Dear Israel Lobby, We Give Up

[yathrib]

AlterNet
Dear Israel Lobby, We Give Up -- Please Give Us an Acceptable Way of Insulting You
By Joshua Holland, AlterNet
Posted on February 13, 2012, Printed on February 15, 2012
http://www.alternet.org/story/154131/de ... ulting_you

The latest round in the long and nasty debate over Israel, Palestine and our own government's Mideast policy began with a coordinated campaign -- initiated by a former AIPAC staffer and eagerly picked up by the conservative media -- to marginalize a handful of progressive bloggers at the Center for American Progress and Media Matters who wrote critically of Israel's hard-right government and called its enablers in the United States "Israel Firsters." (I wrote about the dust-up in December.)

The back and forth has continued since then, and it's now become clear that we need to offer a simple challenge to those who say that such terms are beyond the pale because they bear some vague resemblance to some old “anti-Semitic trope” or another. What, exactly, is an acceptable way of mixing it up with these people? How can we marginalize their malign policy preferences without being smeared as anti-Semites or self-loathing Jews?

America's political discourse is not a garden party. We're factionalized, and we throw sharp elbows, especially online, where conservatives call liberals “moonbats,” and accuse them of hating America, and liberals lob back terms like “wingnut,” and accuse their counterparts of being morons.

In the debate over Israel and Palestine – and U.S. policy in the Middle East – one side has been disarmed, their derogatory labels rejected as singularly unacceptable, while their opponents remain free to use the coarsest insults against them with impunity.

The problem stems from the objective fact that there are a group of Americans – disproportionately represented among right-wing Christian evangelicals and older generations of Jewish-Americans – who ally themselves with the Israeli government. They do so regardless of its ideological bent at the moment and deny that the Palestinians have legitimate grievances (sometimes going so far as to deny their existence). They wish away the cruelty of the occupation, pretend that there are only rejectionists on the Palestinian side and Israel only wants peace, claim Israel has never violated international law or trampled on human rights, insist that Israeli Arabs don't face hostility and discrimination and go around calling everyone who disagrees anti-Semites and terror supporters.

And despite the fact that their views are totally out of sync with most liberal Israelis, and many of the policies they favor, like a military attack on Iran, would likely result in an utter disaster for Israel as well as its neighbors, they insist on calling themselves “pro-Israel.”

People who do not accept these arguments have attempted to characterize the views of this group and to come up with a variety of typically rough-and-tumble labels to apply t it. But all of them have been condemned as entirely out of bounds because, if held up to the light in just the right way, they kind of, sort of resemble some old anti-Semitic stereotype.

Never mind that some of those who use the term “Israel-firster” are themselves Jewish – like Media Matters' analyst and former AIPACer MJ Rosenberg -- and their targets are very often not. The term, according to a recent column by Spencer Ackerman, writing in Tablet Magazine, recalls “some of the ugliest tropes in American Jewish history.”

According to Ackerman:

“Israel Firster” has a nasty anti-Semitic pedigree, one that many Jews will intuitively understand without knowing its specific history. It turns out white supremacist Willis Carto was reportedly the first to use it, and David Duke popularized it through his propaganda network.

But as Phillip Weiss later noted, “Ackerman is wrong. The term Israel Firster was used by a Zionist before it was used by white supremacists.” Actually, it was “a legendary Zionist, the late Abram Leon Sachar, the leading American historian of Jews and president of Brandeis when he said it.” Ackerman, who is a good, progressive journalist, cited James Kirchick, who is not, as an authority on this. (Justin Raimondo credits another prominent American Jew, the conservative anti-Zionist Alfred M. Lilienthal, for coining the phrase.)

But the ease with which Ackerman accepted this supposed association with a neo-Nazi highlights one of the problems with his column. I'll grant that “Israel firster” is clumsy, and lacking in civility. Yet it's such a benign slur compared with the casual and constant smears levied against those who criticize our government's tacit support for the occupation. Calling people “anti-Semites,” “self-loathing Jews” or “terrorist sympathizers” is a hundred times more offensive, but those smears are deployed so frequently and casually that one can almost forget that we have this debate that's marked with wildly asymmetric incivility. Scholars like Steven Walt and nice Jewish boys like Thomas Friedman and Eric Alterman are constantly being accused of holding truly heinous views -- of wanting to see women and gays stoned and lusting for the deaths of millions of Israelis. It's as outrageous as it is ubiquitous from the [FILL IN THE BLANK] crowd.

