in languages that is scarcely translated into English or French (i.e., culturally invisible from the Western point of view), the exception being ‘well-selected representative samples’ to help the popular generalizations against Muslims. On the other hand, most of the Jewish intellectual literary, media and political production is in English, or is quickly translated into English.

So, if you combine the larger number of Muslims, with the tremendous diversity in cultural, national, ethnic and political backgrounds among them, and multiply that by numerous languages in which they express their thoughts, it may be reasonable to assume intellectual dishonesty (or utter ignorance) in someone who believes that you can generalize about Muslims.

How come then that those generalizations against Muslims are prevalent and acceptable? If we follow the Golden Rule (see above), then we should either accept generalizations against all, or refuse generalizations against all. Anti-Muslim statements should be as unacceptable as anti-Christian sentiments or as the mother of all crimes, antisemitism.

So, if anyone felt offended by my factitious title, they should also feel offended by the term ‘Muslim antisemitism’ in Haaretz article title (and in the thousands of publications in paper and in cyberspace published by the people who scream antisemitism ad nauseam).

If they are not consistent in the way they feel, then I hope that next time they here an unfair generalization about their own ethnic, religious, or racial group, they should think twice before bursting in righteous indignation.

As for the article in Haaretz: it is actually a very interesting article and present very interesting bits of information from the author's point of view.

In a simplistic nutshell: It is Christians that incited modern Muslim antisemitism. Of course that is if you believe that such a generalization against Muslims is valid. And if you do, please re-read this posting after a good night's sleep. May be you will get my point next time.

Read Haaretz article for yourself here.

Khaled

A Chrisitian Palestinian Cartoonist, and the Hysteria of the Anti-Anti-Israel crowd.

The double 'Anti' in the title is not a typo. Following the horror of the Gaza war, a lot more voices were heard harshly - and correctly so - criticizing Israel and its pattern of brutal handling of the Palestinians (in Gaza as well as the West Bank). Coinciding with that is usual the increase in charges of 'antisemitism' by the blindly Pro-Israel chorus, and regardless of what Israel ever does.

A group that is usually mostly ignored in this ongoing conflict is the Christian Palestinians. Their marginalization in the product of framing of the Israeli Palestinian conflict as a 'anti-Jewish Islamic endeavor', thus blurring the reality that it is a territorial conflict in which the harmed parties are, and have always been, Christians as well as Muslims.

One of the Christian American Palestinians effective voices is that of Ray Hanania, and journalist, political cartoonist and a radio talk host of stature. I thought this cartoon summarizes the usual situation after a scenario like what the world witnessed in Gaza a couple of month ago, and the subsequent revelation about Israeli army behavior against civilians, as admitted by Israeli soldiers.
The denial came from the Israeli Military chief of staff, and was reviewed by the American Jewish journalist Richard Silverstein, who usually gets more than a fair share of insults from the pro-Israel chorus for his balanced presentation of the Israeli-Palestinian issues. As most of you know, the slanderous scream 'antisemites' does not stop if the 'accused' is Jewish. And many liberal Jews have suffered from that slanderous accusation, as well as the usual charge of being a self-hating Jews. But as you see below, it can get even worse.

The Israeli Newspaper Haaretz was the first to published the damning reports of the IDF morality problems in Gaza, and thus suffered from even a more grave slander: being an accomplice to blood libel against Israel.
This is a serious insult (and for those not familiar with the term, see here and here).

If you click on the article title, you can read it on Haaretz web site. It is worth reading. Also, take a look at Ray Hanania activities. He is a very funny Stand up comedian i addition to his many talents as a journalist, talk-show host, cartoonist and an activist for Justice for Palestinian
Check this video from on of acts in a Reform Synagogue.



I am hoping to talk about the activism of Christian Palestinians in this conflict, but that will have to wait for another posting.

Khaled

Willful ignorance, like eternal victimhood, is a bliss - Part 1

Gaza war of 2009 is not a very well-kept secret.

The number of victims may be disputed, but very few will deny that a large majority of the 1500 Palestinian killed by Israel were innocent children, women and men. Most of the world have seen the Israeli military exercising a campaign of vengeance against Gaza people.

What may be a sliver of hope - if you are still capable of seeing anything positive in that blood bath - was that all over the world, anti-Israel sentiments were flaring. The world (East and West) is gradually coming to see Israel as the aggressor and oppressor in the puddle known as the Israeli-Palestinian (I-P) conflict.

Even in the traditionally 'cold-blooded' Northern Europeans, anti-Israel feelings are growing rapidly. From Amsterdam where an visiting Israeli officer was shoe-pelted (after which the paranoid officer said ''Today shoes, tomorrow guns'') to Sweden where the Israeli ambassador was also shoe-pelted, and where Davis Cup matches in Malmo - Sweden's third largest city - could not be held with fans in the stadium as the city was boiling with demonstrations against Israel, calling for boycotting Israel and protesting the presence of the Israeli tennis team.

