Israel and anti-semitism

Here's another thing I posted on another blog. The article and discussion are here.

(For more on this topic, see this)

(As far as the anti-bigotry part of this blog, I decided at some point early on that I wanted to work around the edges of battling bigotry, offering ideas and information that most people are unaware of but which might help them here and there with anti-bigotry work. So that’s why there are a lot of posts that seem a little weird, including this one)

One thing that might need clarification- the thing about Havana. I thought that was a funny way to highlight these people are inconsistent in saying "that group seems to have (sort of does have) disproportionate influcence on our government, we must hate them." And it would make more sense with the Cuban-Americans since A) They're a smaller part of the population, B) our Cuba policy has been horrible and we almost went to war with the USSR in connection with it, C) cubans weren't almost exterminated (yes, Castro took property and there has been some degree of repression and no democracy, but he didn't send the rich or the right-wingers to camps for death) D) there's probably less to worry about as far as fueling bigotry, and E) from my perspective, Cuba isn't nearly as bad as Israel. The point is, and this is mostly aimed at the leftists, if it doesn't make sense to talk about Cuban-Americans the way some people talk about Jews, than we REALLY shouldn't talk about about Jews that way.

Also, when I said that the other relatively democratic countries were possibly less so than Israel, that's inaccurate, but as far as I can tell, even adjusting for how Palestinians (including Palestinian-Israelis) were treated, there were between few and zero countries nearby more democratic than Israel. That's looking at the entire period since 1948, it may have been slightly different for brief periods of time- it's not super clear and there's plenty of room for debate, but from what I've read over the years and some recent research, it seem like Israel was always towards the very top (often, the very top). At the very beginning what probably mattered most was the fresh memory of the Holocaust, although the alliance survived and became difficult to end as time went on. Also, brief periods of relative democracy here and there don't count for much, democracy takes a while to fully develop. And as far as I can tell, some small minority of the Jewish population at the founding of Israel were from fully democratic countries, and probably another small minority had had some exposure to democracy. Although at the beginning, and to a lesser degree since then, Israel had/has had some competition as the region's democracy, the Holocaust was and has been an issue, there was and probably are some people in America who saw them as a white nation. Anyway, for a combination of reasons, many non-Jewish people in America would have seen Israel as one of the most attractive potential allies in that region, and they would have seen that largely or totally independent of Jewish influence.

UPDATE 5/12/13 Although it's still a little unclear to me, I DID find something that says things very similar (or more so) to what I said about why the US supports Israel. The article I found is here.

UPDATE 4/27/09 When I say there's some evidence of Nazi hostility towards Arabs in Arab countries, there's probably lots, but as far as I can tell, probably 1/4 of the info, including their position on Palestine, indicates otherwise, so what I said is kind of accurate, but overall, most/all of them probably hate Arabs anywhere. (UPDATE 1/24/11 I can't remember much of it, but I must have come across some info indicating that some of them are okay with Arabs in Arab countries (i.e. Hitler spoke positively about Islam, the religion of most Arabs))

UPDATE 5/1/09 When I refer to WMD and Al-Qaeda as parts of why Iraq was invaded, although they were more or less idiots, congressional supporters of the Iraq invasion probably totally believed that stuff, and congressional support was a significant part of why the invasion happened.

UPDATE 11/01/09 Although I have some knowledge of the political history of Israel's neighbors, but I looked for more on Wikipedia. On the other hand, in all the articles by supporters of the Palestinians that I have read, I'm not sure if I have even ONCE read something which said that this and/or that Arab state was as democratic as Israel. So I feel pretty good in saying that many non-Jewish supporters of Israel did see Israel as the region's democracy.

UPDATE 2/19/20 I just realized that when I refer to AIPAC and Jedi mind tricks, I assumed that AIPAC is exclusively Jewish. I am not sure if that is true. if it's not I feel a bit stupid. But I have, in this post and a few others, made it clear that Jewish-Americans are not the problem.

Anyway, here's the comment (you'll want to check out the link to see what I'm responding to):

"I was wondering when I was going to encounter someone like this. Billyspudd- Your analysis of D.C. and Israel is fascinating. Do you have your own copy of Mein Kamph or do you just borrow it from the library?

1. America invading iraq was a very bad idea. I did a LOT trying to stop it at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

2. I support the Palestinians. My thoughts on that are about 1/2 the way down at http://devlin-mcaliskey.blogspot.com/2009/01/spirit-of-robert-briscoe.html. I've done some work on that, not much, but it's an okay % of the huge amount of activism I've done, and has also come up a few times on my blog.

