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.)

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.

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.

The goyishe kopf (or the plainest case of gentile privilege)

How can I not say: What a goyishe kopf. And by that, I mean, what an outrageous example of privileged stupidity. According to a piece from The Guardian and reproduced at Engage:

Karel De Gucht, the European commissioner for trade, and a former Belgian foreign minister, sparked outrage after voicing his scepticism about the prospects for the negotiations which opened in the US this week. He told a Belgian radio station that most Jews always believed they were right, and questioned the point of talking to them about the Middle East.

De Gucht, who negotiates for Europe on trade with the rest of the world, and is one of the most powerful officials in Brussels, was forced today to issue a statement declaring that the views he expressed were personal.

“Don’t underestimate the opinion … of the average Jew outside Israel,” he told the radio station. “There is indeed a belief – it’s difficult to describe it otherwise – among most Jews that they are right. And a belief is something that’s difficult to counter with rational arguments. And it’s not so much whether these are religious Jews or not. Lay Jews also share the same belief that they are right. So it is not easy to have, even with moderate Jews, a rational discussion about what is actually happening in the Middle East.”

Explaining why he thought the peace talks were probably doomed, he added: “Do not underestimate the Jewish lobby on Capitol Hill. That is the best organised lobby, you shouldn’t underestimate the grip it has on American politics – no matter whether it’s Republicans or Democrats.”

First off, what an odd sort of apology to say that one's bigotry is 'personal.'

“I gave an interview … I gave my personal point of view,” he said. “I regret that the comments that I made have been interpreted in a sense that I did not intend.

“I did not mean in any possible way to cause offence or stigmatise the Jewish community. I want to make clear that antisemitism has no place in today’s world.”

In fact, the comments were surely interpreted in exactly the sense in which they were said. His comments did not regrettably cause offense so much as they are plainly offensive in their nature. Look, there's a long history of claiming that Jews aren't rational, but even setting aside that stereotype, his claim about Jews being irrational only points to his inability to listen to what Jews have to say. More importantly, the stuff about that powerful "Jewish lobby" is plainly antisemitic. Whenever you find yourself about to make such an outrageous generalization, you should first assume that the problem is your own insensitivity. Like so many people, he doesn't seem to get the most basic fact of antisemitism: claiming Jews have power way beyond what we actually have is one of the most dangerously antisemitic things that can be said. The immediate implication is that something has to be done to take power away from Jews in order to right the world. In other words, Jews must be oppressed. Because the problems of the world are not actually the fault of Jews, however, that's a useless strategy which inevitably escalates to more severe oppressions in order to sudbue the "powerful" Jews. If he wants to make clear that "antisemitism has no place" he should certainly disavow the whole making-incredibly-antisemitic-comments thing, rather than merely expressing his sincere regret that other people are so irrational and don't get what he's saying when he's making incredibly antisemitic comments. No apology can mean anything here unless De Gucht can take responsibility for the plainly bigoted nature of his remarks. Regardless of his intention, he has precisely "stigmatized" and threatened Jews.

Also, I think it's time the words organized and grip should be seen as inherently problematic in these debates, just like the word cabal. I don't know why I keep seeing grip but it turns up strangely often. Such as here.

Catching up -- closet edition

Things I missed while my computer was down:

The ADL's position on the "Ground Zero Mosque" was pretty shameful. I applaud Fareed Zakaria who returned prize from the organization. But, ummm, hey guys, this is not an opportunity for Jew-bashing. For starters, at least the ADL's rejection of the community center (it's not a mosque) was tepid. Many Americans, even many New Yorkers are not nearly as tepid in rejecting it. It's not like the ADL or any other Jewish organization or leader is responsible for the general response. As near as I can tell, the ADL actually doesn't even represent Jewish opinion very well on this particular matter. Other organizations and people, particularly Mike Bloomberg (who is Jewish, if you didn't know), did better.
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Brett Domino doing Lady Gaga. I really love these guys. They really lay bare a lot of stuff about popular music. In this case, I think it highlights some of what's so great about Lady Gaga, though previously it was what's so silly about Justin Timberlake. I don't think any of the members of the BD Trio are Jewish, but I think there appeal to me does have something to do with my being Jewish. A lot of Jewish theater and comedy (Seinfeld, e.g.) makes fun of the outsider assimilating into mainstream culture in a way that similarly lays bare the arbitrary conventions and assumptions of that culture.
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Racialicious and Mad Men: It's not that Latoya Peterson hasn't got a point when she notes that Mad Men is, like many shows on television, mostly about white people. (This, however, via Racialicious, is much more interesting on that point.) I do think the disagreement with her from the comments, some of it quite pointed, is well worth reading. (And I tend to stand with that disagreement.) But what gets me is that one of the biggest, most important Jewish characters isn't part of the discussion. Latoya writes:

I refer to Rachel Menken, not because “OMG, there’s a Jewish woman” but because she got to say, on screen, that people are racist. She was able to articulate her suffering, she was able to articulate her feelings of being seen as lesser, she was able to make a salient point about being the recipient of prejudice, all while people still claim to like the individual.

