On being critical as an ally

Returning to this interview of Abu Marzook:

As for the Protocols, “The Zionists wrote it, and they said, ‘No, we didn’t.‘ [It’s] linked to Zionists,” he said. 

Informed that the document was, in fact, a forgery, Abu Marzook appeared nonplussed. “Really? This is the first time I know [about this],” he said.

I was telling someone Saturday of how the Palestinians' allies fail to challenge them. Being an ally doesn't mean uncritical support and at times does mean challenging people. There are a great many asymmetries in the conflict, and this is but one, but I pointed to it as an important one that preserves the conflict. (Keep in mind that the Palestinians' allies are often in still more powerful positions compared with Jews or Israel.) How is it that the first Marzook heard that the Protocols were a forgery was in talking with the Forward?

Bad reporting. Bad rhetoric.

Baroness Jenny Tonge, recently resigned from the Liberal Dems after she refused to apologize for her antisemitic remarks, has been invited by a group of English students at York University to speak on party processes and censorship in the British Parliament. I assume she will speak on the need for more Nazis in positions of power.

A google search -- unsurprisingly, the activities of student groups are often deemed less than newsworthy -- reveals very little about the talk. There's basically this nearly unreadable piece at the Jerusalem Post. The remarks over which Baroness Tonge was forced out of the Lib Dems, however, were widely reported. For instance, this piece, from the BBC. (A search for Tonge reveals similar coverage or worse from the Beeb.) The sub-headline reads:

A Lib Dem peer has resigned from the parliamentary party after saying Israel "is not going to be there forever".

A lovely photo of a smiling Tonge is captioned

Baroness Tonge said she was disappointed with [leader of the Lib Dems] Nick Clegg's response [asking for her apology]

Even a fairly careful reader would have difficulty understanding what the hubbub was about. It would certainly seem to suggest to many what Baroness Tonge had previously suggested:

The pro-Israeli lobby has got its grips on the western world, its financial grips.

The BBC article doesn't mention this previous outburst (and also doesn't mention when she blamed global warming on the Israel lobby), though it does mention that she had previously not been asked to resign from the party:

...after she claimed Israeli troops sent to Haiti after the earthquake there were trafficking organs

and

...after she said she "might just consider becoming" a suicide bomber if she was a Palestinian.

Only later in the article are her most recent remarks reported more fully:

She added: "One day the United States of America will get sick of giving £70bn a year to Israel to support what I call America's aircraft carrier in the Middle East - that is Israel. One day, the American people are going to say to the Israel lobby in the USA: enough is enough. It will not go on for ever. Israel will lose support and then they will reap what they have sown."

Reading the article, you wouldn't know that her figure of £70bn a year is off by over 2,300%. Or that the actual amount is a fractional percentage of the US budget that could hardly be a priority or even a tertiary concern for deficit hawks. Only a close reader would consider that she has implied that the American support for Israel is against the wishes of the American people and comes only because of the "financial grips" of all-powerful Jews. Unfortunately, the reported response from Nick Clegg clarifies absolutely nothing:

These remarks were wrong and offensive and do not reflect the values of the Liberal Democrats. I asked Baroness Tonge to withdraw her remarks and apologise for the offence she has caused. She has refused to do so and will now be leaving the party. The Liberal Democrats have a proud record of campaigning for the rights of Palestinians, and that will continue. But we are crystal clear in our support for a two-state solution.

And so, it is no surprise in this miasma that the student group should publish this piece accusing Jews of being overly sensitive:

There is also a particular sensitivity in both the UK and the US regarding any comment that has the potential to be (mis)interpreted as anti-Semitic. While this is clearly an important concern, with obvious historical justification, there is a question mark over the extent to which this is also driven by the pressure to get re-elected. In the States, in particular, it is a commonplace that no President will be elected without the ‘Jewish vote’. While this is not so apparent in Britain, might there be a case for seeing the support of Israeli lobbyists in terms of election politics? That Tonge’s recent comment about the historical inevitability of political change in the Middle East was interpreted by some as anti-Semitic reveals the hyper-sensitivity regarding this – undoubtedly sensitive – issue. On the other hand, the current inflammatory situation in the Middle East means such comments are perhaps likely to risk mis- or over-interpretation, and this is something of which politicians should be aware.

