Liveblogging a Racialicious fiasco

Too much, too much. Elle complains:

I am shocked at the level of anti-Semitism allowed on this blog.

And the response?

Ellen, this is the mission statement of the ADL, taken directly from their website:

I know I sometimes get names wrong, but I make an attempt to replicate them exactly as is. It's just a matter of decency. More importantly, while the response pointing to the ADL's mission statement is technically correct, it hardly matters. Elle made a number of points, none of which are refuted with this.

Furthermore, we could ask why it is that the ADL's mission statement is that way. I would suggest it's because Jews have always felt an inappropriate pressure to subsume our issues to "larger" issues, which is part of what makes us so vulnerable to "colorblind" (really, the analogue of) racism.

Previous. I sincerely hope I have the chance to update this repeatedly.

UPDATE: Well, so far only one more comment. From a Jew disappointed by the whole affair:

I am also terrified that my fellow “progressives” are using this as one more way of painting Jews as the bad guys, the ones in power, the oppressors, the evil Zionists who keep those poor Muslims down. Come on, you guys are smarter than that.

I hope they prove me wrong, but I am afraid, having watched Racialicious fail time and again, that they're not smarter than that.

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

More on The Left at War

Within a few hours I'll fall silent for 3 months. I promise, the reason is time limited, so I'll be back without fail. For now, though, I have only a short time to write. This post won't include the substantiating links or extended quotes I'd like. But I do want to give a fuller account of Michael Bérubé's book, The Left at War.

Most of all, it is a clear and insightful account of one particular, devastating division on the Left. The loud and seemingly omnipresent Chomsky/Z/Counterpunch-Left versus those who are less iconoclastic, much more in touch with reality, and hopefully form a widespread 'silent majority.'

One downside I can't ignore: it's far less funny than Bérubé's other popular books. At one point, I blamed Chomsky for sucking the air out, but that's not quite the issue. The titles, including chapter titles like 'Nowhere Left to Go' (perhaps that's slightly inaccurate, but I'm not checking it, for time), introducing the absurdity of leftier-than-thou politics, or 'Is it Hegemonic, Yet?,' are often witty. However the few jokes sprinkling most chapters fall flat because they don't add up to a funny tone. It is only in the chapter 'What is this cultural in cultural studies' (again, the title is probably slightly off) where the jokes really flow. One of the best is aimed at one of Bérubé's heroes, Richard Rorty.

More seriously, is the issue of Israel and antisemitism. Very quickly, he quotes Moishe Postone and Ellen Willis. His view, generally, on Israel, is to be commended. He writes that, when he opposed Israel's invasion of Lebanon, he found a professor from DePaul (and this should probably be considered context for Norman Finkelstein's failure to get tenure there; the professor here is not Finkelstein) calling him a Nazi apologist for not doing so as rabidly as the other professor thought appropriate.

But he largely drops the matter. He quotes Postone arguing that Islamic antisemitism, like other antisemitism, is a fetishistic backlash in a world perceived as threatening, but he moves on to other issues. Perhaps that's because he views the discourse surrounding the issue as "toxic," and steers away from it.

He takes on James Petras, because it's easy to get agreement on Petras, but he doesn't really get to the more influential Alexander Cockburn (Counterpunch is mentioned twice, in general statements, but Cockburn only warrants a footnote where he's taken to task for his position on the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan). The book was written too early for Bérubé to comment on the attempt at Counterpunch to rehabilitate the Medieval blood libel or Cockburn's most blatant attempt to reach out to the antisemitic/isolationist far right. But Cockburn had already published plenty of Gilad Atzmon and Paul Craig Roberts, the 'father of Reaganomics' who also writes for the white supremacist vdare.com. Bérubé doesn't mention the SWP (in Britain) which hosted Gilad Atzmon repeatedly at its Marxism festival.

I don't want to criticize Bérubé for not writing the book I would have written, because then I'd have learned nothing, but I think it would have served the book to detail why antisemitism is often a part of Manichean movements for change, whether on the right or left, and often leads to dangerous left/right alliances. In fact, antisemitism often seems to define a certain cutoff point (even better than the "we are living in The Matrix"/"Manufacturing Consent" view he criticizes) where violence (from Timothy McVeigh, al Qaeda, or the Red Army Fraktion) comes to be seen as reasonable.

And, of course, he could have done a lot to explain why so many Jews are worried about these trends on the Left. This might have served to make the topic less toxic. But then it might be a different book. The one he wrote is absolutely worth reading, and one reason is what he does include on antisemitism. The bigger reason, though, is the summary of Stuart Hall that every other review will mention.