But Jimmy Barret (aka Jimmy Bernstein), the comedian from season two, is nowhere in the discussion. Though Latoya says, "most discussion of Jews is framed as anti-Semitic jokes, open curiosity, or thinly veiled contempt," in fact, Jimmy is the target of one of the most blatant, hateful, in-your-face moments in the series when Betty tells him, "You people are ugly and crude." And that line does exactly what Betty intended with it: it silences Jimmy. In fact, the purpose of his character was to show the fine line that most minorities walk if they want to express themselves. Some never can in public. Others, those who have some control over the extent to which they are perceived as minorities (for instance, through name changes) can only express themselves in indirect ways - the source of Barrett's anger. He is introduced in the series on the set of a commercial where he is the consummate professional (instructing the cameraman how to shoot him) playing the fool. If anyone can walk that line, it should be Jimmy Barrett. But in the end, he got shot down. Jimmy Barrett is one of the pivotal characters in a work about closeted identities, yet he's missing from the discussion.
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Norm Geras criticized an article by J.J. Goldberg, editor of the Jewish Daily Forward. Norm is plainly right that Goldberg is redefining antisemitism so as not to offend anyone who isn't named Adolph Hitler. As luck would have it, someone else discussing racism just yesterday wrote:

At the moment, the right’s standard for legitimate charges of racism are quite high: as Chris Rock once put it, you have to have shot Medgar Evers to be a racist. Sliming civil rights leaders, depicting Obama as a thug or a monkey or a watermelon-eating pickaninny, writing about Michelle eating ribs all day—that’s not racist. Shooting Medgar Evers, OK, that’s racist.

But this isn't a conservative, here. This is the editor of the Jewish Daily Forward. Goes to show (further to Jimmy Barrett) that it's not so easy for minorities to speak plainly. But Goldberg also said something Geras didn't address:

Few seemed to notice the irony: Two of the most powerful men in Hollywood, both Jewish, urging a third power player, also Jewish, to punish Stone for suggesting that Jews dominate the media. The bottom line: Stone’s comment that Jewish influence in the media stifles open discussion brought the media crashing down on his head.

Ummm, no. The fact that there are powerful Jews in Hollywood does not mean Jews "dominate" or "control" the media. It only means Jews have some influence and some power. Notably, Jews in the media have never really spoken openly about being Jewish out of fear, which is to say they didn't really have much power even if many were in positions of power. So the New York Times didn't cover the Holocaust, and Hollywood didn't make a film about antisemitism until well after WWII (1947). And they're still making crap like The Reader. But if two of the most powerful men in Hollywood, both Christian, were trying to blacklist a director for being racist, would anyone be decrying the inordinate power of Christians in Hollywood? And, though maybe it would be a good idea, let's note that no one has successfully stopped Stone from anything, yet.
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Is England antisemitic? Anthony Julius addresses a controversial statement by Shimon Peres. Julius says a lot of smart things there, but there's something I don't quite like about the interview.

Computer fixed, plus yet still more anti-racist antisemitism

But I'm going away for the weekend, so that post catching up on what I missed will have to wait.

In the meantime, it's really time Racialicious figures out why they get comments like this:

ADL is beholden to Zionist doctrine, and standing up against islamophobia or for muslim rights are nowhere to be found there. All Zionist linked organizations are in line with this. The Simon Wiesenthal Center is sponsoring a Museum of Tolerance in Jerusalem that’s being built on top of muslim graves with complete government approval. Imagine the inverse situation.

Further, why on Earth do they approve those comments. All comments at Racialicious are hand moderated. Granted, none of them are Jews (and really, that's potentially a problem right there, if it's indicative of who they think is worthy of a voice), but still, you'd think they could recognize THAT!

Zionist doctrine? Is that where Jews demand dignity and equality? Then, hell yeah, I'm all for it! Or is it the doctrine that says all Jews hate Muslims, just because we're Jews?