This is lousy rhetoric, the sort for which York University should publicly flog its English students. It's also blatantly untrue that American presidents cannot be elected without the support of the Jewish vote. Every Republican president since Coolidge won without the Jewish vote.

Surely, some of my lines will have made some readers positively apoplectic. If I am being overly sensitive and falsehoods about the power of Jewish voters are merely "(mis)interpreted as anti-Semitic", then it is simply the voice of reason that demands an apology from me. But at the core -- poorly reported here by the august BBC, which should find it easier to report on politics in its home country, and shamefully repeated by our future rhetors -- is the same old conspiracy theory about Jewish power. It is, in fact, the idea which uncontested made the Nazi genocide inevitable. If neither the BBC nor the newest crop of English students at one of the world's best universities can even recognize the main points of contention in a debate, then the same ideas will remain uncontested.

At the 1972 Munich Olympic Games, eleven members of the Israeli team were murdered. For forty years their families have asked the International Olympic Committee to observe a minute of silence, in their memory. Please help us by signing our petition.

I am the wife of Andrei Spitzer. My husband was killed at those Olympic Games in 1972.

I am asking for one minute of silence for the memory of the eleven Israeli athletes, coaches and referees murdered at the 1972 summer Olympics in Munich. Just one minute — at the 2012 London Summer Olympics and at every Olympic Game, to promote peace.

These men were sons; fathers; uncles; brothers; friends; teammates; athletes. They came to Munich in 1972 to play as athletes in the Olympics; they came in peace and went home in coffins, killed in the Olympic Village and during hostage negotiations.

The families of the Munich 11 have worked for four decades to obtain recognition of the Munich massacre from the International Olympic Committee. We have requested a minute of silence during the opening ceremonies of the Olympics starting with the ’76 Montreal Games. Repeatedly, these requests have been turned down. The 11 murdered athletes were members of the Olympic family; we feel they should be remembered within the framework of the Olympic Games.

Please, read on and sign.

Why "The only democracy"?

It's a phrase that's been criticized plenty, rarely as underestimating the rest of the ME, sometimes because of what Peter Beinart calls "non-democratic Israel," and often because Israel (limited to its actual citizens) often fails to live up to the ideals we have for democracy. Of course, so does every democracy come up short, and we should be careful about whether Israel is being singled out. (Particularly, when Israel is singled out for things it hasn't done. Israel is the only non-US nation I know of that regularly gets international press when a bill is merely introduced in the legislature!) But a peculiar charge is often used to justify increased attention: Israel is singled out precisely because it makes the claim of being "The Only Democracy in the Middle East." The charge is hypocrisy, which is somehow always worse than mere failure. It's absurd to me that hypocrisy should be judged so harshly, but that's certainly not unique to Israel. On the other hand, I've been thinking about how the position of Israel is unique. Created by the UN, Israel is the only state which owes its creation and continued existence in large part to international perception. Regimes in Iran or North Korea are pariahs, and the Korean peninsula might someday be unified, but this doesn't compare to the way people talk about the mere existence of Israel. To many, it is unjust. And Israel is in a position where it is forced to defend its very being rhetorically in order to support its physical defense. So we get TODitME. It's exaggerated, perhaps, but I don't think it's reasonable to force Israel to defend its existence and then criticize it for exaggerating.

Act of Valor

Early reports are that the film "Act of Valor" is pretty antisemitic. It's tough to get a handle on exactly what's going on (without, you know, seeing it), but I'll try to narrow ir down. Some far-right blogs (that I won't link to, but including Pamela Geller) have compared the film to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. But even Time describes the portrayal of one of the bad guys as "the avaricious, hook-nosed Jew."