And while two wrongs don't make a right, reading Ackerman's column, it's hard not to think, Oh, cry me a river -- these people smear everyone with whom they disagree, every day, with impunity, and now they're whining about being called an Israel firster?

Of course, such appeals to "civility" – not Ackerman's specifically, but more broadly -- are all about narrowing our discourse. Keep in mind that even acknowledging the existence of an Israel lobby is greeted with charges of anti-Semitism. And it's an easy game to play. One can find a vague parallel with some old “anti-Semitic trope" in just about any critical statement if one holds it up to the light in the right way and maybe squints a little. Some have argued that using the word "neocon" is inherently anti-Semitic. Pointing to the fact that there exists an influential "Israel Lobby" has been condemned as anti-Semitism.

Ackerman, in a followup, insists that he's not trying to “police the discourse.” “You can say whatever you like about Israel,” he writes. “Expect people to argue with you about it.” One should accept that at face value, given Ackerman's liberal background. But it is also somewhat disingenuous; Ackerman didn't fall off the turnip truck yesterday, and he should know full well that in the debate over Israel and Palestine, one certainly cannot “say whatever you like about Israel.” The goal-posts of what crosses the line between “acceptable” criticism of Israeli policy and something far darker has been moved considerably by a concerted campaign to brand all but the most tepid criticism of the Israeli government as a “New Anti-Semitism.”

As Max Blumenthal noted, “The concept of the 'New Anti-Semitism' first emerged in 1973 when Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban wrote, 'Let there be no mistake: the New Left is the author and the progenitor of the new anti-Semitism.... Anti-Zionism is merely the new anti-Semitism.'"

A year later, the Anti-Defamation League published the first book on the topic, accusing Palestinian rights advocates of advancing an ulterior, anti-Semitic agenda. Today, books warning about the existential threat of a "New Anti-Semitism" comprise a cottage industry, with pro-Israel politicians and activists producing a new title almost every year.

A parallel effort has been underway to condemn any criticism that results in the “delegitimization” of the Israeli state, as judged by supporters of the Israeli government. The list of supposed delegitimizers is long – from Salon and the Huffington Post, to Israeli civil rights groups and international human rights organizations to former president Jimmy Carter -- all have supposedly worked to erode the legitimacy of the “Jewish state.” And all manner of their criticisms are deemed beyond the pale. Ackerman may not be attempting to “police the discourse,” but as a liberal writer with a fair degree of credibility, he's legitimizing the efforts of those who are trying to do just that -- and in large part succeeding.

And he could have avoided the appearance of policing the discourse by simply offering liberal critics of the currently far-right Israeli government a derogatory-but-not-at-all-anti-Semitic epithet to hurl at its knee-jerk supporters here at home.

We're not going to call them “pro-Israel,” so the challenge for those who get squishy when we respond to charges of anti-Semitism by calling our adversaries something like “Israel firsters” is to offer us a label for our opponents that is just as aggressive as all of our other political debates, but doesn't in any way resemble any “anti-Semitic tropes.”

We're open to suggestions -- and whatever you come up with, please make it short so we can deploy it on Twitter.

Joshua Holland is an editor and senior writer at AlterNet. He is the author of The 15 Biggest Lies About the Economy: And Everything else the Right Doesn't Want You to Know About Taxes, Jobs and Corporate America. Drop him an email or follow him on Twitter.
© 2012 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/154131/

[American Dream]

Shit Zionists Say

[wordspeak2]

How about "Zionist warhawk wingnuts"? Let's keep that wingnut word in play.

Let's face it- "Israel firsters" is a problematic term.

[dqueue]

Warhawk, or Chickenhawk? Since they're only eager to send other people, and their children, into war.