Plus:

yeah i just want to re-iterate that the ADL has long been a state-sponsored terrorist organization. they are zionist. they are racist. end of story

Oliver Stone, scraping his shoe

Well, after getting caught with saying something horribly racist, Oliver Stone has now said,

“In trying to make a broader historical point about the range of atrocities the Germans committed against many people, I made a clumsy association about the Holocaust, for which I am sorry and I regret. Jews obviously do not control media or any other industry. The fact that the Holocaust is still a very important, vivid and current matter today is, in fact, a great credit to the very hard work of a broad coalition of people committed to the remembrance of this atrocity – and it was an atrocity.”

I don't doubt he saw the Holocaust as an atrocity, but critics were right that he was oafish in discussing the other atrocities that also happened. As for Hitler having had help, that was Pat Buchanan's contention when he said that it was American Jews who forced Hitler's hand, but I think Stone is still on shaky ground with that one. As for Jewish control of the media, I'm not sure what to think about Stone. Here's how it was reported in the Sunday Times (of London):

He also seeks to put his atrocities in proportion: "Hitler did far more damage to the Russians than the Jewish people, 25 or 30m."

Why such a focus on the Holocaust then? "The Jewish domination of the media," he says. "There's a major lobby in the United States. They are hard workers. They stay on top of every comment, the most powerful lobby in Washington. Israel has f***** up United States foreign policy for years."

(It's behind a paywall, but you can get an even fuller version of the quote here.) One day, it's the Jewish domination of the media. The next day, no Jewish domination of the media. What could explain this sudden dramatic shift? Not a clumsy association, that's for sure. There are only two possible explanations: (1) They got to him, or (2) You know Oliver Stone is Jewish right? So this must be clever propaganda, elaborately planned from the start.

Or, who knows. Maybe it's just a cheap apology. I'd kinda like to think someone gave him some facts and he realized he was wrong, but it's not clear what exactly changed. What I quoted above is the complete statement. Note to Stone's PR hack: I wish I had a fuller picture. Perhaps even something that talked about Stone's love of conspiracy theories.

UPDATE: ADL accepts second apology. At least he's a bit more specific. But, now the apology comes down to acknowleging it was a mistake to be "glib." Interesting... Whether it's right or wrong to accept that apology, I feel confident Michael Richards would never have had his apology accepted (not that it was accepted anyway, or that I'm commenting on whether it should have been) had he said he was wrong to be so "glib." However, Paul Mooney (of all people) said Michael Richards was out of character when he did that. This seems entirely in character for Oliver Stone. Let me be clear about something, for anyone who doesn't understand: I consider Stone's remarks to be every bit as bad as standing on stage shouting "Nigger" at a Black audience member and talking about lynching them. I don't think many anti-racists understand that this idea of Jewish control of the media or government, of Jewish power generally -- these words that Stone used are the words that have been used before, repeatedly, to justify the mass murder of Jews. It is not "controversial." It is antisemitism.

Yup, Oliver Stone stepped in it

Hard to believe it's a one off. I guess now all the conspiracism he's always dealt with has a little more context. This is unabashed antisemitism. No getting around it.

Gentile privilege in a global world

Sometime ago, Julie tried to create a gentile privilege checklist. Good stuff, and a good idea. As she said,

But I think it’s clear here that if you’re not acknowledging the existence of gentile privilege, then you’re not acknowledging the existence of anti-Semitism. Oppression cannot exist without corresponding privilege.

As she also said, there are still questions about what constitutes gentile privilege. Strange as it may be, antisemitism is still undertheorized. And one of the most ignored aspects is its global nature. Going back to this picture, an important example of Nazi propaganda:

It was a German propaganda poster, but note how it depicts a Jew as controlling the UK, Soviet Union and US. With the bowler hat, it's a particularly English Jew, associated with "Manchester" (or "free market") Capitalism, even though the physical depiction is stereotypically Jewish. Why were the Germans so concerned with the power of Jews outside their own country? Because they saw Jews as part of "international Jewry." The perception of Jews was as a global force, associated with capitalism and communism and the big isms of the day that determined world events. If the Germans had been more strictly concerned with German Jews, they would have found they could effectively oppress Jews locally and they wouldn't have needed a world war to eradicate Jewishness from the world. But, of course, that's not what happeneed, because that's not how antisemitism works.

Today, half of Venezuela's Jews have fled to escape state-sponsored antisemitism, including two police raids on the largest synagogue in Caracas. But, of course, what scares Venezuela's antisemites isn't the power of Jews in Venezuela as much as it's the power of Jews in the US. Also, many Jews have fled Sweden, antisemitism there taking the superficial disguise of criticism of Israel. In many places, like Malaysia, antisemitism is a significant force even though there are few (if any) Jews. Throughout the world, there is a pressing need for a new way to talk about the oppression of local Jews in a global world as well as the privileges located inside the local community.

