I know that I do.
Day after day after day on Daily Kos, Israel comes in for a beating. On the largest Democratic blog in the United States, there is no country in the world as hated as Israel. Israel is accused of “ethnic cleansing” of the Palestinians. It is accused of being a racist Apartheid regime. It is compared to the Jim Crow south. It is accused of genocide and of being a colonialist, imperialist tool of the United States while simultaneously, somehow or other, controlling the US government via AIPAC.
Day after day after day.
Diary after diary after diary, anything that can be used to whip up hatred for Israel will be used to whip up hatred for Israel. Did some Jewish-American kid in a bar in Tel Aviv say something nasty about Barack Obama? It gets diaried on Daily Kos. Did some Israeli soldier accidentally hit a protestor with a tear gas canister? It gets diaried on Daily Kos. This is what we deal with on a daily basis if we wish to participate there. They argue that Israel should be boycotted. They argue that foreign aid should be cut off. They claim that Zionism is inherently racist or imperialist or colonialist or neo-colonialist. They argue that it should never have come into existence to begin with and that Hamas is a legitimate organization and that the thousands of Qassams and Katyushas that terrorized the people of S’derot and Ashkelon for years represent legitimate resistance to oppression. This despite the fact that Israel vacated the Gaza in 2005.
So, why do I feel harassed? I am not Israeli. I am American. But I am also a Jew.
“Oh,” you may say, “Karma, none of this is meant to insult Jews. It is not Jewish people who are the problem, but merely Israel as a state.”
Horseshit.
I do not buy this lie. Israel is the Jewish state and it is home to nearly half of the world’s Jewish population and it is, furthermore, supported by most of the rest. So, when Israel acts it reflects on Jews throughout the world. When Israel does good, this reflects well on Jews and when Israel does bad, this, too, reflects on Jews. So when people who consider themselves “liberals” or “progressives” or “leftists” kick the holy shit out of Israel on a daily basis, please do not tell me this has nothing to do with the Jews. It’s transparent nonsense. Of course it’s about the Jews.
Do you think for one moment that the incessant demonization, dehumanization, and demeaning of all things Israel is meant to reflect on Israel’s non-Jewish population? Nonsense. Jews make up 80 percent of the Israeli population and, for the most part, control that country. When these people heap garbage on the lone Jewish state they are saying something, whether they admit it or not, whether we admit it or not, about the Jews.
And what they are saying is, oh, less than pleasant, shall we say.
That’s one way of putting it. Another is that they are involved in a campaign of vilification of the Jewish state that seeks to undermine its very existence as a country, while bolstering anti-Semitism and anti-Semitic violence around the globe.
But, we’re not supposed to notice, I guess. We’re just supposed to take it and keep our mouths shut. But things are changing. Jewish support for liberal causes and for the Democratic Party is not unqualified. One of the things that has caused some people on Daily Kos to spit poison at me, personally, is that I have dared to tell them that if this continues to get worse it will alienate Jews from the party and the movement. And is this not obvious? Do they honestly think that they can perpetually heap abuse on the Jewish state and liberal American Jews will continue to support them?
I don’t think so. It’s just common sense. If you slap someone around you cannot expect that person to reward you with financial support or any other kind of support.
Even if they are Jewish.
Posted by Karmafish
That's why the community standard needs to be that "apartheid state" and other slurs against Israel and Jews need to be HRed without question. I'm HRing everything I see to that affect and I think others should as well.
ReplyDeleteRight the fuck on, AB.
ReplyDeleteThe people who use "apartheid" want to bring down Israel. That's the point. Apartheid South Africa was a racist state and they want to suggest that Israel is also a racist state, which it is not.
The truth, of course, is that Israel is the most ethnically diverse country in the ME.
what amazing is how this crowd, which deems itself "multi-cultural," is actually against REAL multi-culturalism in the Middle East, with there being a Jewish state in the heart of the "ummah." The far-left version of multi-culturalism is a decayal of actual multi-culturalism, as Salman Rushdie, who is pro-Israel and liberal, pointed out. The version of multi-culturalism that hates Israel are usually the cultural relativists: those who think because Radical Islam is "another culture," its tenets are OK and we should accept or even embrace them. Even if they include genocide and gendercide.
