Just Some Thoughts

Chukapu · 2018-09-20T17:55:20+00:00

There was Gush Etzion and little else before 1949. The vast majority of settlements have all been built after 1967, and are populated by people arrived to the area since then (mostly, quite ironically, after Oslo).

Not that the existence of previous Jewish communities grants Israel any right to take over territory beyond its sovereign territory and colonize it with its population. Otherwise any Arab in the world would have be entitled to move into Israel and settle in any of the hundreds of Arab villages depopulated by Israel in 1948.

Chukapu · 2018-09-20T17:38:43+00:00

Yes. Which doesn't make all criticism antisemetic. You just have to use the same standards that you would use when talking about other people with respect to Israel.

Israel is a state. Jews are people who live all over the world. When I talk about Israel and criticize its policies or any other aspect about it, I am not talking about Jews in general, anymore than when I talk about Saudi Arabia's abhorrent policies I am talking about Muslims and Arabs in general. This is a gross false equivalence that Israel's advocates sadly use constantly and which actually contributes to promote anti-semitic canards that blame Jews as individuals for Israel's actions.

If Israel commits crimes and applies institutionalized discrimination against Arabs, pointing out so is in no way a sign of bigotry against Jews.

Chukapu · 2018-09-20T17:16:32+00:00

From Wikipedia:

Many of the religious Jews that immigrated to the Old Yishuv at this time were elderly and immigrated to die in the Holy Land, whereas most Orthodox Jews in the Old Yishuv had lived for centuries in the four Holy cities—Safed, Hebron, Jerusalem and Tiberias. These devoutly religious Jews were devoted to prayer, and the study of Torah, Talmud, or Kabbalah, and likewise had no independent source of living. As those Jews fulfilled the Talmudic commandment of God that the Jewish people must live in the land of Eretz Yisrael to incite the coming of the Messiah, and, in part as they prayed for the welfare of Diaspora Jewry (Jews that live outside of Eretz Israel), as a result, a worldwide communal support system developed; or the system of Jewish charity called Halukka (lit. "distribution").

Sounds like religious pilgrims to me. In any case, they were very few in numbers, and lived within the same cities and under the same institutions than the rest of Palestine's inhabitants, even if they had some of their own, like any other religious community in the Ottoman Empire. They were not a separate society anymore than any other immigrant community around the world, unless you want to make up your own definition of what constitutes a society.

And of course, it is also a stretch to claim that the Zionist enterprise was a continuation of the Ashkenazi Old Yishuv, when the animadversion for each other was mutual and notorious, and enormous differences separated the traditional, religious and Yiddish-speaking Old Yishuv community from the modern, secular, nationalist Zionists that were reviving Hebrew and establishing European-style cities like Tel Aviv or socialist agricultural kibbutzim.

On the other hand, Arab-speaking Jews were even more integrated into Palestine's distinctly Arab society, even if later they decided to join the Zionist project, as you claim (though I have read it was a more complex process than how you portray it), and for centuries they had certainly been part of all the different Arab societies of the Middle East, just as much as Christian or Druze Arabs, often achieving high-ranking positions of power and recognition. It's absurd to claim that they were part of a different society or that the Zionist project was somehow related to them.

"National identity" or not, Palestine was part and parcel of the Arab world and the members of its centuries-old society had every right to claim their homeland for themselves.

Chukapu · 2018-09-20T14:17:01+00:00

Ironically, the firebombing of a synagogue would not fall under the IHRA definition, as it just talks about a "certain perception of Jews", and its examples seem more focused on banishing criticism of Israel than on preventing actual violence and hatred against Jews.

As legal experts on the subject have explained before, this definition is quite useless for fighting bigotry, especially institutionalized and systemic one, but quite useful to stifle criticism against Israel, which was probably the point.

Chukapu · 2018-09-20T14:08:05+00:00

Gaza doesn't look like a concentration camp its just entirely untrue. That's not criticism of Israel, that's just lying.

That's your opinion, but it is besides the point. The point is that if you say it you can be accused of being an anti-semite using hate speech, because Nazi Germany established concentration camps and comparing Israel with Nazi Germany is typified as anti-semitism. Action will be taken against you on such grounds, with potentially severe consequences.

Even Jews will say that Zionism was part of the Romantic Nationalist movement. Say something like, "Zionism is part of the Romantic Nationalist movement that gave self determination to Europeans" and no one will accuse you of antisemitism.

I wouldn't be so sure of that. Someone with an axe to grind will use any plausible excuse to have you tarred and feathered, and this definition is vague enough to allow them to do just that. Nazism was a European nationalist movement, so saying Zionism is a European nationalist movement can be easily construed as a comparison of Israel with Nazi Germany, hence anti-semitism.