So we need to understand gentile privilege in a global perspective. I offer this addition:

If my group is widely recognized as a national group,
If my group is the dominant group in my country,
If my group is dominant in multiple UN member states,
then these things translate to real political power in the world.

Jews are widely dismissed as a national group. Often, we are told we are just a religion, and not entitled to the political powers that come with nationhood. We are the dominant group in Israel, which, of course, is the idea. At the same time, Israel is discriminated against within the UN. Since many members of what would be Israel's regional group do not recognize it, Israel is not permitted to participate in much of the work of the UN, which is organized by region. So, for example, Israel was not involved in any of the planning meetings for either the Durban conference or its follow up.

I think that's particularly relevant for those discussions which blamed Jews for sabotaging the discussion of reparations that was supposed to go on at those conferences. For instance, in discussing Mahmoud Amadinejad's speech at the Durban Review conference, which was toned down but still incredibly antisemitic, Naomi Klein presented it as a matter of protocol that he was allowed to speak. All heads of state would be allowed to speak (it's not clear if an Israeli head of state would actually have been allowed to speak), so it shouldn't be seen as a big deal. And Klein used this to shift blame for the conference's failures from Ahmadinejad to those who protested his speech. Not only was Klein wrong, I think she was grotesque in that article. I think this offers a better language for discussing why.

Climate change

Eve Garrard, posting at Normblog:

I don't think this would have happened 10 years ago. There certainly was anti-Semitism (of a relatively mild kind) around the place, among academics as elsewhere, but they used to know that there was something wrong with it, and hence restrained themselves, at least in public. I haven't met anything quite as nakedly direct as this in the universities before now, not even in the UCU during the boycott debates: venomous though those debates were, the fig-leaf of anti-Zionism was usually kept more or less in place.

I'll leave you to go there to read about the actual incident. Aside from actually challenging antisemites, I wonder how it would have gone if she had said she was a Zionist.

Naming is power

Jackson Diehl in the Washington Post:

Lately, Anwar [Ibrahim, the leader of Malaysia's political opposition] has been getting attention for something else: strident rhetoric about Israel and alleged "Zionist influence" in Malaysia. He recently joined a demonstration outside the U.S. embassy in Kuala Lumpur where an Israeli flag was burned. He's made dark insinuations about the "Jewish-controlled" Washington public relations firm Apco Worldwide, which is working for Malaysia's quasi-authoritarian government.

The scare quotes hint at it, but the word antisemitism is entirely missing from the piece. Matt Yglesias, though he's not without a point, is tamer still:

Presumably there are some specific issues in the area that we care about. But certainly it would be odd to make Israel the top agenda item during a discussion with Malaysian officials (one striking thing about being in China during the Gaza flotilla raid is that nobody there cared at all) or the main criterion by which we judge a politician.

Well, yes, antisemitism is still only one criteria by which to judge a Malaysian politician. Of course, Yglesias could direct criticism a little differently. What's odd is probably less Diehl's conclusions, but rather that antisemitism is such a significant piece of Malaysian politics. (Actually, it's not odd, so much as it's antisemitism.) It's not Diehl or American politicians who have created that bit of surrealism. But, even more, I really wish Yglesias would acknowledge that the issue at stake in Diehl's piece is broader than simply Israel and that antisemitism is actually a problem worth talking about sometimes.

(As an aside, the article also provides more proof that Paul Wolfowitz is no "Zionist," unless the word is used only as a euphemism for "Jew.")

Why is it that no one can say the word antisemitism? Actually, I think I know the answer to that, and it pisses me off. Is it any wonder so many Jews feel abandoned by "progressives"?

Update: David has the same response.

Really sucky tropes with long histories, 1

"Jews are responsible for antisemitism"

Today: Israel causes antisemitism. NOT cool to say this. Israel's actions often ought to lead to sharp criticism of Israel's actions -- not to antisemitism.

Ibish on Berman on al-Husseini

If you don't know, Amin al-Husseini was the Mufti of Jerusalem for a time. Promoted by the British, he was the strongest Palestinian leader (though not uncontested) during the Mandate period. He preached vicious antisemitism and gleefully collaborated with the Nazis. Hussein Ibbish continues his review of Paul Berman's latest here. Earlier, he had said it was "important and frequently brilliant, but also seriously flawed." This post is more critical than the last (which I criticized here).

I'm not as familiar as I'd like to be with the subject matter here. I do know Mizrahi Jews often view the role of Amin al-Husseini in their Nakba as being greater than Ibish allows. I also wonder if Berman is making greater use of German historians, mainly Matthias Küntzel, who begin with the Nazi account of German/Arab collaboration.