ReplyDeleteThey're against Israel, tho its the only state where gay rights and gay members of parliament exist in the entire Middle East. I also strongly suggest showing the poll in the JPost where near half of Israelis say they are ready for a gay PM, and when they bring up the past poll about how many Israelis think homosexuality is "immoral" or the Tel-Aviv incident, remind them how similar poll results exist in the US, and how the fact the Tel-Aviv incident even was reported and reacted to by most stripes of Israel shows that such reaction to bigotry would never happen in any neighboring country.
Also, here's a question to pose to the people on DKos: if Israel should let Palestinian Arabs vote in their elections simply because they occupy the territories, then should the US let Iraqis vote in our elections because we occupy Iraq? Should we have let Germans vote in ours after we occupied from 1945-1990? Is America an apartheid state for those? Also, the settlements are a negotiating tool, and Israel has removed them before, like in the Egypt-Israel peace treaty.
I think we won a victory on DKos when the "Nazi state" epithet started to disappear. We need to do that with "apartheid state." David Duke uses the term "apartheid state" to describe Israel. The Israel haters need to know what kind of company they are in. Thats why when Heathlander used the term "Jewish supremacism," I replied with a link to David Duke's book of, you guessed it, the same title. Plus, the same people who called Gaza a "holocaust" are always the ones who deny the actual Holocaust, including the German NPD, about which you can find out, or Ahmadinejad.
The blame-Israel-first and Hamas-firster crowd needs to know that if they think they have a place in the Democratic Party, they either need to think again, or risk throwing away one of the most important constituencies the party has ever had. It was Jew who were murdered along with blacks in Alabama. MLK was against anti-Zionists, even John Lewis' 2002 SF Chronicle column points this out. Behind the blacks themselves, Jews were the most important group in bringing civil rights. It was Jews who were one of the most important constituencies in bringing about the New Deal and abolishing slavery. If the Noam Chomsky/George Galloway crowd (which I think is an accurate description of the DKos Israel-bashers and their worldview) wants a Judenrein party, they should know its at their own peril, the "netroots" peril, or the party's peril. I am hopeful the party will never catch this evil fire. I am a liberal, not a leftist. There is a difference between the two. Sometimes, some ideas mesh, and sometimes, like I/P and worldview, they clash like civilizations.
Great post Karma and I echo your outrage. And I agree with Ambrose about Hr'ing the Apartheid meme and other careless memes when ever they appear. I say careless because I wanna give the benefit of the doubt to some posters who fall into that abyss but are likely not antisemtic per se but who parrot the meme as an ideological necessity for making a case. That it weakens their case escapes them for some reason. It may simply be that their "solidarity," requires kneejerk adherence to even the most vile parts of the narrative they have embraced.
ReplyDeleteBut just as they hop on any perceived demonization of Arabs, Muslims, Palestinians, etc. it seems only fair to reciprocate in order to assure their demonizations don't become SOP on dKos.
Right the fuck on, doodad.
ReplyDeleteWe need to fight back.
We should NOT be taken for granted.
Hi everyone - you often see me tipping/hr'ing comments on I/P diaries. I don't get involved very often as my temper would get me kicked out in around 5 minutes. Words(s) like "apartheid", "ethnic cleansing", "genocide" aimed at Israel make me want to throw something. Karma, you're doing a great service here, please keep it up.
ReplyDeleteOkay - I must have done something wrong - meant to post as leftynyc (my screen on dk). Any ideas?
ReplyDeleteHeya leftynyc / dlkozup,
ReplyDeletethanks.
This blog needs all the support it can get if we are to maintain it.
I think that people just do not get just how one-sided and toxic the prevailing narrative has become on the left. None of us here, I'm pretty certain, favor the occupation, and all of us want to see the success of the two-state solution, but what's distressing is the never-ending demonization of Israel.
I've gotten to the point where I've come to believe that it hardly matters what Israel does, or doesn't, do, because it will come in for a beating no matter what.
Karma,
ReplyDeleteYour last comment hits the nail right on the head, and it is why I created this blog. Every day TomJ posts a negative diary about Israel. The same can be done by us, by if we post the diary, we get met with attacks and accusations of being bigots. It got to the point where it is just pointless to engage in the debate over there, so rather than engage in it, I decided to monitor it. The added benefit is that because I haven't engaged in the debate over there since March, they have no idea who is responsible for this blog. It drives them a little crazy, and that makes me happy.
Regards,
DKW