There are two bad guys. One is Muslim -- a Chechyen convert. (A convert from what? I don't know. Probably the film doesn't say.) The other is his Jewish childhood friend. So is it a greedy Jew behind Islamist terrorism aimed at the US? I don't trust the right-wing blogs enough to take their word on this interpretation. Other reviews indicate that he is not the primary bad guy, but a co-bad guy or perhaps a secondary bad guy. It seems just as likely to me that the filmmakers were worried about a potentially negative portrayal of a Muslim, so they added a second, horribly racist character for "balance."

One site with a review that's actually pretty interesting writes:

Somehow the scriptwriters, in an attempt to not alienate the countries known for actively supporting terrorism, managed to find excuses for the SEALs to fight against people in the Philippines, Mexico, West Africa, Russia, Chechnya, and some other ill defined country. The underlying message of the film seems to be “If you aren’t American you suck” and that message is delivered with bullets.

Apparently Jews don't make the cut as Americans.

In any case, please don't pay money to see it. It's getting pretty bad reviews, anyway.

(As more of an aside, though, it's a shame here to rely on right-wing blogs and a few references to mainstream or non-partisan blogs. One of the most significant ways that antisemitism is structured is by silence -- so that few people have a clue what it is or how serious it is -- which is the primary approach to antisemitism of the anti-racist blogs I would normally look to for better reviews. There have been numerous calls for the Left to take the cause of antisemitism back from the Right, which has seized it primarily because of the Left's negligence. Most of the Left only deals with antisemitism at all when it is getting in the way of their criticizing Jews for something else. However, even most of the Leftists calling for such a thing haven't actually done shit about it.)

Bananas and Lacunas

This post from Jeffrey Goldberg, in which he zeroes in on an incredibly remarkable passage in an interview:

Pierre Sauvage: The biggest lie is that we didn't know. It's possible, I suppose, for some rancher in Montana who wasn't reading the press or listening to the radio maybe not to know. But it was massively present. God, this question goes in so many directions. When you think of movies that come out, like Woody Allen's Radio Days. What is Woody Allen's Radio Days about? A happy childhood in Brooklyn, in a Jewish family, during the years of the Holocaust. Lost in Yonkers, which is a Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Neil Simon about nothing to do with the Holocaust. Wonderful play, by the way. It's like Hitler is totally removed from their frame of reference. This is nonsense. This is absolute nonsense. Woody Allen's parents--Woody may not realize it--but Woody Allen's parents were in their bedroom scared to death what was happening to their relatives in Europe. So, that is the biggest lie.

Go read the whole interview.

In a press

I pretty much agree with David here.

I've noted before that, my general affinity for J Street notwithstanding, one thing I do not like is their "mushiness" on anti-Semitism. They really seem either uninterested or incapable of taking a strong stand on the issue, and it is really alienating. I've written about the serious problems with the "dual loyalties" charge even on a conceptual level, but in a sense I'm even more concerned about Ben-Ami's demand that Jewish groups "tread lightly" in talking about anti-Semitism.

In fact, I find myself feeling increasingly alienated from the Left.

Jeremy Ben-Ami said that if Jews talk about antisemitism too much, "when they do need to use that word [antisemitism], people won’t take you seriously." So in order to be taken seriously regarding antisemitism, Jews must not talk about antisemitism. Catch-22.

I don't think many non-Jews understand how powerfully this acts on Jews or how it actually plays out. We must balance the fear of present antisemitism with the fear of more distant (but possibly worse antisemitism). We "save it up" for something really, really bad. But, of course, that strategy simply allows antisemitism to flourish until it's too late when we finally do speak out, doesn't it? In the meantime, the psychological pressure to talk/not talk really does a lot of work.