Zionist, Chickenhawk, Wingnuts.

I'm fond of Republikudniks; however, that dismisses those ZCWs on the Left.

[AlicetheKurious]

I can't think of a worse, or more appropriate name for them than "zionist". It's what they called themselves, before their own actions gave it all the ugly, racist, criminal connotations it has accrued, in most of the world.

Zionism has always sold itself – right back to Israel Zangwill’s coining that catchy little phrase, “a land without a people for a people without a land” - by pretending that the Palestinian people aren’t there. Because once you acknowledge that there are already people in Palestine, you have to acknowledge that your Zionist narrative is a very partial truth. Zionism suddenly becomes not just a programme to build a national home for the Jewish people, but a programme to build a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine, which is already home to an indigenous population – 95% of whom (at the time of the first Zionist settlement in 1882) – happen to be non-Jewish. And once you acknowledge that, the issues Zionism raises become suddenly much more complex.

It was probably the late Professor Edward Said who did most to bring this previously-invisible Palestinian reality into a Western discourse that prior to him had determinedly ignored it. Quietly but emphatically, Said insisted that Zionism – as long as it is conceived as Jewish sovereignty over a land where Jewish people are not a natural majority - is not just an ideology of self-determination and liberation, but also of violence, and theft, and exile. And these realities are not incidental, unexpected accompaniments to the project, but an inevitable and integral part of it. Simply put, there is no way to turn Arab Palestine into a “Jewish democracy” that does not involve the killing, dispossession and displacement of Palestinians on a massive scale. And Zionism has to do this to the native Arab people not because of anything they do, but simply because they exist. Link

(Yes, I did used to call them "zio-nazis" for clarity, but I stopped, when I realized that it was no longer necessary.)

[compared2what?]

How about "Zionist warhawk wingnuts"? Let's keep that wingnut word in play.

Let's face it- "Israel firsters" is a problematic term.

I guess...But I'd say that it's not necessarily an anti-Semitic term. It kind of depends on context.

To me, the primary problem with all of the terms currently in use is that they effectively perpetuate the invisibility/obscurity/lesser status of the Palestinians. Or maybe they exemplify it. Or both. I'm not sure. But it would certainly be a boon to the world if the phrase "anti-Palestinian" had the same malignant connotations as "anti-Semitic" does. Know what I mean?

Apart from that, as long as it's not either explicitly a slur or just yet another rehash of "The International Jew," any word is at least theoretically okay, imo.

[Nordic]

How about "Zionist warhawk wingnuts"? Let's keep that wingnut word in play.

Let's face it- "Israel firsters" is a problematic term.

If they're American citizens, it certainly isn't problematic, but merely descriptive. They're not "America first", they're "Israel first".

[American Dream]

How about "Zionist warhawk wingnuts"? Let's keep that wingnut word in play.

Let's face it- "Israel firsters" is a problematic term.

If they're American citizens, it certainly isn't problematic, but merely descriptive. They're not "America first", they're "Israel first".

Why should it follow that if they're zionist Americans, then they must be "Israel firsters"?

[slimmouse]

How about Red Shield stooges ? Or maybe Bauerites ? I think those terms distill better than any who these dupes ,( in the vast majority of cases) are actually fronting for. That might give them all something to think about.

[American Dream]

How about Red Shield stooges ? Or maybe Bauerites ? I think those terms distill better than any who these dupes ,( in the vast majority of cases) are actually fronting for. That might give them all something to think about.

Brilliant!


Then again, there's this:

This radical transformation of society, from feudalism to capitalism terrified and alarmed many people in Europe and the USA. These societies existed during a time when the theories of race were commonly accepted and discussed as a science -- to justify both slavery and the imperial exploitation of Africa and other colonies. As well as racist prejudice one other common bigotry was anti-Semitism, the hatred of Jews. As capitalism developed, producing transnational, global insitutions many racists alarmed at this transformation identified the enemy behind it -- that of the Jew. As part of anti-semitic prejudice throughout Europe, Jews were forced into jobs in the financial sector that Christians deemed immoral -- like banking. So when the industrial revolution was financed by and empowered banks with Jewish owners anti-semites saw a conspiracy by the Jewish race to enslave the white Christian race.