Ibish does not address the role of the Mufti in antisemitic violence prior to 1948 and the role this had on the development of the conflict. That's not to criticize Ibish, since this is not the major topic of the post, but to point out that there are important points that would be integrated into a wider discussion.

In any case, the discussion is an interesting and important one, and I'm grateful for the following passage from Ibish. Arabs and Muslims are often leery of any discussion of antisemitism in their communities. To some degree, it's understandable, but it's also counterproductive and damned frustrating. At times, it can be profoundly patronizing to refuse to take groups like Hamas and Hezbollah seriously when they spout antisemitic crap, but many defenders will outright refuse to even read the Hamas charter. Anyway, Ibish:

Berman asks, "Will someone argue that in my presentation of these developments in the Middle East, I am making too much of the Nazi contribution?" Yes, indeed I will, and I think the passage cited above is a good example of that. There is no doubt whatsoever that much of the present Islamist movement is infected with a very virulent form of anti-Semitic paranoia, largely imported from the West and that was promoted by many forces, including the Nazis, but which has a complex and overdetermined political and cultural history. It is at very best a reductive caricature to imagine that at the center of this wretched turn of events were laughable and totally ineffective Nazi propaganda efforts, particularly radio broadcasts that very few people listened to and no one appears to have heeded, and that certainly produced none of their intended effects, made by a man who was partly discredited at the time and completely discredited within three years after the end of the war, and has been almost entirely forgotten by Arab political culture except as an embarrassment and the author of a gigantic defeat. There have been plenty of other very significant, and indeed much more powerful, sources of these terrible ideas, not least of them anti-Semitic Western Christian missionaries in late 19th and early 20th centuries. One might observe, very plausibly, that it really doesn't matter what the trajectory of the growth of the Islamist movement and the development of its anti-Semitic strain that combines certain Muslim traditions and anti-Israel fanaticism with modern European anti-Semitic political paranoia might be, but the fact remains that it exists and it is a huge problem. But I do think it's important to understand what phenomena really combined produced this effect and not to get sucked into false leads and incorrect analyses that will only complicate the process of developing the necessary correctives. History matters.

Also, I'd like to point out a very interesting point Ibish makes:

Had he paid attention to Achcar, Berman wouldn't have gotten so badly wrong the central role of Rashid Rida, one of the key founders of the Salafist revival movement and publisher of the hugely influential journal al-Manar, who Burman cites as "express[ing ] sympathy for the Zionist settlers" in the 1920s. This is correct, but it misses, rather badly, Rida's subsequent introduction of the very Nazi-like anti-Semitic ideas that Berman associates most strongly with al-Husseini, and probably in a much more lasting and influential manner. And, Rida was not the only such influential voice. Indeed, Achcar provides a far better, more sophisticated, and much better informed, roadmap to the development of Nazi-like anti-Semitism among Islamists and sympathy among them for the Nazism generally, than Berman's somewhat ham-handed attempt at this.

Rida died in 1935. Just one more thing that makes it ridiculous to dismiss Arab antisemitism as purely a reaction to Zionism, which is a too frequent way of ending discussion. (And, especially, consider the role of Jews and Arabs at the time. The present power of Jews in Israel cannot be projected onto the past.) Rather, it was only natural that Arab nationalism would draw some influence from European nationalism and even European fascism.

"We're not like that" (Or, there are antisemites besides neo-Nazis)

This article from the Daily Mail has a few problems. First, as a British paper, it must feel like a great relief to criticize antisemitism in America. It isn't like we haven't got problems over here, but Britain (which invented the Blood Libel) has more than enough problems of its own. Second, the focus on neo-Nazis is always an issue. Yes, they're sensational and entertaining subjects, and news is ultimately an entertainment industry. But again, it's a great relief to swell our chests in pride and say, "we're not like those people." Antisemitism exists in different forms, and it can be difficult to criticize precisely because people only think of antisemitism as this kind of kooky far-right. When Jenny Tonge is criticized for antisemitism, she responds by saying, "I'm not like those people." Third, the beliefs of these neo-Nazis are hardly described. This article is actually better than most on this account, but still falls short of really informing anyone, focusing instead on the openness of the family's hatred. The family are described more than once as Holocaust deniers. Beyond that, there's this bit (toward the end, where an editor might have cut it off for length):

'I have read a little bit about their religion and a lot of it is very damaging to people,' she said.

'The Jews are definitely the worst race in America.'