But all of us have somewhat different ideas of what's "really, really bad." Maybe some of us are more optimistic about the future, so we find it more important to fight the antisemitism right before us. Others, more anxious about the future, perhaps find it harder to speak out today. Maybe some of us laugh off strongly racialist antisemitism but find conspiracist antisemitism far scarier. There's too many complications to really try to analyze how we decide what's more important, but we can talk about the effects with more certainty. It's part of why certain conversations can get so heated so quickly.

And it's part of why non-Jews can manipulate the conversation so easily, by pitting some Jews against others. In contrast to the view some people have of antisemitism as sporadic violence, I see a system of levers that non-Jews use to colonize Jewish communities constantly, punctuated by massive violence. I find this mushiness absolutely frightening.

Persian Jewry

This story from Tablet is worth reading.

For centuries, Persian Jews marked the holiday of Purim by traveling to the shrine in Hamadan. There they were often joined by Christian and Muslim supplicants seeking divine cures to infertility and other human ailments.... The memories of Persian Jews born in Iran are increasingly all that remain of their heritage. The Hamadan shrine is not the only site at risk of destruction. In April 2008, for example, seven ancient synagogues in Tehran’s historically Jewish Oudlajan district were razed to make way for high-rise developments.

Either/Or

Yes, this is serious. Yes, it is structural. When you're talking about protesting at Hillel, you're not protesting Israel. You're protesting the rights of Jews to have a Jewish life on campus. When you protest at a JCC, you're actually protesting the rights of Jews to have a Jewish life. For anyone who couldn't guess, "CC" stands for "community center." The fact that the majority of people there have politics you don't share is not enough reason. There are good reasons the majority of people at any random Jewish Community Center have the politics in question.

No, I don't see Occupy Judaism dealing with it. That's why I couldn't sign the pledge from Occupy Judaism (a Jewish movement within OWS), which read, in part: "We are committed to keeping Occupy Wall Street free of anti-Semitism and other forms of oppression. We are committed to holding accountable those who would attempt to discredit Occupy Wall Street with unfounded allegations of anti-Semitism." It's not that there haven't been plainly outrageous claims made by right-wingers about OWS -- it's that there's no room to talk about actual antisemitism. The bit about keeping OWS free of antisemitism is, in practice, mostly refusing to see it. I have supported OWS, and I'd love to embrace it more fully, but I can't until there is real space to talk about antisemitism.

Occupy Wall Street: a bleg

Not exactly a full post here, but I was at the Kol Nidre service at Occupy Wall Street and found it incredibly moving. However, I have some fears ans skepticism regarding the protests. For one, Adbusters is involved. And I'd noticed a peculiar absence of reference to the Israeli Tent City protests. According to one activist who was involved in both, the

“There is some hesitancy with proclaiming to be in solidarity with the tent protests in Tel Aviv, because there has not been a direct call from those protests to end the Israeli occupation of Palestine,” said Ari Cowan, 21, who said on September 26 that he had slept in the plaza all but two of the nine nights of the occupation.
The complaint, which is not uncommon, is one for which Eidelman has little patience.
“To look at a social movement only through the prism of the Palestinian struggle, that’s very limiting,” Eidelman said. “What do you expect, we’re going to change the whole system in two months?”

So the protesters in New York refuse to look at Israelis, even anti-Zionists, through any other lense. Can you imagine how I, a avowed Zionist, would be treated? Well, there are plans to build a sukkah at OWS. I have every intention of going to show support for the protest through a specifically Jewish lense. The protesters deserve support, but they can and need to do better. With that, I thought I'd bring copies for the OWS library of: the Forward article above, April Rosenblum's pamphlet, "The Past Didn't Go Anywhere," and Steve Cohen's "That's Funny, You don't look antisemitic." Any ideas on other materials? Maybe the Emma Goldman letter here?

Again, on broad definitions of racism

I disagree with these two posts, but the comments on both are well worth reading.

