Tag: Israel

All we are saying is Hamas, fuck yeah!

The Left hates Israel. A terrible generalization. But there has been a persistent tendency toward loathing and suspicion of the state of Israel among members and supporters of socialist-aligned parties in the democratic West since at least the 1970s–and that’s a mouthful. So, for short, what I said.

Now, if we ask Leftists why they have such a problem with Israel, most of them will assure us that it’s not about the Jews. In a previous post (Ite-Ish) I have suggested that, if we think it through, this claim doesn’t actually hold much water. Nonetheless, for the moment, let’s take it at face value. The Left hates Israel; but not, we are told, as an expression of anti-Semitism. Ok—why, then?

It will not do to answer “because of what Israel is doing in Gaza” because Leftists hated Israel long before a single IDF soldier set foot there. 

It will not do to answer “because of the West Bank settlements” because Leftists hated Israel long before the settler movement. 

It will not do to answer “because Israel won’t negotiate” because it will, and we know this because it has, having made peace de facto or de jure not only with the Arab states that made war on it relentlessly from 1948 until 1973, but even then with the terrorist PLO that took up where they left off—only to face more and worse heads of the hydra (Islamic Jihad, Hizbollah, Hamas), which many Western leftists defend and approve, quietly or openly, as we have seen, to their eternal shame and indeed the shame of all of us who are their compatriots, since October 7th, 2023.

So—again—why do Leftists hate Israel? If, as they tell us, it’s not about the Jews?

Other than being Jewish, Israel is:

  • an outpost and beacon of Western modernity.
  • prosperous.
  • strong (militarily and otherwise).
  • successful.
  • democratic.
  • free (civically, economically, politically).

What is there to hate here?

For the Left, evidently, plenty.

As for me, I hate that.

Ite-ish

I am thinking about the statement: “Criticizing Israel is not anti-Semitic.”

It seems to me that depends on what is meant by “criticizing Israel.”

If it means opposition to some Israeli government policies–fine. After all, Israelis themselves can be fiercely divided about these, at any given time. And yet they can remain passionately committed to their compatriots, culture, and country. Not even Bibi Netanyahu would have the chutzpah to claim that if you’re against him, you’re against the Jews. (At least, I don’t think he would).

But if “criticizing Israel” means opposition to the very idea or existence of the Jewish state–that, I think, is different. And that, of course, is what a lot of people are meaning, in these reductive and hysterical times.

For if you think–if you really think–that the state of Israel is just an “occupation”; that its self-defence actions are “genocide”; then you think, simply, that the Jewish state is evil. And you probably think, or at least suspect, that the Jewish citizens of that state are tainted with that evil.

Do we have, here, anti-Semitism? Not necessarily. But we definitely have anti-Israelism.

Now, to meet a Jewish person, in Canada or elsewhere, is not to meet an Israeli. It is not even necessarily to meet a person who approves of Israel. Nonetheless, the person you meet, who turns out to be Jewish, is by that token a person of the kind for whom the state of Israel claims to be have been created. Moreover, lots of non-Israeli Jews, all over the world, do indeed feel an affinity for Israel, and may even provide it with moral, political, or material support. The anti-Israelite, more than anybody, remembers this.

So: The anti-Israelite meets a Jew. This person is not an Israeli. If s/he were, the anti-Israelite would view her or him with loathing and suspicion–that much is established. At the same time, the anti-Israelite is acutely aware that the Jew, although not Israeli, may still be, so to speak, Israelish. And so the anti-Israelite must ask himself: Is this one of those? Is this one of the bad Jews?

About no other kind of person does the anti-Israelite pose this question, or anything like it. In his mind, neither blacks nor whites nor Asians nor Arabs nor anybody else needs to prove, by default, that they are not evil. Only Jews.

Do we have, here, anti-Semitism?

You bet your life we do.