But there is nothing more specific about their beliefs about Jews. Why do they think the Jews are the worst race in America? That's not to say that antisemitism is worse than other forms of racism. It's important to note the distinction that these antisemites make, which is not the same as reifying the distinction. They see people of color as animals but see Jews as demons. Animals could never take control of the government, but demons can and will. Watch The Omen if you don't already get why people who don't look so different can be so scary; the film features an infant as the ultimate evil for a reason. Neo-nazis view the US as occupied territory, controlled by a "Zionist Occupied Government." It's here that someone who likes to talk about the power of Jews (like Stephen Walt or John Mearsheimer or Jenny Tonge) might find a similarity they couldn't dismiss so simply by saying "We're not like that." And, of course, such a similarity is far more important than the swastika tattoos.

People simply don't know enough about antisemitism, which makes it difficult to keep antisemitism from being subsumed into a more general anti-racist effort that doesn't come close to meeting the needs of Jews. Articles like this, which discourage any sort of self-criticism, are part of that problem.

Anthony Julius interviewed by Leonard Lopate

Here.



A fairly good interview, though I think it really says something that Leonard Lopate is wrong about a few significant facts. At one point, Lopate lists a string of criticisms of Israel, to which Julius replies that none of them are true. (Without listening to it again, some are true and some aren't, but Julius can't be blamed for treating them in bulk when they were presented that way.) This isn't FOX News or even CNN. This is one of the best radio shows out there, and yet there's some stuff from the host that's simply wrong. Julius is right to note that Arabs in Israel are allowed to serve in the military -- what is different is that Arabs are not generally compelled to do so, with some exceptions from communities that asked to be compelled to serve. Portraying this choice as Israeli compassion is probably going too far, but he could have added that Israeli Arabs (as are all Israelis) are allowed to do civil service in their own communities to substitute for military service. Few Arabs, though the number was growing last I heard, elect to do so because they feel it would legitimize the state. In that way, they refuse the benefits given to those who do military service. Here, before we address the legitimacy of a policy with such an effect arising in such a way, we must notice that this question hinges on whether it is legitimate to criticize Israel (uniquely) for simply existing, since that is the reason underlying the refusal to do service.

Btw, the comments online are not so much better than would be expected elsewhere.

UPDATE:

But there are people who bridle at any criticism of Israel just like there are people who bridle at any defense of Israel. And I've had that experience on this show both ways. I'm afraid to say that I think Avidgor Lieberman is somebody who may be engaged in something the equivalent of racism because I know I'm going to get angry mail. So I didn't say that.

Something the equivalent of racism?? Would he describe Hassan Nasrallah so tepidly? (I imagine he would, but I expect he'd only bridle at different criticism.) I wish Julius had offered a more comprehensive response than merely, "Yes." Lopate's description of Lieberman just after is really flawed. Lieberman's argued for redrawing the borders so that many Israeli Arabs (currently Israeli) would be citizens of a new Palestinain state. And he's talked about a loyalty oath for those left (and for Orthodox Jews, who aren't Zionists, as well). That's not the same as "expelling" Arabs -- at least, not in the way most commonly understood and in the way previously used in the interview to describe the expulsion of Jews from England. That expulsion of Jews from England forced people to actually leave their homes; Lieberman's policies wouldn't require anyone to move. And it's certainly nothing like Nasrallah's desire to kill all Jews worldwide. I bridle at the absurd phrase "something the equivalent of racism" to describe someone who is clearly racist, but this is hardly unique to describing Israelis. Regardless of what side he's on, or his views on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, Lopate ought to be afraid of simply getting facts wrong.

The fact that both sides are oppressed means there's not a lot of room for poetic expression. And if Lopate can't get the facts right, how are we supposed to expect anyone to.

And, blatantly, the "antisemitism of fools" should be attributed to August Bebel and not Thomas Mann.

To Have and Have Not

Watching the film on PBS with my wife, introduced by a film scholar. Didn't know Lauren Bacall (aka Betty Joan Perske) was Jewish. Or that she hid her Jewishness in the face of Howard Hawks casual antisemitism.

Moishe Postone on recent events

Read this, from Moishe Postone (via).

"Arbeit Macht Frei" sign stolen from Auschwitz

Wow. There's a replica already in place, but that's just really disturbing.

On not subsuming the fight against antisemitism

Often, I'm told that it's the same people who hate Muslims and Jews. This is often true, but not always. The problem arises, however, when this flawed generalization is used to subsume the fight against antisemitism in a general fight against racism that really doesn't address antisemitism at all. It's really pisses me off when someone who doesn't know jack about antisemitism, who is often enough saying things that are offensive, who is often arguing that fighting against antisemitism is a bad thing, tells me to shut up because "we're on the same side."