See you all in April!!

back from retreat

A wonderful time staring at the floor for a week.

It will, however, take me a little time to get back to speed. For now, here's two at Contested Terrain that need to be read:

Leftists use violence to prevents the showing of the Claude Lanzmann's film "Why Israel?" When you use violence to prevent Jews from taking an active and robust role in politics within any country other than Israel, then opposition to Israel's existence is the denial to Jews of all political rights.

The anti-Zionist and antisemite Alexander Cockburn, still widely respected as a Left journalist, is now actively seeking alliance with right-wing antisemites.

He wrote: “What I’m sure is attractive about the idea of the left-right opposition to war is the idea of a shared moral outlook, which of course then has to confront or perhaps gloss over temporarily economic and political differences. And I think the shared moral outlook should extend beyond war into other very, important areas.”

This, of course, was the great claim of fascism, that it could unite those with disparate interests.

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.

Left(?) Antisemitism

On Chavez's antisemitism, at the Boston Review (via Bob). Honestly, I don't know how anyone has ever considered Chavez a Leftist. Petty fascist from the first.

And, while I'm at it, David on Naomi Klein. I think I can understand why David is as angry as he is (or seems), but I'm not sure Klein deserves language such as, "Klein's antics reveal her true colors -- as an ally of hate, of the fury and bigotry that threatens to consume us all." And yet, to say she seems confused rather than hateful would be condescending given that political theory is her thing. And David's criticism is far too cogent to let Klein's offense pass.

Seriously, this is victim-blaming at its most blatant. Klein admits that Ahmadinejad's speech was racist, but still faults Jewish groups for opposing the conference that gave him an open mic. Because we refuse to be abused, we're committing sabotage at an anti-racism conference. Here's a thought -- maybe if putative anti-racists like Klein would step up and refuse to tolerate anti-Semitism, then Jewish students wouldn't need to dress up like clowns to draw attention to it.

Alice Walker once wrote that "No person is your friend who demands your silence." In the face of growing anti-Semitism -- a rise in racism that has occurred on both the left and right, in Europe and worldwide -- Klein's demand of Jews is that they shut up and let the real people talk. No dice.

Heads, Nazis win; Tails, Jews lose

Bob points to this little spat at Indymedia NYC. (New York, for anyone who didn't know, is where I live. It is also the last place most people assume antisemitism exists.) It follows a story about the recent case of an Austrian hotelier which declared it will not allow Jewish guests. A blatant case of discrimination which (if I understand Bob correctly) Contested Terrain posted to Indymedia. Someone responds:

Hey you Zionazi shit.

You can readily identify Zionazis, as they're the ones who find discrimination against Jews distasteful. (I'm not really sure, but I actually don't think CT is a Zionist. I think he's more of an anarchist, in an anti-Deutsch mold. UPDATE: CT describes his views in the comments.) Then there's a response from someone Bob describes as "more sensible." This more sensible poster begins:

so do the zionists pay you to say things this stupid and offensive and blatantly anti semetic?

Of course, it's meant as a joke. Or at least I think it is. But what I find not so funny is how it uses antisemitic conspiracism as an explanation for antisemitism. Continuing:

hey indymedia, this is why no one gives a shit about this site! for the millionth time, anti semitism (or provacteur bullshit like this, which amounts to the same thing and means you are actually probably also doing free pr for israel's foreign policy by letting it be posted)

The problem with antisemitism, as depicted here, isn't that it will harm Jews. The problem is that it will hurt Indymedia's reputation. (It also, maybe, describes a sort of Jewish control, just shy of conspiracy.)

does exist, independent of whatever israel does or does not do, existed before israel and is as bad as racism in addition to dumbing down and poisoning the well for any kind of intelligent political debate.

Well, that's at least a bit better. But, "as bad as racism"? Funny how even the anti-racist bit manages to set us apart.

All in all, more sensible is a bit of a low standard.

But to oppose antisemitism is understood as 'coming out' as a Jew. Like a straight guy who won't put up with homophobic jokes. The explanation is that the straight guy is gay. Or the anti-racist who becomes a "nigger-lover." Whether antisemites use the straightforward "Jew" or the more circumspect "Zionazi" doesn't much matter - that dynamic is more important.

a tolerant left?

A friend sent this article by email. It also appears that antisemitism pushes respondents left on a generic economic question (tax cuts for business to spur job creation).

The traditional concept of a left-right conflict takes into account the realities of the period only very partially, and it often fails to take them into account at all. ---Zeev Sternhell, on the development of fascism.