So much wrong in just one picture

The most notorious subject of these anti-Semitic conspiracy theories was the Rothschild Family. The Rothschilds were an extremely wealthy and powerful banking family during the 1800’s, who exercised massive influence over the developing capitalist economies of Europe and North America. This combination of power and Judaism made them the frequent target of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. As a major banking institution there’s no question the Rothschild’s would have been involved in underhand and conspiratorial plans to influence governments and secure their markets -- but the accusations labelled at the Rothschilds go way beyond criticism of bankers influence, and into conspiracy nonsense about world Jewish plots to enslave the world. For example, the Rothschilds were accused of both funding American Capitalism and Russian Bolsheviks, a ridiculous allegation that had it’s base in anti-socialist racist sentiment. Many anti-Semites were disturbed at the challenge global capitalism posed to nation states sovereignty and could not understand the power of the economic system they faced, so instead chose to blame it on conspiratorial groups.

These ideas -- anti-banking sentiment of small business Democrats, and anti-semitic opposition to the Rothschilds -- unfortunately haven’t remained in the past. They continue to be advocated by people like Zeitgeist, Alex Jones and David Icke. This piece by Norfolk Community Action Group criticizes the influence these forces have in the occupy movement,

“The populist narrative is also an integral part of the political views of conspiracy theorists, far right activists, and anti-Semites. For anti-Semites, the elites are the Jews; for David Icke, the elites are the reptilians; for nationalists, they are members of minority ethnic, racial, or religious groups; for others, they are the “globalists,” the Illuminati, the Trilateral Commission, the Freemasons, the Federal Reserve, etc. All of these various conspiracy theories also tend to blend in and borrow from each other. Additionally, the focus on “Wall Street” also has specific appeal to those who see the elite as represented by finance capital, a particular obsession of the anti-Semites, Larouchites, followers of David Icke, etc. “The Rothschilds” are the favorite stand-in codeword of choice to refer to the supposed Jewish control of the banking system.”

The “Rothschild Zionists” feature in both Alex Jones and Icke’s material -- which blame a 200 year old banking institution for conspiratorial involvement in global capitalism. The reality is that the Rothschilds influence declined by the early 1900s -- blaming them for the financial crisis is like blaming the British East India company for the ongoing exploitation of Asia. The Rothschilds have been surpassed and overtaken by new financial institutions.

So why do they continue to be prevalent in conspiracy theories related to banking? Because in the USA, when people are discontent and angry at the banks instead of looking to socialism -- which has historically been weak in the USA -- they go back to the most prominent anti-banking ideas and figures, which unfortunately are anti-semitic. Likewise many bankers are identified as “Rothschild Zionists” by Icke who clearly have no familial connection to the Rothschild family at all -- like David Miliband and DSK. But it’s ok, as Icke explains:

“I should also stress that when I say ‘Rothschild’, I don’t only mean those called ‘Rothschild’, nor even all of the people who are known by that name. There are many in the Rothschild family and its offshoots who have no idea what the hierarchy is doing and there are many ‘Rothschilds’ who don’t carry the name itself.

When I say ‘Rothschild’, I am referring to the Rothschild bloodline because, as I have detailed in my books, they have long had breeding programmes that produce offspring that are brought up under other names.”




This is effectively an excuse to link all Jewish people in areas of power together, based on racist ideas of “bloodlines”, and using the code “Zionist” instead of what people really mean, which is Jew. Whatever crimes have been committed in the Zionist enterprise of the State of Israel against the Palestinians, the idea a country of five million Israelis control international finance is absurd and only makes sense if you believe in anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.

http://ssy.org.uk/2011/11/class-politics-or-anti-semitic-conspiracies-why-david-icke-ron-paul-and-alex-jones-are-dangerous-to-the-occupy-movement/

[slimmouse]

How about Red Shield stooges ? Or maybe Bauerites ? I think those terms distill better than any who these dupes ,( in the vast majority of cases) are actually fronting for. That might give them all something to think about.

Brilliant!