3. Bush's reasons for invading Iraq were many, Israel was a small part of it. There was the opportunity to give lots of money to corporations in multiple ways, the strong desire for using the US military that most GOPers have, the desire to teach the world a lesson in terms of what the US will do to them if they piss off D.C., the desire for oil, the idea of democratizing the Middle-East. I also heard something about it being connected to countering the growing strength of the Euro. It's possible they half believed that stuff about WMDs and Al-Qaeda. Israel was a small part of it.

4. Billyspudd has an exaggerated sense of how much of a role Jewish-Amerericans play in developing U.S. foreign policy about Israel and the middle-east. They're a small part of the population and are probably only a little bit more powerful, adjusting for population, than other white people. How do they get America to be so pro-Israel? Do they have special powers? Does AIPAC use Jedi mind tricks and say to the President: "you will support israel" and the prez says "i will support iSRAEL."?

No. There's a ton of christians who for obscure biblical reasons involving the second coming of Jesus, support Israel, and there's TONS of Christians and Atheists who for foreign policy reasons support Israel. In the Cold War Israel became an ally, basically because they were relatively democratic and white compared to most/all the rest of the middle-east, the fresh memory of the Holocaust. (well, there were some other countries that were relatively democratic but possibly less so than Israel, and they weren't considered as white as Israelis overall since some large minority or small majority of Israelis were European and the Holocaust wasn't against Arabs or Turks). Since the Cold War, well, the relationship wasn't going to just go away after so many decades, and very shortly after the Cold War ended, what is called (and sometimes is) terrorism became more of an issue (the 1993 WTC bombing), although much less so in the 1990s than since 9/11 They see Israel as an ally in the war on terror (true, that alliance actually HARMS the war on terror, but I never said they were smart, they do lots of other things that hinder the war on terror that aren't connected to Jews). With the Dems, obviously those Christians and atheists I referred to don't have as much influence as they do with with the Republicans, but they have some, and yes, with the Dems, the Jews do have a lot of influence, but the point is that, as far as why Washington consistently has an okay-bad record on Israel, Jewish-Americans are a small part of it, they're only a large part of it with the Dems. So, no they don't have special powers, and they're probably only a tiny bit more powerful than other white ethnic groups, adjusting for population.

The point is that there were reasons besides the "power" of the Jews to explain why D.C. developed an alliance with Israel and continues to be pro-Israel. I mean, in the beginning Jewish-Americans were probably part of it, but would only have been a very small factor. And once it got going, it would have been dificult to change.

(I actually had to do some extra research on this as I was typing, but I have read a book by Naseer Aruri on US foreign policy on Israel, and I got the impression that Cold War politics, not the Jewish-American community, was a big part of it.

I'm also waiting for people like billyspudd to go off on those evil cuban-Americans for controlling our foriegn policy on cuba, but something tells me he won't, he probably hasn't gotten around to reading the "The Protocols Of The Elders of Havana."

5. On a related subject, it is frustrating for me as a leftist that, to one degree or another, somewhere around 1/3 of Jewish-Americans have one attitude for their people and another attitude for the rest of the world. They're roughly as bad as that 1/2 of those Irish-Americans who get all fired up about the North of Ireland (as they should) but are hostile or indifferent to injustice in the rest of the world.

6. These barely count as reasons to reject anti-Semitism- bigotry is simply wrong. But it can't hurt to mention this anyway. And they're also aimed at people who are progressive/left, not people who are anti-semitic from the right.

A: Some majority of Jewish-Americans are our allies. to one degree or another they're good on most/all the issues except Israel and the MId-East. Besides being wrong, anti-semitism makes it more difficult for supporters of the Palestinians on the left-progressive side to work with Jewish liberals-leftists, and that weakens our movements.

B: The far-right expreses support for the Palestinians. Not because they support the Palestinains (when Arabs immigrate to America, they're more likely to get assaulted than be helped by the far-right, and there's some evidence of Nazi hostility towards Arabs in Arab countries) but because they hate Jews and see it as an opportunity to recruit stupid people. Once people become anti-semitic on Israel, it probably doesn't take much more (something that makes them lean towards racist) and they're vulnerable to being recruited by the far-right, especially by the elements of the far-right who are also good (in a twisted way) on stuff like labor or the environment. I'm certain they're picking up some recruits as a result of anti-semitism among supporters of the Palestinians on the liberal-left side. Which is why activists on that issue on the left should show ZERO tolerance for anti-semitism, condemn attacks on Israeli civilians, and make it very clear that Jewish-Americans are a small part of shaping American foreign policy on Israel.

C: the anti-semitism of some supporters of the Palestinians makes it dificult to win people to the cause of supporting the Palestinians.

I think that's about it.

Tom"