One Israeli tennis player expressed his shock after demonstrators tried to disrupt Sweden-Israel tennis match. According to Haartz, he said "Sweden protest was first time I felt anti-Israel hate".

But to express shock at the civilized world reaction to massacres of innocent Palestinians by one's own country is truly confusing. Is it naïveté, childish innocence, or ignorance? Or does it represent a more profound pathology that pervades the Israeli collective memory and perception?

It is hard to feel confused as to why the European street is unhappy with Israel. The European protesters over the last several months were not very subtle. They explicitly say why they are unhappy with Israel. In Sweden, they did not mince words:

' 7,000 people gathered at a square in downtown Malmo to hear speeches condemning Israel's offensive in Gaza and urging support for Palestinians. Sweden's Left Party leader Lars Ohly told the crowd that the European Union and the rest of the world "should boycott the racist regime in Israel." Chanting anti-Israel slogans, the protesters then marched toward the Baltic Hall arena, where some of them tried to break through the police barrier.' [Full article here]

Still, some old and wise Jewish community leaders insist that the real reason is not that simple.

The leader of the European Jewish Congress said Wednesday the main blame for growing antisemitism across the continent was the economic crisis, not the Gaza war.
[European Jewish] Congress President Moshe Kantor said that what he believes anti-Semitism levels unseen since World War II had nothing to do with Middle East issues.

And as usual, the Defamation League, aka Anti-Defamation League (ADL), foams around the mouth accusing the Malmo City council of using the tennis matches "as a device to express anti-Israel bias."

The political ignorance of a tennis-centered athlete is understandable. But the ' leader of the European Jewish Congress' ? This wise leader and the eternally-angry Foxman of the ADL are never tired of the same slogan: It has nothing to do with what Israel does. They hate us because they will always hate us for one reason or the other.

This sounds like circular logic to me, but for a lot of other people, it is the undisputed truth. And in some sick sense, it is a handy justification for having absolutely no critical appraisal of what Israel does. If, in that kind of traditional wisdom, the conclusion is known [they will always hate us], then what is the point wasting energy trying to find another reason [for example, Israel is doing something that is really so bad that people get angry at Israel]?

True antisemitism is the hate of Jews for no reason other than their being Jewish. If Israel occupies land, oppresses people and kills innocent Palestinians, I think some civilized humans have the right to be angry, or even mad, at Israel and its supporters for what Israel is are doing.

Are there true anti-Semites? Certainly. But nine times out of ten, that charge is hurled at someone who dares to criticize Israel (unless they are Jewish, then they get charged with being self-hating Jews).

But, let us go back to the perception gap between what Israel does, and what its supporters see.

Israeli as well as pro-Israel media in January and February of 2009 were studded with articles trying to understand the unusual 'public relation failure' of Israel in recent months. Some articles reached the conclusion that 'no matter how you sweeten it, Israel was the villain in that fight, and thus the world reacted appropriately'. Others blame the propaganda failure on the usual and eternal suspect: antisemitism.

Gideon Levi wrote recently a very interesting article about the Tennis Match events in Sweden, titled "Has anyone in Israel asked why the Swedes hate us?". It is a must-read, and it discusses the reason for pervasive and unreal sense of innocence some Israelis have, and the real anger the world outside Israel feels.

A more pointed article by Akiva Eldar has an even more provoking title: "Is an Israeli Jewish sense of victimization perpetuating the conflict with Palestinians?". It reviews an academic research done in Israel on that sensitive topic: perpetual victimhood. the principal researcher is Daniel Bar-Tal, one of the world's leading political psychologists - probably soon to be pronounce a self-hating Jew.

The article concludes with specific statistics about the 1948 partitioning and the lack of awareness of objective facts about that era by a large portion of Israeli society.
[For sake of brevity, reviewing these 2 articles was moved to Part 2 of this posting - see below]

The articles by Gideon Levi and Akiva Eldar are excellent assets for anyone that has interest in the psychology of the Israeli Palestinian conflict. This psychological aspect of the conflict is, in my opinion, the single most important obstacle to the resolution of the problem. From it stems ALL the evils chronically afflicting that sad part of the world.

A quote I heard once in a conversation about Israeli Palestinian issues is an illustrative example of the short link between victimhood and criminality. A defender of the Israeli position thought that the following statement that he attributed to an Israeli politician summarized the wisdom of his stance:

"I hate Palestinians because they make us kill their children".

Wow. In ten words he expressed hate, admitted murder, dumped all the blame on the ones whose children he murdered and came out with clean conscience feeling like a victim.

Brilliant..

Khaled

I presented a brief review of these 2 articles here:

Willful ignorance, like eternal victimhood, is a bliss - Part 2

Links to original articles:

• Is an Israeli Jewish sense of victimization perpetuating the conflict with Palestinians? - Haaretz - Israel News
• Gideon Levy / Has anyone in Israel asked why the Swedes hate us? - Haaretz - Israel News