[size=110]Then again, there's this:/

I knew there'd be something, and I knew you'd be saying it. Anybody else ?

Oh , and theyre called Bauer BTW, or is that Bayer ?

Perhaps you can also offer us a brief precis on exactly why half the world is fighting to support a heinous, artificially created racist, warmongering Red Shield fiefdom in an "oh so conveniently placed" useless bit of rock in the middle of a "sworn enemy" ? Perhaps you can explain how theyve been conned into this ? How politicians in the Western world have been duped into supporting this outrage ?

Maybe you can even figure out how youve been conned into believing that someone like me saying it as I see it, makes me some kind of racist conspiracy theorist ?

As Icke would probably say, "And a few people cant rule the world ? Piece of cake "

[American Dream]

I knew there'd be something, and I knew you'd be saying it. Anybody else ?

[JackRiddler]

How about "Zionist warhawk wingnuts"? Let's keep that wingnut word in play.

Let's face it- "Israel firsters" is a problematic term.

If they're American citizens, it certainly isn't problematic, but merely descriptive. They're not "America first", they're "Israel first".

First of all of course it's ridiculous. This particular lobby specializes in not allowing anyone who is contrary to it to even acknowledge it exists, so it doesn't matter what you call them. Anything you call them, it will end up prompting the same slurs.

But thanks. You've defined the problem that I do actually have with "Israel first." Although it is accurate, it implies that one should instead be something called "America first." See? And I'm not "America first," because "America" is an extremely abused word of rubbery meaning. And even if it weren't, I'd still be humans first. Small fucking planet first. Let's get beyond the flag-waving nonsense altogether. Isn't the problem here that Israel represents an out-of-control colonial nationalism? Also, consider that many of the people who are likeliest to say "America first" are the same apocalypse Christianists who think America and Israel have identical interests. (In practical terms, by the way, I'm all for America first: assuming it means we should shut down all those fucking bases and bring the troops and the money home.)

I don't want to out-patriot the yahoos, so I'm happy to say, "the pro-Israeli lobby in the United States." That's what AIPAC and ADL are. Demystify them, describe what they do soberly, and you sap them of their power.

.

(Alternately as we've seen you can always just take the Protocols II approach.)

[American Dream]

This whole piece is worth reading:

Both sides are wrong in the ‘Israel Firsters’ debate

by Jamie Stern-Weiner

On the substantive issue in dispute – the legitimacy of the phrase "Israel Firster" – both sides are wrong. Glenn Greenwald, MJ Rosenberg, Phil Weiss and Andrew Sullivan are correct to argue that there is nothing in principle antisemitic about accusing individuals of placing "Israel's" interests above "American" ones. Nor is it "gross" to point out that the American media's go-to guy on Israel-Palestine, Jeffrey Goldberg, served as a prison guard in the Israeli army. Amusingly, Goldberg now denies he was a prison guard, insisting that he was merely a "military policeman" and "counsellor" who took care of "the culinary, hygiene and medical needs of the prisoners". This is odd because in his memoir Goldberg explicitly says that he wasn't, whatever his formal job title, merely a counsellor:

"I was a 'prisoner counselor,' a job title that did not accurately reflect my duties in the related fields of discipline and punishment..." [Prisoners, p. 28]

Which seems fair enough, since counsellors don't generally assist in the abuse of prisoners, as Goldberg admits he did. Goldberg's strange denial appears to have convinced Ackerman, at least, which is encouraging insofar as it suggests that people who say they like Jeffrey Goldberg have never read Jeffrey Goldberg.

More importantly, if it is the case that people increasingly perceive US policy towards Israel to be a decisively shaped by de facto agents of the Israeli state, the issue should be subject to honest and frank debate. Silencing the above-ground conversation is likely to promote the less savoury lines of discussion within it.