Like Phoebe, "I do not gasp in horror when Palestinians adopt the symbolism or vocabulary of sinister, old-school, Western anti-Semitism, or if they condemn Jews and not just Israel/Israelis." At least not most of the time.. Sometimes I'm startled by just how blatant and extreme it is (which is meaningful even if, per Phoebe, we take it as an attempt to coral the prejudices of others rather than as some more essential quality of the speaker), but often I just feel sad. What usually bothers me in a more immediate way is when Western "allies" take up the same antisemitic tropes (and there are more than enough people who are far too uncritical of Palestinian claims to keep me busy if I wanted to make that my sole focus) or when Arab or Muslim leaders who have more actual power in global relations (such as Ahmadinejad) do so. And I completely agree that we need to find better ways to recognize the legitimate interests of both sides, which I think is the major point of the posts. When we call a speaker racist (as opposed to their speech), it typically means that that speaker should be banned from the discourse because their presence is unproductive. If we ban too many Palestinians or too many Jews, we wind up completely disrupting the discourse in a way that is certainly unproductive, because there's no one left to convince. A conversation between Nonie Darwish (who harbors no antisemitism whatsoever) and Richard Silverstein (who harbors no anti-Palestinian prejudices whatsoever) would be plain dumb and would not adequately represent the legitimate claims of either side. Further, since few people would be evenhanded in banning speakers on both sides, we might introduce a bias that probably ought to be called racist. Still, I disagree with Phoebe over whether it's useful to call certain behaviors by Palestinians or Jews "racist." She distinguishes very clearly between the immediate actors and outsiders, and I think that distinction is worth preserving.. but not by banishing terms like "racism." For starters, I don't think the distinction she seeks to make works. We can distinguish between actors on the basis of their role in the conflict, but why should we distinguish between the claims of different actors on that basis when the claims are identical? And while we might seek to be inclusive of a variety of perspectives and actors in our conversation, that doesn't mean that all claims are equal in that conversation. In short, I don't think it's often useful to think of racism as a matter of intent or as an exercise into soul divination.

Often, I go back to the 1929 Hebron Massacre. (Phoebe talks about the "ultimate" cause being about land, so lets go back in time.) Palestinian leaders spread a rumor that Jews were massacring Palestinians in Jerusalem. Palestinians (enough) in Hebron chose to believe that rumor because they were willing to believe almost anything about Jews, and they chose to respond by killing Jews. Ultimately, it was about preventing Jewish immigration and the possibility of Jews forming a state when Palestinians, themselves suffering under British colonialism, wished the land for their own state. The Palestinians sought to frighten Jews away and to force the hands of the British  (who, we shouldn't forget, had actual control over immigration but prioritized keeping the peace and keeping control). But I look at how Jews were prevented from immigrating to so many places, and I feel I must understand this (together with the sad story of the MS St. Louis, the Evian Conference, and plenty of other stories for which the whole world bear responsibility) as a part of the murder of 6 million. I can't not call that privilege. I can't not call that racism. I think I can understand how Palestinians might have thought their cause (not their methods) was just, but that doesn't mean agreeing that their cause was just. Isn't that indifference to the lives of Others, evidenced in restricting immigration, the very heart of privilege? And isn't privilege just a different perspective on racism? 

Defining Antisemitism broadly

A good piece over at Flesh is Grass (and not just because she quotes a comment of mine). (via Bob.)

It's commonplace in anti-racism that racism should be broadly defined, focused on the impact on minorities rather than the "soul" of the racist. Racism against Blacks in America cannot be reduced to slavery. It's also when people say, "I don't hate Blacks, just N*****s." Yet it's an unfortunate commonplace that antisemitism is treated differently. The EUMC definition of antisemitism is like any definition of racism that focuses on the specific tropes of racist discourse, which is to say it's limited but useful for what it is. We need elaborations of stereotypes and disingenuous arguments that have already been repeatedly addressed. That's why people keep making bingo cards, like this one. That's why definitions of racism are "working definitions."