Classic

A [UK] government adviser on extremism was criticised last night after sending an email claiming “Jews” were behind a number of websites that undermined Islam.

Via this post on how the Left in Britain is failing to take antisemitism seriously.

Yes, the Left does mainstream repulsive ideas, too

It's a fairly common argument, and one with considerable merit in many situations. The moonbats on the far left aren't taken seriously by the center left in the same way that the wingnuts on the far right are by the center right. People like Pat Buchanan, who is increasingly close to admitting he's a white supremacist, gets respect from other Republicans and even the mainstream media. Well, when it comes to antisemitism, it's not true that the Left keeps its loonies in check.

From Gene at Harry's Place:

I noticed that another of the “Cesspool’s” guests was the pro-secessionist Kirkpatrick Sale, a frequent contributor to Counterpunch and a contributing editor of The Nation. Of course I don’t expect any better from Counterpunch, but The Nation has some credibility on the Left. What will it take to get him removed from their masthead?

I imagine there are different organizing principles at work in the left and right. The "socialism of fools" is more easily mainstreamed by left-wing moonbats and red-brown coalitions than it ever could be by David Duke. If Pat Buchanan were the most centrist individual railing against the power of "the Israeli defense ministry and its 'amen corner' in the United States" (long before Mearsheimer and Walt), no one would ever take him seriously.

It's time for the left to end its hypocrisy. Sure, they might be better on antisemitism as a whole than the right is when taken as a whole, but they can't pretend that their antisemites are harmless while simultaneously embracing them. There are many Jews more concerned about left-antisemitism than about right-antisemitism these days. And with good reason.

Antisemitism in Venezuela

It's a typical feature of antisemitism that personally directed violence grows more slowly than antisemitic rhetoric, with disagreement about the seriousness of the problem. Pointedly, Germans argued over whether antisemitism was either "the new Judenhass" or something innocuous. I think Shulamit Volkov's Germans, Jews, and Antisemites (see this review at HNet) is a pretty important book, for Venezuela and elsewhere, but I wonder if people are aware of it outside limited academic circles.

Engage links to this story at Commentary on Venezuelan antisemitism. I'm particularly disturbed by this:

On television, Mario Silva, the host of a popular pro-Chávez show called La Hojilla (“The Razor Blade”), has repeatedly named prominent Venezuelan Jews as anti-government conspirators and called on other Jews to denounce them. “Rabbi Jacobo Benzaquén and Rabbi Pynchas Brener are actively participating in the conspiracy in conjunction with the media,” Silva has said. “So as not to be called an anti-Semite,” he added, “I repeat that those Jewish businessmen not involved in the conspiracy should say so.”

Though Silva might really believe that he is willing to spare "good Jews" from condemnation, that effectively means only those Jews who are willing to become increasingly antisemitic anytime any gentile questions their loyalty to the state.

Hagee II

I'm willing to call Hagee's dispensationalist views antisemitic. Despite being among the most philo-semitic expressions of dispensationalism, it's problematic to view Jews as role players in your worldview. A philosemitism that reduces, that leads a gentile to tell me what how I should think and feel as a Jew. But, with that said, the criticism of Hagee hasn't always seemed sincere. Often, it's been kinda funny. How many of those gentiles who are vocal in criticizing Hagee's antisemitism can lay claim to standing up to neo-Nazis the way he has.

Hell, I've found plenty of these "liberals" endorsing Holocaust deniers and apologizing for blatant bigots. Not to offer a pass to Hagee, but to call on others to be more consistent in challenging antisemitism when it comes from the left, here's what Hagee has said. The quote is taken from Shmuel Rosner (unfortunately, no more direct link - scroll down):

What has been disappointing has been to see my life's work - the great passion of my life ? mischaracterized and attacked. I have dedicated my life to combating anti-Semitism and supporting the State of Israel. In taking a stand for Israel I have received death threats from anti-Semites and neo-Nazis, and I've had the windows of my car blown out beneath the windows of the rooms in which my children slept. To hear people who know nothing about me or my life's work claim that I somehow excuse the Holocaust is simply heartbreaking.

Let me be clear -- to assert that I in any way condone the Holocaust or that monster Adolf Hitler is the worst of lies. I have always condemned the horrors of the Holocaust in the strongest of terms. But even more importantly, my abhorrence of the Holocaust and anti-Semitism has never stopped with mere words.

I have devoted most of my adult life to ensuring that there will never be a second Holocaust. I have worked tirelessly to eliminate the sin of anti-Semitism from the Christian world and to ensure the survival of the State of Israel.

