The real racism: Expecting Jews to die meekly

[shira]

The most accurate way to describe Israel today is as an apartheid state... 3.5 million Palestinians and almost half a million Jews live in the areas Israel occupied in 1967, and yet while these two groups live in the same area, they are subjected to totally different legal systems. The Palestinians are stateless and lack many of the most basic human rights. – Neve Gordon, “Boycott Israel,” Los Angeles Times, August 20, 2009.

Taken from an article by a senior Israeli academic, this excerpt typifies the racist Judeophobic rhetoric that has come to dominate the public discourse on the Israeli- Palestinian conflict. Sadly it is rhetoric that has been endorsed by many in the Israeli academia and media. Even more disturbing is the complicity — or at least complacency — of Israeli officialdom in allowing it to become the defining feature of this discourse.

Expecting Jews to die meekly. This mode of rhetoric is no less than inciteful, Judeophobic racism, because in effect, it embodies the implicit delegitmization of the right of Jews to defend themselves.

It embodies the implicit expectation that Jews should consent to die meekly. And how can an expectation that Jews die meekly be characterized other than as “inciteful, Judeophobic racism?” For no matter what the measures Israel adopts to protect its citizens from those undisguisedly trying to murder and maim them — because they are Jews — they are widely condemned as “racist,” “disproportionate violence” or even “war crimes/crimes against humanity.”

much more here...
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=243452

[rustydad]

1. The point?

What is the point of posting somebody's rant from another source? Whoever wrote the original is hopelessly ill informed and his words do not merit reposting.

[pocoloco]

2. Fucking Caterpillars!

God Damned Cluster Bombs!

[vminfla]

8. Caterpillar does not make cluster bombs

But they do make some of the finest construction equipment in the world.

[riverwalker]

3. would unrec

if I could, but that Teflon thing...

[Confusious]

4. More of the "If you criticize Isreal, you're an anti-semite" crap

And it seems this guy is taking it to "If you point out reality, you're an anti-Semite, and a self hating jew, if you're jewish"

[LeftishBrit]

5. Martin Sherman is not a good source on this subject

He has on more than one occasion criticized Netanyahu for not being hawkish *enough*:

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3742928,00.html

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3714381,00.html


Yes, there are people who criticize Israel selectively when they wouldn't criticize other nations. Some Brits who call for the arrest of Livni but not for the arrest of Blair. Some Americans who accuse Israel of 'genocide' while ignoring the vicious warmongering of Bush and Cheney that has killed far more people, indeed far more Arabs and Muslims, than Israel ever has. Some Arab states that condemn Israel for mistreating the Palestinians while doing so themselves.

But Sherman seems to be implying that *any criticism of Israeli policy; or indeed any opposition, even by Israelis, to hawkish policies is anti-Israel or antisemitic, rather in the way that American hawks imply that any opposition to hawkish American policies is anti-American.

[shira]

6. You don't have to agree with all of Sherman's views in order to agree with this article

He's not implying any criticism of Israel is antisemitic. He even stated very clearly in the article that criticism of Israel is not necessarily antisemitic. He didn't bring up, for example, criticism related to settlement building but rather that Israel cannot self-defend against Arab aggression without being accused of having the most vicious, malevolent, racist motives. He's making the argument that the world is implying anything Israel does while invoking "self-defense" is wrong. Israel should do nothing and just "take it" since whatever they do in self-defense is always wrong.

For no matter what the measures Israel adopts to protect its citizens from those undisguisedly trying to murder and maim them — because they are Jews — they are widely condemned as “racist,” “disproportionate violence” or even “war crimes/crimes against humanity.”

It matters not whether these measures are administrative decisions or security operations, defensive responses or anticipatory initiatives, punitive retaliations or preemptive strikes. It matters not whether they entail the emplacement of physical barriers to block the infiltration of indiscriminate murderers; the imposition of restrictions to impede their lethal movements; the execution of preventive arrests to foil their deadly intentions; the conduct of targeted killings (with unprecedentedly low levels of collateral damage) to preempt their brutal plans; the launch of military campaigns to prevent the incessant shelling of civilians...

The depiction of these measures as arbitrary acts of wrongdoing, whose only motivation is racially driven territorial avarice and discriminatory embitterment of the lives of the Palestinians, distorts reality and disregards context. But far more perturbing, is the moral implication of this condemnation.

For if all endeavors to prevent, protect or preempt are denounced as morally reprehensible, the inevitable conclusion is that they should not be employed. This implies a no less inevitable conclusion: To avoid the morally reprehensible, the Jewish state should — in effect — allow those who would attack its citizens, to do so with total impunity, and with total immunity from retribution.

Sherman may be wrong about a lot of things, but he isn't wrong about that.

He is spot on calling it like it is. Especially WRT reverse-racism...

Then there is the reverse racism emblazoned in the subtext of the discourse of Israeli policy towards the Palestinians: The victims of racist hatred are condemned as racist for fending off their racist attackers.

Security barriers are not erected, roadblocks are not put in place, travel restrictions are not enforced as a racist response to Palestinian ethnicity but as a rationale response to Palestinian enmity.

Disagree with Sherman's politics, but in this case he makes a rock solid argument.

[F. Baehr]

7. Shira, thank you for this article.

Shira, thank you for this article. The world is racked by Judeo-phobic hatred these days. Bush killed over a million Iraqis and there was no outrage from the right wing. China kills thousands of its own people a year and again the right wing is silent. There is rampant racism against blacks all over Europe and America, and the right wing cheers it on.

Israel defends itself and the right-wing Christian and Islamic fascists are up in arms.

If "Palestine" ever got its way *it* would be the real apartheid state. Israel is the most tolerant nation in the world.