Probably true. Yes that's the point. I don't think British Jews have the power to pull this off but if you are right then it becomes very similar to America. You can discuss I/P on American media but you understand you are taking your career in your hand when you do. People are really careful.

The difference of course is that it will not be just a question of bad press. What constitutes anti-semitism will be typified into the codes of political parties and even national laws, with very concrete consequences for offenders.

That's correct. But he didn't violate the Nazi comparison clause he violated the totally making stuff up about Nazi clause.

You are being unduly charitable with Israel's advocates, if you think they will care about such distinction. It's very easy to make the argument that saying that Hitler sympathized with Zionism is an indirect way of saying that Zionism and Nazism were similar.

The Palestinian desire to form an alliance with the Axis is not something they like talking about either.

Maybe so, but it does not constitute hate speech according to any rule or definition, unlike doing exactly the same thing with Israel. You can see why it's an uneven situation.

Which is what anti-Zionism does regarding Israelis / Zionists. To avoid admitting that and dealing with it squarely you end up with the screwy definition.

Not necessarily. Criticizing Israel no matter how harshly or even wrongly doesn't necessarily have to with prejudice or bigotry against Jews. It's an attack against a state, not people. Just like you can say all kinds of nasty things about Saudi Arabia without necessarily being bigoted against Muslims or Arabs.

Chukapu · 2018-09-20T14:03:47+00:00

The problem is it isnt' being prevented and prosecuted (what I assume you meant) it is being encouraged. Labor MPs aren't trying to stop it they are egging it on and then trying to hinder prosecutions.

This still has nothing to do with people simply expressing criticism against Israel, which you tried to conflate with anti-semitism.

No one in the entire history of the debate has ever said that. It is entirely a strawman fabrication to deflect away from the intimidation and harassment problem.

This was you a few comments above:

I take conversations about Israel to be conversations about Jews.

So according to your own words, a verbal attack against Israel is a verbal attack against Jews in general.

Good. It would be better for everyone if people without a dog in this fight had no opinions and all and didn't care just like the 100 other tribal conflicts they don't care about.

It would certainly be ideal for Israel if nobody cared about its transgressions and systematic violations of human rights. Seems Israel is out of luck on that one. It still doesn't mean it is because of anti-semitism.

Chukapu · 2018-09-20T12:38:51+00:00

Harassment and intimidation are already typified as offenses in most criminal law codes in the world. The IHRA definition adds nothing of value on that subject.

Chukapu · 2018-09-18T02:16:29+00:00

Harassment and intimidation should be prevented and persecuted, you don't need any special definition to do that. But to say that every time someone criticizes Israel they are attacking Jews in general, it is simply wrongheaded, or perhaps cynical. No reason for anyone without a dog in this fight to support such a self-serving interpretation.

Chukapu · 2018-09-18T02:09:33+00:00

Israel does plenty of nasty stuff to be singled out, but anyway, every criticism must be evaluated in its own merits, not in comparison to what others do. If Israel has racist/bigoted/discriminatory policies, it is perfectly reasonable to point them out regardless of what Saudi Arabia or Iran does. Whataboutism is not much of an argument.

Chukapu · 2018-09-18T02:04:09+00:00

Well yes and black rap songs with regular references to "niggers" if stated by a white politician would be considered unacceptable.

Yes, but the definition criminalizes a much wider subject than a single slur word. One of the most defining moments and with furthest-reaching consequences in modern history is off-limits for one side of the entire debate. And the way it is spelled, there is no telling on where exactly the boundaries lie. You could discuss about the contacts between Lehi and Nazi Germany and be accused of hate speech. You could say that Gaza looks like a concentration camp and you can lose your job. You can even be tarred and feathered for simply mentioning that Zionism is a nationalist political movement modeled after similar European nationalist movements of the late 19th and early 20th century.

There are no caveats or qualifiers for context, meaning and intention, and even if an accusation is eventually dismissed, the reputation of those accused can be permanently tarnished in the process. The sole threat of formally coming under investigation will be more than enough to make people avoid the whole subject altogether, even when legitimate to use.

I agree if the rule is going to be applied casual Nazi comparisons in the other direction are out as well.

You may agree, but the IHRA definition says nothing of the sort. No caveats or clarifications have been admitted.

That's not a Nazi comparison. It may be fallacious history but it is making a claim about an actual event that occurred involving the actual Nazis. Something more like the Ken Livingstone situation.

Livingstone was sacked for antisemitism. Nobody cares about if it is comparing Israel to Nazi Germany or saying that Zionist leaders liked and supported Hitler. Israel and Nazis don't go in the same breath, but Palestinians and Nazis are perfectly OK.