The fact is that all people of faith have had to wrestle with the question of why a sovereign God would allow evil in the world. After Auschwitz, this question became more urgent than ever.

Many people simply could not explain how a loving God would permit such horrors. After the Holocaust, they abandoned their faith in a sovereign God who intervenes here on earth. While I disagree with this conclusion, I would never denigrate those who arrived at such a conclusion.

But I and many millions of Christians and Jews came to a different conclusion. We maintained our faith in a sovereign God who allows both the good and the evil that is in the world. We therefore search the scriptures for an explanation for that evil. We believe that the words of the Hebrew prophets such as Jeremiah may help us understand the mind of God. But our search for an explanation for evil must never be confused with an effort to excuse it.

Are you now, or have you ever been Jewish? (I mean Zionist, of course.)

Malcolm Hoenlein has been telling everyone who will listen that something dangerous is happening among the American elite. A short version of his view holds that pro-Israel positions among American Jews are being delegitimized by being defined as "anti-American."

Of course, even if most Americans disagree, it is hardly un-American to hold an unpopular political opinion in America. In fact, protection for unpopular, political views is (theoretically) enshrined in our most basic values.

Yet it happens to be that most Americans happen to hold pro-Israel views. So what does it mean when the views of Jews are seen as illigitate even as they coincide with the views of most Americans? It is the Jewishness of those Jews holding such opinions that is being attacked.

Via Orthodox Anarchist, who also expresses concern about the rumors about Dennis Kucinich and AIPAC:

Before the rumor started circulating that Kucinich threw AIPAC out of his office, his Congressional campaign had no cash on hand. The following week, after the rumor had burned through the web leaving a trail of anti-Jewish outpourings in its wake, he had $4 million.

Among people donating to Kucinich, of course, there's likely to be a repudiation of all Americans holding pro-Israel views. But are most Americans getting called un-American for it?

Recent expressions of antisemitism

Not too long ago, I came across yet another claim that antisemitism is pretty much over with. That would make it the only prejudice to ever disappear as a result of getting bad. Perhaps, then the answer to all sorts of other prejudices would be to have an Inquisition? Or an outbreak of pogroms? Or, a Holocaust? Well, no.

Slavery and lynchings didn't lead to the end of racism and the Holocaust didn't lead to the end of antisemitism. It is not relegated to the fringes where it's safely contained. While overt expressions were hushed, the same ideas that underlie it are still prevalent in society. And that means it's still around.

The CST in Britain just released a report on antisemitic incidents in Britain from 2007. It's a .pdf, so I'll also link to the post at Harry's Place which picks out a few statistics. The numbers were slightly down from 2006, which Mark Gardner of the CST attributes to a decline in hate mail while the number of violent assaults were actually up. That the numbers were down was attributed to a lack of a "Lebanon War-type trigger" in the Middle East, but that's likely to mean bad things for 2008 starting with the attention on Gaza. And future trigger events, whether they relate to the Middle East or expand to domestic politics in Western countries, are inevitable. Jews, of course, have been blamed for more than just wars in the past - and that might be starting.

While hate crime statistics are rarely very solid, recall that a 2006 study found Jews in Britain far more likely than Muslims to be victims. And while American statistics on hate crimes are harder to interpret, they suggest the same thing, with Jews victims of over 65% of religiously motivated hate crimes while Muslims were victims of almost 12%. In part because Jews are not recognized as a distinct ethnic group in statistics and many Islamophobic attacks may have been listed as racially-motivated, in part because there's likely to be different willingness to report crimes among the two demographic groups - mostly because there's no need or use in trying to say who's got it worse - I'd caution against arguing that one group faces worse oppression. But two groups can face oppression at the same time. Duh! Yet time and again, I've been told that Jews aren't oppressed or that Muslims have it worse and so we shouldn't worry about antisemitism.

So here are some more links I've collected over just the past few days:

The Guardian jumped to conclusions about who killed a member of Hezbollah. Irrational anti-Zionism/anti-Israelism/antisemitism? Whichever, I'm not particularly happy about it. Yaacov Lozowick has a dissection of the headline well worth reading.

It's not so hushed anymore in Poland (even though there aren't many Jews there):

WARSAW - This was not a pogrom, but it was close. Sunday's incident in Krakow at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Jesus was rife with overtones of hatred. "The Jews are attacking us! We need to defend ourselves," shouted Prof. Bogoslav Wolniewicz, to stormy applause.