So, I thought I'd share something. Some time ago --way back in June-- I'd commented on a blog somewhere and subscribed to that conversation. (I don't even remember how I found that post.) Well, it wasn't actually much of a conversation, but someone else did respond. I'm not sure why I got email about it now, when the response is dated August on the blog, but here it is:

As a member of the Knights Party, and a Aryan seperatist (not supremist) I have never understood the unrest between Christians and Muslems. These are two different religions, both with a center belief in a loving, forgiving God (yes…sometimes wrathful) who’s followers understand that you cant convert a dead man! I mean, as a Christian, I dont know that much about the Muslem religion, but it seems to me your Jahad (holy wars) wer’nt that much different from our crusades, inquisitions, and ex-communications of Roman Catholisism. You call God “Allah”, we call him “Jehova”…you believe in his great prophet “Mohammad”…we believe in his son “Jesus”. We have segregation in our communities, and there is no reason we two peoples could not co-exist.

But now, lets look at the jew. We see through nearly two thousand years of history in Christiandom that these “peoples” are of a “religion” that precludes anyone outside their race to be a part of. If only whites could be Christian…then yes, all other races would be heathens; but our religion, I think like yours, is not contingant on race…but of faith. This allows the jew justification for being the most racist of all the tribes of Israel, and an excuse to bring harm to others.
Why even their “god” (which is actually money) tells them to go about and “gobble up” all the peoples of the earth! Look at what is going on in America today. Every single time you hear of illegal, criminal white collar crime involving banks and investment companies, those in the center have “son” or “man” at the end of their name! To say “the jew is not OUR enemy” is flawed, because the jew is EVERYONE’S enemy!!!…unless you are a jew dog yourself, therefor “born” into being the “chossen” people of god. The evil that killed Christ still walks amongst us!

Now, I'm not going to bother debunking the incredibly obvious racism. The writer admits to being an Aryan separatist. I guess that's more extreme than just being a white separatist? But, I do want to point out the obvious: his attitudes toward Muslims and toward Jews are different. In the histories of white supremacism and antisemitism, this is common.

Jewish Self-Hatred

It's common in anti-racism to talk about internalized oppression. When Bill Cosby gave this controversial speech, a lot of people, including many anti-racists, said it was a manifestation of internalized prejudice. In talk about the Log Cabin Republicans, it's not uncommon to hear that they're voting against their interests as gay people. These, I think, are complicated examples, but there are other examples that are considerably less complicated. Phyllis Schlafly was, at one point, perhaps the most prominent anti-feminist. "By getting married, the woman has consented to sex, and I don't think you can call it rape." Then there's Ted Haggard and Larry Craig. Haggard has been to rehab a few times to try to get over his habit of having sex with men; Craig was arrested for soliciting sex in a airport mens' room; yet both are outrageously homophobic. Although it can, at times, be difficult to address, internalized oppression is an important concept in anti-racism. For some reason, when it comes to Jews, the rhetoric is different. I don't come across anti-racists who would insist that other Blacks should be ignored because of Cosby. I do come across anti-racists who think they can choose who are the "good Jews" whose views should be promoted by anti-racists.

And I do come across anti-racists who would deny that Jews suffer from internalized antisemitism. Contemporary examples of antisemitism in Jews are not hard to find. Perhaps the most dangerous antisemite today considers himself an "ex-Jew." (I won't name him, because that would be an invitation for his participation here.) Not too long ago, I stumbled across this article, wherein Jews are "the enemy of the people." Self-identified anti-racists often defend and even repeat such expressions on the grounds that it is unimpeachable because the source is a Jew. Oddly, I am never seen as unimpeachable.

Anthony Lerman writes in the Guardian on Jewish self-hatred (via). First, he claims it doesn't exist.

If anything finally shows up the concept as bogus and bankrupt, it should be the use of it against Goldstone.

Now, for the record, I buy Dan Fleshler's take on Goldstone's psychology. [Update: here's the link.] I'm not going to argue that Goldstone is a self-hating Jew, but Goldstone is merely the occasion for Lerman's article, not the point. After saying that self-hatred in Jews is "bogus and bankrupt," Lerman goes on to say Zionists may be self-hating Jews. That's pretty confused.