All that said, "Israel Firsters" rhetoric is seriously problematic:

- It is not, contra Greenwald and Sullivan, "plainly true" that many prominent apologists for Israel are "Israel Firsters". As noted above, virtually all of these supposedly principled devotees of the Jewish state were completely silent on or else actively critical of Israel before it became a 'strategic asset' of the US establishment. As Finkelstein observes, after '67 Israel also effectively became "a 'strategic asset' of American Jews":

"[joining] the Zionist club was a prudent career move for Jewish communal leaders who could then play the role of key interlocutors between the U.S. and its strategic asset. Israel’s alleged existential vulnerability served as a useful pretext for politically ambitious Jews to champion American military power on which Israel’s survival supposedly hinged."

Charging these "Me Firsters" with principled loyalty to Israel drastically overestimates them. The record suggests that they are, as a rule, in it squarely for themselves. This confusion is significant, for example because a more realistic appreciation of the interests driving the Israel lobby and its sympathisers would draw attention to the ways in which support for Israeli militarism benefits and speaks to elite interests in the US, rather than just in Israel.

- The use of "Israel Firster", while not necessarily antisemitic, is not innocuous either. Accusations of "Israel Firster" do imply some ugly politics. "Israel Firster" is, after all, being opposed implicitly to "US Firster", with the tacit assumption that it is a Bad Thing to support a "foreign" state or people over one's "own". But why should that be so? If I am moved by images of famine in Somalia and decide to vote, in Britain, according to who I think would do the most to alleviate the effects and causes of that famine, am I being "dually loyal"? More to the point, if I am, is that a bad thing? It is particularly strange that liberals, who tend to take very seriously the idea that there are universal moral principles whose value transcends the claims of any particular state, would treat "dual loyalty" as a serious criticism.

I suspect Greenwald would reply that he rarely uses the term "Israel Firster", that his aim in this debate is to defend its legitimacy against accusations of antisemitism rather than to positively endorse it, and that when he does use it, it is either as a rhetorical device to highlight others' hypocrisy or as a normatively neutral description, rather than a criticism. In his case, this is generally true. But if we look at the emerging discourse more broadly, "Israel Firster" is typically used as a pejorative, which implies a set of assumptions that Sullivan, despite his dislike of the phrase, encapsulates quite well:

"[when] an American sides with a foreign government against his own president in a foreign country, what does one call that? Apart, that is, from disgusting."

The use of the term "Israel Firster" reflects a broader trend which chooses to frame opposition to Israeli policies, and US support for them, in terms of defending or protecting US "national interests", and which appears increasingly disposed to criticising apologists for Israeli occupation on the grounds that they are being disloyal to these "national interests", rather than on the grounds that they are enabling a profound injustice. I suspect that this in turn reflects an influx of liberals into the solidarity movement – in this sense the watering down and degeneration of the latter might well be a consequence of its own success – and a desire by some activists to align the movement, in an attempt to gain political influence, with those American elites who are concerned that Israel's occupation is harming US imperial interests (cf. Walt and Mearsheimer).

In either case, the strategy is dangerous. First, it relies on the gap among US elites over the wisdom of support for Israeli occupation widening, which may not happen to a sufficient degree. Second, its effect is to essentially whitewash the former. And third, it risks abandoning a principled opposition to Israel's occupation grounded in broadly appealing progressive values – it is wrong to demolish people's houses; it is wrong to torture children; it is wrong to shell schools and hospitals with white phosphorus; it is wrong to violently prevent a people from exercising self-determination in violation of international law; etc . – in favour of a critique based on parochial, unappealing and potentially quite vicious insinuations about people's – mainly Jews' – "loyalty". This isn't antisemitism. But it isn't the way to win the struggle, and nor should it be how we'd want to win it.

This post originally appeared in the New Left Project.

[slimmouse]

The 1% firsters is of course fine too, but , no doubt that will eventually lead to racist overtones. I mean, which dupe wrote the following crap from the AD article ?

“The Rothschilds” are the favorite stand-in codeword of choice to refer to the supposed Jewish control of the banking system.”

Im a bit confused now. Last time I looked it was "The international Bankers" or some other similar pseudonymic secret code word for anti semite .

Perhaps it should have said the Bauers ? I can imagine the tapping of fingers already explaing how "Bauerites" is code for Rothschilds is code for international bankers is code for anti semite !

Youd cry if you didnt laugh.