Ben Cohen writes about the links being formed joining part of the left to the far-right, discussing specifically events in Italy. The same is happening in the US, with Mearsheimer and Walt providing a high profile (and cover, as everyone is too intimidated to denounce their work in strong terms).

Unsurprisingly, the Iranians make the list.

A minor tv celebrity "sent her former Israeli-born employer, Ami James, an autographed photo some months ago bearing a swastika and the invective 'burn in hell Jewbag.'"

Although it was a discussion about immigration, not antisemitism, Lou Dobbs dissed the ADL. (Of course, if you're of the opinion that the Final Solution provided an ironic final solution to antisemitism, that wouldn't bother you, but then you might be the sort of person who thinks Jews abuse the memory of the Holocaust for political gain.)

And a blatantly antisemitic hoax about AIPAC trying to bribe Kucinich -taken as proof of Jewish power- is circulating the internet, including DailyKos and Portland Indymedia. According to the DailyKos posting, "Kucinich now faces several well-financed primary challengers for his seat in Congress," and this is implied to be the quick work of an organization with power quite beyond that of any other I've ever heard of.

Of course, I'm probably blissfully unaware of a few more cemetary desecrations and other incidents. And, of course while the guy recently arrested in Brooklyn might have been a fringe figure, that doesn't mean he couldn't have killed people. So, yeah, the ADL is relevant. And people are right to worry about the effects of Mearsheimer and Walt's thesis of Jewish power.

Updates: Vancouver public library to showcase blatant antisemite (who often simply substitutes the word Khazar for "Jew" like some people use Canadian for "black"). And, yes, the antisemitism of groups like Hamas (an interesting video), does count as antisemitism in the world. Another sampling, of a different character can be found here. And, you know, I missed the significance of part of the Dennis Kucinich rumor: supposedly, Pelosi was with AIPAC as they tried to get Kucinich to drop his efforts to impeach Cheney. Because, of course, Jews are running both branches of government in an orchestrated fashion.

Yes, DAMMIT, Left antisemitism is real

Over at Socialist Unity (h/t to Engage), Andy Newman writes:

For example, this Tuesday in the pub after our local Stop the War Coalition meeting there was a discussion about the US presidential elections, and one well respected socialist activist expressed the opinion that Israel decided who the US president would be, and a member of the Green Party agreed that Jews still controlled most of the world’s money. Of course other people, including myself, challenged these views.

The individuals concerned would be horrified to be called anti-Semitic. Indeed I am sure they are not prejudiced at all against individual Jews, but they have bought into anti-Semitic narratives. The worrying thing is that so much of the left seems to ignore this problem.

That was at least challenged. Not long ago Duncan Money wrote:

Anti-Semitism does exist on the left and for any anti-fascist this is disturbing. The first demo I ever went on, a couple of years back, was a pretty boring counter-demonstration against the National Front and one of the first things I noticed was that on the march was a middle-aged woman carrying a placard reading 'Israel stop controlling Britain and America!' accompanied with a swastika and an Israeli flag. Here we were marching against fascists and no-one challenged her.

On top of that, there were stories of "peace" protests in France and Britain with groups breaking off to beat up Jews. The infamous posters below from anti-war rallies (documented by zombietime)

And, of course, historical examples abound. Nazi control of Germany did not develop from a far-right movement becoming mainstream. It was far more complicated than that and involved people on the left (or who moved from the left) who were committed to the Nazis. In the Boer War, Left antisemitism was key to the anti-war movement. And let's not forget Stalin, whose antisemitic propaganda resounds today.


Call it a "new antisemitism," or the same old antisemitism. Call these people fascists successfully pretending to be on the left. Or call it antisemitism that pervades society from right to left. Make a point of saying that you still think right-wing antisemitism is more dangerous (even though I'd disagree with you on that for a few reasons). In any case, I don't care much about how you want to conceptualize that, so long as you acknowledge that antisemitism exists on the Left. It's prominent on the Left. And it's a problem.

At the march Duncan was talking about, an antifascist protest!, no one thought it was enough of a problem to confront that women who felt that Jews control the US and Britain. That, right there is classic antisemitism, and when antifascists are ignoring it, we have a problem.

New Left Antisemitism

Alan Johnson offers some thoughts:

Anderson is no anti-semite. But he has embraced a conspiracy story about an Israeli octopus spreading its controlling tentacles into the US political system and media. And he has decked it out in the language of Marxism, and lent it his lustre. And that's bad enough.

My only question is how such a person isn't an antisemite? What does that mean? And why do so many people feel compelled to make such disclaimers?