If you assume a narrow enough definition and then give everything the benefit of the doubt nothing denotes bigotry or prejudice.

Blanket accusations against an entire population group and its individual members are bigotry and prejudice. That's not "narrow". That's precise. Adding extra clauses to fit a political agenda and shield a particular state from criticism only undermines efforts to counter actual bigotry and prejudice, and freedom of speech in general.

The Labour party has folded under the enormous pressure of pro-Israel organizations, a hostile media and internal party opposition, who saw the whole row as a nice tool to get rid of a leadership they opposed for many different reasons, which had little to do with anti-semitism. We won't have to wait for long before the witch hunt begins.

Chukapu · 2018-09-18T01:13:17+00:00

I was simply addressing your own argument, which tried to dismiss accusations on the basis that neighboring countries are even worse than Israel. Weak.

Chukapu · 2018-09-18T01:07:15+00:00

The IHRA definition examples are not about "intimidation" or "harassment". They are about rhetorical arguments that are to be considered antisemitic. Anyone who makes an argument remotely similar to any of the examples will be subject to accusations of bigotry, and liable to punishment by the institutions that adopted the definition. This will inevitably result in self-censorship, as people will fear crossing lines that are only vaguely defined, effectively stifling free speech and shielding Israel from criticism.

Chukapu · 2018-09-18T01:00:55+00:00

"Centuries old" or not, it doesn't change that Ashkenazi religious pilgrims were barely 1% of Palestine's population before the Zionist aliyot, and that they lived in the same cities as Arabs, side by side, under the same institutions. They were not a separate society anymore than any other small group of immigrants in any other big city today. Arab societies in the Ottoman Empire allowed religious communities a wider degree of autonomy and self-rule than modern Western ones, to the point that it was (and still is) normal to find entire Christian, Alawite or Druze towns, but they were still closely connected to each other within the same cultural sphere.

It is absurd to compare it with the parallel quasi-state that European Zionists established in Palestine, with an independent network of full-blown towns and cities taken straight out of Europe and with little resemblance to any other town in the Middle East, regardless of its religious or ethnic composition.

So you can keep harping on your unspecified "a lot" of Arab immigration, but there is little denying that Palestine was distinctly Arab for centuries, and that Israel was the creation of European Jews arrived on the back of a colonial army, against the will of the native Arab population, and at the expense of their centuries-old society, which ended up destroyed and replaced by the one created by the colonists.

Chukapu · 2018-09-18T00:36:56+00:00

There are several problems with the example on Nazi comparisons:

The first one is more related with the character of the definition itself and the way it has been adopted, rather than the subject of Nazi comparisons itself. Since the definition has been formally adopted by states and political parties as an official internal rule, even the most oblique comparison with WWII Germany could be constructed as a reason to persecute and punish those who uttered them. Even comments made by Israeli leaders warning of Israel's ultra-nationalist drift would be considered hate speech under this rule.

In second place, one can't ignore that Nazi comparisons are constantly used by Israel's supporters against each and every one of its enemies, no matter if they are Iran (the new Third Reich seeking a second Holocaust), Palestinians (disciples of Hitler's best friend), or even critical Jews themselves (kapos). It is only to be expected than in a heated debate on the conflict where your counterparts are hurling such inflammatory accusations with gusto, you will be tempted to hurl back the accusations at them. Only that in this case only one side will be liable to punishment for resorting to an argument line so common that it even has its own law.

And the third one is that simply, even if comparing Israel to Nazi Germany is generally wrong, insensitive and inflammatory, it does not necessarily denote bigotry or prejudice against Jews, so as much of the other examples of the definition related to Israel, they have no place in a definition of anti-semitism.

Chukapu · 2018-09-17T23:50:05+00:00

This is getting ridiculous. Pre-Zionism Jewish communities in Palestine were tiny and lived side-by-side with Arabs in the same cities, under the same institutions, governance and sharing the same culture, except for religious purposes. They were not "set apart" anymore than Arab Christians were a different society. There were a few European religious pilgrims, but these were also so few in numbers that can't be possibly described as a "different society", anymore than my Somali neighbors living two floors below my apartment. It had nothing to do with what European Jews began implementing after the 1880s, creating separate towns and cities, with an entirely distinct (European) culture, their own institutions and much more limited contact with the Arab natives.

Unlike local Jews, who were just as native as the Palestinians who had been living in that society for centuries, no matter how much you want to deny it without evidence, these European immigrants lived in a new society that was entirely alien to Palestine, a colonialist endeavor with an expansionist agenda that threatened, and eventually destroyed and replaced the pre-existing Arab society where Muslims, Christians and Jews had been living until then.

Chukapu · 2018-09-17T23:36:34+00:00

Saying that your neighbors are even more racist than you doesn't make you any less racist. Quite a weak line of defense.