Now treating antisemitism differently. That's racist.

links

I really like this piece at Lilith blog:

There are rules, somewhere, about how to be a Chasid on an airplane.  In that same rulebook there are most likely also a set of behavioral norms for a woman in stretch pants lying about in the back of the plane.

________
Palestinian protesters at a Syrian refugee camp, mourning the loss of life in the protest at the Israeli border, blamed the PFLP. Palestinian leaders responded by killing 14 of the Palestinian mourners. (From Rebecca. If "Yom ha-Naksa is her phrase, kudos.)

________
Ameinu posted this on Facebook. I should have checked the byline before spending so much time pondering the resurrection of that bizarre calumny about Hamas: that they were prepared to implicitly recognize Israel. (Hamas spokesmen denied the charge repeatedly, but certain left-wing journalists continued anyway to put words into their mouths.) However, this is Robert Fisk quoting Munib Masri on Khaled Meshaal. If the quote is delivered accurately, there's just a touch of interpretation to muck up:

"The only thing we didn’t get from Meshaal was that the government has to be by agreement. We told him the government has to be of natiuonal [sic] unity -- on the agreement that we would be able to carry out elections and lift the embargo on Gaza and reconstruct Gaza, that we have to abide by international law, by the UN Charter and UN resolutions. He asked for three or four days. He agreed that resistance must only be ‘in the national interest of the country’ – it would have to be ‘aqlaqi’ – ethical. There would be no more rocket attacks on civilians. In other words, no more rocket attacks from Gaza."

If I read it correctly, the end of rocket attacks is conditioned on the reconstruction of Gaza but ultimately based on the principle that the government of a Palestinian state would have to have a monopoly on violence. One thing I haven't seen discussed is that if there is a Palestinian state, with Hamas in a unity government, and Hamas launches a rocket, then that would probably be seen as an act of war rather than an act of terrorism. It would be tough to claim international law in criticizing Israel's response. If Hamas is willing to operate within the constraints of human rights law, even conditionally, and intra-Palestinian talks recognized the importance of this for the legitimacy of a Palestinian state, that's a big step forward.

________
I only caught a few minutes of this so far, but I'll be listening to it soon. The title of this book about Iran is clearly a reference to that famous German poem, "First they came for the Communists..." That's most likely going to be interesting (or blasphemous, but given the radio show it was on, I'm expecting interesting).

AsAJews in MoveOverAIPAC

Adam Holland reports that "As a Jew" protesters are "heckling" an AIPAC event. I think there are a few things worth being clear on.

Jews, even those with fairly weak Jewish identities, have every right to protest at AIPAC. In fact, it's exactly the right place for them to do so. AIPAC is a more-or-less democratic organization. Its members are Jewish organizations rather than individuals. Orthodox groups are over-represented. And it uses a flawed model of consensus which is organized around that which every member group, from the far-right ZOA to leftists like Meretz USA and Ameinu, can agree on. That consensus is then pitched in a rightward direction by the leadership, which I think is in small part because of the over-representation of Orthodox groups and (this next bit is important) in large part because that's what sells with non-Jewish, American politicians. Despite those flaws, it's still an organization that has a valid claim to represent a large portion of American Jews (and in which leftist Jews can be heard). I want Jews protesting inside AIPAC so that it better represents the American Jewish community.

However, when Jews leverage the power of the dominant, non-Jewish society rather than working inside the Jewish community, and they do so "As a Jew," then there's a problem in that it disrupts the voices of other Jews. These protests are being organized by Move Over AIPAC, which isn't a Jewish organization. That, I have a major problem with -- mainly with those gentiles who refuse to engage the whole of the Jewish community. Overall, it diminishes the power of Jews in society.

To those Jews who protest against AIPAC in good faith, I ask, "Have you tried Meretz?" (Here's their blog.) To those non-Jews protesting, my words would be less kind.