This is sheer intellectual laziness, or an ideological or political predisposition dressed up in academic language, or both. In fact, the way all of the key historical figures from the late 19th and early 20th centuries who are used to prove the existence of Jewish self-hatred – [Otto] Weininger, Sigmund Freud, Karl Kraus, Heinrich Heine – related to their Jewishness has been shown to be far too complex to allow the self-hating Jew label to be anything other than a crude mis-characterisation. Moreover, the perceived antisemitism in their writings was mirrored in the writings of Zionists, especially the founder of political Zionism Theodor Herzl. He painted the weak ghetto Jew, in his 1897 essay "Mauschel", as "a distortion of the human character, unspeakably mean and repellent", interested only in "mean profit". Far from being the antithesis of Jewish self-hatred, it is arguable that Zionism was actually a display of it.

The major thrust of Lerman's article is about who gets to speak for Jews. Given the charges he levels at Zionism, it's hard to avoid the impression that he seems to think he does, but explicitly, he doesn't think the Jewish community should be able to silence him with the "a way of delegitimising the views of Jews with whom you violently disagree." He's half-right; truly, no one gets to speak for all Jews. All Jews are equally entitled to their own individual views, even if those views are ugly antisemitism or just plain wrong. But then, neither can contrarian voices, like Lerman's, be given prominence by non-Jewish institutions like the Guardian to speak over the majority or plurality views of Jews worldwide. Sometimes, we call that colonialism.

Neither should people be given space to spout nonsense. Weininger, for example, was genuinely self-hating. Lerman's claim otherwise is based on the notion that self-hating is either absolute or not at all. If a Jew doesn't aim to be Hitler, so it seems, they're not self-hating. As Lerman writes,

Jewish self-hatred means rejecting everything about yourself that is Jewish because it is so hateful to you.

Here's a bit from Wikipedia:

In a separate chapter, Weininger, himself a Jew who had converted to Christianity in 1902, analyzes the archetypical Jew as feminine, and thus profoundly irreligious, without true individuality (soul), and without a sense of good and evil. Christianity is described as "the highest expression of the highest faith", while Judaism is called "the extreme of cowardliness". Weininger decries the decay of modern times, and attributes much of it to feminine, and thus Jewish, influences. By Weininger's reckoning everyone shows some femininity, and what he calls "Jewishness".

Here's what Richard Newman says (in a series I recommend, despite differences) about Weininger:

In 1903, Otto Weininger, a baptized Jew, published Sex and Character, a highly influential book in which he rendered the conceptual parallels I have just outlined in concrete biological and psychopathological terms. Human psychology, Weininger argued, existed along a continuum running from the Jewish mind on one end to the Aryan mind on the other, and this continuum, he asserted, runs parallel to another one, defined by masculinity and femininity. The connections Weininger makes between these two continuums are many. Neither Jews nor women, he says, possess true creativity; both are congenitally dishonest, lack a genuine sense of humor, and each exists without fully believing in the authenticity of that existence.

To call this "far too complex to allow the self-hating Jew label to be anything other than a crude mis-characterisation" is odd, to say the least. Especially when Weininger was claiming that Jews are congenitally self-hating! His definition is so strict that one could declare Jews to be uniformly, morally inferior, but still not be considered "self-hating" because of a love of bagels.

Also, although Lerman is right that there is some similarity, what Zionists said was quite different from what Weininger said. (But again, odd that Lerman would quote Herzl as saying, "a distortion of the human character, unspeakably mean and repellent," when Lerman is intent on denying Jewish self-hatred exists.) While Weininger converted to Christianity to try to overcome his congenital Jewish inferiority (and eventually committed suicide), Zionists claimed it was a consequence of Diaspora. As I'd put it today, though I'm not certain whether Herzl would have agreed, a consequence of Jewish oppression in which Jews were (are) dependent on antisemitic neighbors for insuring Jewish safety.

And that's the real rub. When Jews are not taken seriously on Jewish oppression - and Lerman is part of this process as he is often presented as a "good Jew" in order to silence those of us who are "bad Jews" - our options for insuring our safety are either to conform to outside injunctions that immediately subordinate us or to try to separate ourselves from that position of needing allies. In the case of the Goldstone report, originating from an institutionally antisemitic UNHRC, these issues of Jewish autonomy are poignant. I won't say Lerman is a self-hating Jew, because, like all ad hominem attacks, it would be pointless. Besides, I think all of us have various kinds of harmful, internalized beliefs, so that it would be pointless to single Lerman out that way. Even if, in another article, he were to say something truly offensive, I would hope (though it is, admittedly, difficult in such cases) to see him sympathetically as a victim of a colonial oppression. Despite being quite clearly wrong in a very basic way he's entitled to his views, but it remains vital that Jews generally are entitled to critique that which affects us, especially antisemitism, regardless of the source. Lerman's article is an attack on that basic right.