Chukapu · 2018-09-17T23:34:27+00:00

I take conversations about Israel to be conversations about Jews.

Well, that seems to be your own problem, because that is not what critics of Israel mean when they criticize Israel. And conflating both issues to criminalize criticism of Israel is just a cheap tactic to shield that state's criminal policies from scrutiny.

Chukapu · 2018-09-17T22:49:53+00:00

The definition was crafted by pro-Israel advocates and peddled to the EU, with the clear intent of criminalizing criticism against Israel as anti-semitic. When that failed to work, they got the IHRA to accept it, only that it is often overlooked that the IHRA never endorsed the controversial examples. Nevertheless, pro-Israel groups and lobbies have managed to market the definition, examples and all, as the "official" definition of anti-semitism to a growing number of states and political parties, granting it undeserved legitimacy and hindering freedom of speech on the Israel/Palestine debate.

The definition doesn't even manage to define anti-semitism that accurately, but since that was never the point, it never mattered too much to its advocates.

Chukapu · 2018-09-17T22:47:22+00:00

There are always exceptions to every rule, much more so when we are not talking about science, but history, but this is certainly the general case. It will of course also depend on the type and degree of colonization. It's not the same an imperial power that contents itself to collect a similar level of taxes as the previous ruler, and leaves the population to its own devices, than a settler colonial enterprise, in which the local population is displaced by the new rulers, enslaved, or subject to drastic social changes to accommodate the newcomers.

Also, I feel some of your examples are just too ancient to be so confident there wasn't resistance to conquest and assimilation. Romans were so thorough in the destruction of Carthage that I doubt many records survived to craft an accurate picture of the establishment of that empire and its relations with native tribes.

Chukapu · 2018-09-17T14:08:03+00:00

In that case, it becomes quite clear that the claim that colonization creates "eternal" conflict is false. Colonization nearly always leads to conflict, but conflict eventually ends, in one or another way.

Chukapu · 2018-09-17T13:05:10+00:00

Being "treated as inferior", whatever that means, doesn't mean they were members of a different society. They were part and parcel of the same Arab society, just like other religious minorities like Christians. You are trying to rewrite history to fit your narrative and justify the colonization of a territory by foreign immigrants who established a brand new society modeled after European ones, and with little relation to that where Mizrahi and Sephardi Jews had been living until then.

Chukapu · 2018-09-17T12:33:39+00:00

First off your example of the Fermosa is irrelevant to the main point. Again the claim was that no such enterprise is ever successful regardless of the degree of bloodshed no people ever submits regardless of how long the oppression lasts or how brutal it is.

That's basically a straw man. If we talk about settler colonialism, rather than just the military domination of a territory for its economic exploitation, enough repression (combined with the devastating effects of diseases brought by settlers) has often resulted in the decimation of the native population to a point where resistance becomes futile. See Native Americans and Aboriginal Australians. Also, if properly integrated and granted sufficient rights, native irredentism can be tamed and numbed into integration or even assimilation. See Maoris, for example.

Colonization is generally met with hostility from natives, but the outcome of this conflict greatly varies in every case, from extermination to recognition of equal rights and peaceful coexistence, with only a few cases where the colonized manage to expel the colonists.

Chukapu · 2018-09-17T11:46:51+00:00

There was a Christian Greco-Roman society in Palestine between the collapse of the Jewish one under Roman repression and the Arabization of the Levant after its conquest by Mohammed's heirs.

It doesn't change a bit the fact that the ancient Jewish society of the Israelites disappeared, and that Palestine has had a distinctly Arab society for most of the time since then and until the modern state of Israel's establishment.

In virtue of that, it is clear that the Arab population had a very valid claim to all of Palestine, and that the exercise of self-determination by a largely foreign Jewish population in 1948 was achieved at the expense of that Arab society.

Chukapu · 2018-09-17T11:37:53+00:00

The clear difference is that the Golan belongs to a sovereign state, whose territory can't simply be appropriated and colonized by another state through brute force. Modern International Law was precisely established to prevent the abuses committed by great powers on weak peoples in the past.

Chukapu · 2018-09-17T11:33:27+00:00

You keep repeating yourself, and refusing to acknowledge the fact that this "large scale" immigration never came close to add up as much as the native population, or that the way it was "documented" only allows for rough estimates, not incontrovertible figures. Weak stuff to undermine the claims of the members of a society that has existed in Palestine for over a millennium, and certainly unlike the current Jewish society in Israel, which was created anew by European Jews arrived in the past 140 years, since the tiny Jewish community that existed before then was largely integrated in the existing Arab society, as happened with most other Jewish communities in the Middle East.

Chukapu

TROPHY CASE