Creepy

Christian women with Jewish Jewelry

Football (soccer) chants

 It's about time people started to take this more seriously. As near as I can tell, though, there are no Jews in the video. That could have been better.

Bris

Today we had a bris for my son. Not the big family-type event, since my Korean wife doesn't want non-family visitors for another two weeks, according to Korean custom. But her sister and a 9-year-old niece are here to help. It was really a moving ceremony, to welcome him to this world and to the Jewish people.

Announcement

Ok, so I just had a baby boy. Born Wednesday at 12:53 pm, 8 lbs, 5 oz. Don't know what this means here yet.

Muzzlewatch on Alison Weir

For various reasons I decided to look up Muzzlewatch's response to Alison Weir. You know, Alison Weir who promoted the Blood Libel in the online Lefty mag, Counterpunch? And I found... nothing. You know, since they claim to take antisemitism seriously, you'd think JVP might have mentioned it. So what about jewishvoiceforpeace.org, since Muzzlewatch is a sub-project? Still nothing. So while they try to position themselves as somehow middle of the road (Just like Michael Steele) let's dispense with that.

Or does someone else have a case of blatant antisemitism that they'd like to check out? Has JVP spoken out against something else? Let me know.

Allies? What allies?

There's a section from April Rosenblum's "The Past Didn't Go Anywhere":

Our political decisions are also affected. Historical attitudes toward Jews taught us to believe our own struggle was not worthwhile. Gentile European intellectuals, including thinkers who heavily influenced the Left, like Hegel, taught that Jews were a people ‘outside’ of history; prominent theories held that because Jews had no land of our own, we were a deformed group without a role to play in history and revolution. In addition, much developing revolutionary theory saw the groups that mattered in creating social change as the industrial laborers or peasants. But European Jews, having been excluded from many traditional trades, often didn’t fit neatly into those categories. From both directions, Jews learned we didn’t matter; our only meaningful role in
changing the world would be supporting other peoples’ struggles; in making ourselves useful. All this has compounded the biggest piece of internalized antisemitism: After centuries of experiencing other people not coming to our defense when we were targeted by violence and persecution, Jews have internalized the idea that there’s no hope of getting other people to stand with us. For Jews who struggle for social justice, that means we often stay quiet about anti-Jewish oppression: We learn to fight in support of other groups without requesting the solidarity we, ourselves, need. For Jewish communities, it means we lose sight of building a strategy for our liberation  by finding allies in other grassroots communities. Instead, we depend on those in power, hoping that if we are useful to them, they will protect us. At times that leads us to cooperate in the oppression of others.

Well, leftists are still defining oppression to exclude anti-Jewish oppression. Has any anti-racist group, blog, or individual of note talked about Glenn Beck's "expose" on George Soros, "The Puppermaster"? Because, that would be the sort of prominent, classically conspiracist, right-wing antisemitism that I would think would make an easy target for anyone who cared about antisemitism even just a little. But while I've seen plenty about it from Jewish groups and individuals (all the way from the ADL to Jewish Funds for Justice), I've seen nothing from the anti-racist discourse I follow most closely. Am I missing something?

For that matter, nothing about Howard Jacobson winning the Man Booker Prize for The Finkler Question. Of course, nothing on Ahmadinejad saying that Wikileaks was a Zionist conspiracy. Frankly, nothing at all, except when Jews are being criticized for not being white or for not being good enough allies to other people. If it were one story here or there, it would be one thing, but it's terribly consistent, and the failure to even mention Beck's antisemitism just really highlights how completely Jews are ignored by so many "anti-oppression" activists. A lot of anti-racists seem to see no problem with completely erasing Jews. If there's a criticism of Rosenblum I'd make here, it's that the lack of hope for real, consistent allies isn't so much a bit of internalized antisemitism so much as an honest assessment of continuing realities.

(And if anyone wonders why some Jews might turn to "Christian Zionists" for support, stop wondering.)