An Essay About Pro-Palestinian Democrats And Progressive Jewish-Americans

I recently read an article published 7/7/26 on CNN.com about Jewish-American progressives and the Democratic Party. Although this was sort of news to me, I had heard some stuff about the problem the article describes- supporting the Palestinians has become a litmus test  required by progressives in the Democratic Party and this was causing some problems for Jewish-American progressives who are at least sort of pro-Palestinian but also support Israel in some ways. 

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If our goal is to get the Jewish Israeli population to transform their relationship with the Palestinians, it will work a lot better if we can convince them that accusations of anti-Semitism among us are untrue.

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In the last 18 years I have given a lot of thought to blending support for the Palestinians with opposition to anti-Semitism. I have more to say about my qualifications, etc. in the final section of this essay at the very bottom. One thing I will mention here is that although it’s just a BA, I have a degree in a very relevant field- Ethnic Studies. If you want an example of me contributing to the progressive community on this issue, I got a Guest Opinion published in a MSM newspaper (see this or read it here).                   

My position is that progressive Jewish-Americans who are sort of zionist should be treated as part of the progressive community but simultaneously need to re-evaluate their understanding of what is going on with Israel and the Palestinians. There IS a problem with anti-Semitism among progressives and this, among other things, hobbles the Palestine Solidarity Movement (PSM) in America (I am not sure how many pro-Palestinian activists refer to it as the Palestine Solidarity Movement, but it’s a pretty good way of referring to us).

Progressive Zionists?!?!?!?

Although there is a spectrum for this, and at one end maybe some self-identifying progressive Democratic people don’t qualify as progressive, there are a lot of progressives who are Jewish and probably most of those are, to one degree or another, zionists. A big part of why I say that is an idea I adopted in recent years- that I’m not going to look at something political that I dislike and automatically and always say “I’m a progressive and I don’t like that, so that’s not progressive.” I initially came up with it when I thought about how many progressive activists I came across who were bizarrely friendly to the Libertarian Party and I decided that if they were SOME of the time capitalistic economically but only SOME of the time, and checked ALL the other boxes for stuff like opposing racism, supporting the environment, etc. they should be considered progressive. I also decided, in a similar spirit, that although I greatly value the DEMOCRATIC part of democratic socialism and am open-minded about the term “State Capitalist,” the Soviet Union actually had been about some kind of socialism.

Another reason to consider these Jewish-American progressives PROGRESSIVE is that when Irish-American GOP members expressed support for the Provisional Irish Republican Army (the one associated with Gerry Adams) in the 1980s, the other GOPers didn’t evict them from the party when their ethnicity led them to support what was, IN THE 1980s, a SOCIALIST organization.

One more reason is that the GOP Irish-American IRA supporters did a lot of conservative stuff, which I assume they were passionate about and for which they got credit for from their fellow GOPers. They kept LGBTQ+ people out of the NYC St. Patrick’s Day parade, they opposed Affirmative Action as passionately as they supported the MacBride Principles (Affirmative Action for Catholics in N. Ireland), they supported the invasion of Iraq, etc. etc. etc. I get the impression that the Jewish-American progressives we’re talking about have done and are doing tons of good progressive work that they deserve credit for.

No Pasaran?!?!?!?

That phrase is Spanish for “they shall not pass,” and the Spanish original was a rallying cry for the anti-fascist side of the Spanish Civil War.

This bunch of extremist progressive supporters of the Palestinians who are pushing a McCarthyist-like agenda overlap heavily with the “Uncommitted” movement in 2024 who urged critics of Israel to vote for anybody BUT Harris and sometimes were quite friendly towards Trump. This despite the fact that they are the kind of progressives who would insist that they are more radical than I am but basically sided with a fascist who probably IS the most pro-Israel US President we have had. Apparently being VERY pro-Israel is okay if you’re a fascist but being a little pro-Israel is not okay if you’re a progressive.

I also have to say at some point, that the people who coined the phrase “Genocide Joe” to refer to Biden in connection with Gaza and protested him never did get around to giving Donald Trump the same treatment, and Trump was much more in favor of Israel than Biden was and much more in favor of genocide for the Palestinians than Biden was (I don’t think that Biden was anywhere near that hostile to the Palestinians). I think that until Trump spoke about a Gaza Riviera describing the Gaza War as genocidal was going a little too far.

Was the June 1st 2025 Boulder Attack Anti-Semitic?

As you may know, June 1st 2025 in Boulder, CO there was a violent attack on a non-violent demonstration of support for the Israeli hostages. In a Guest Opinion that was published three days later in the local MSM paper here, I described it as anti-Semitic. Apparently a lot of Americans supporting the Palestinians refuse to call it that. In a recent email with one of these people (in this case a Jewish-American man) I wrote the following:

“You have said that the Pearl St. attack was not anti-Semitic. I realize it was a slightly (politically) pro-Israel activity that was attacked, but their focus was the hostages. And you have to take into consideration that they were non-combatants far from a battlefield. Yes, the Israeli flag was displayed, but that may have been less political than it usually is. In general, they were CIVILIANS and a physical, lethal attack on them from someone who is on the opposite side of a conflict which often touches on religion is bigoted, and I will not apologize for saying that in my essay. Unlike usual I am not sure what is analogous in N. Ireland- although I'll tell you this- not everyone in N. Ireland who identified with the Irish flag during the conflict was a supporter of the IRA and/or Sinn Fein.”

There’s also the fact that, in N. Ireland the main thing, conflict-wise, that the unionist (British-identifying) paramilitaries did was intentionally kill Catholic civilians (and about 99% of those Catholics were totally INNOCENT). Often it was in retaliation for republican violence, but anyone who wasn’t a sectarian asshole (and even some who were) labelled it anti-Catholic because they were innocent civilians.

Lastly, although I think the Palestinians and their American supporters have a point or two when they refer to many of the Palestinians in Israeli prisons as hostages, the fact is, there is nothing inherently colonial about Jewish-Americans being concerned about the hostages that were held by Hamas or others. The hostage-taking was roughly as bad as the murders of Oct. 7th- worse when you consider the medical problems made more complicated by being hostages, or the possibility of being raped, etc. I am open-minded about referring to the active duty IDF members taken prisoner Oct. 7th as something else, but in general the extremist parts of the Palestine Solidarity Movement are wrong about the hostage-taking.

Why the issue of the Palestinians?

I am less certain of my position on this aspect, but combined with everything else I will mention it. Why this issue? I’m certain that for most progressive Americans in the PSM it’s just a coincidence that the oppressor of the Palestinians is, largely, a big chunk of the world’s Jewish population. But I am certain there are also plenty of people who use the k-word and are obsessed with attacking Jewish people. 

On one hand, the conflict IS very important. It’s short history has contributed to making the region a “dangerous neighborhood.” For decades BEFORE Oct. 7th, the Palestinians, in different ways, faced one degree or another of serious injustice and inequity. And the United States is heavily involved as a sponsor of Israel and in some bizarre way is also seen by some as a mediator for peace there.

I was involved most of the time between 1995 and 2005 with the IRELAND Solidarity Movement (which was almost exclusively American) and the American Left really dropped the ball on that one. Why the difference? I understand that America isn’t propping up the UK the way we prop up Israel. But A) the oppression of Northern Ireland Catholics was serious, probably more serious than American progressives understand, and B) the UK (until Trump) was the most important ally of the United States in the entire world, and C) the Northern Ireland issue would have given engaged American progressives opportunities to drag a significant chunk of the Irish-American population towards the Left, and D) the US government did not have a good record on The Troubles. (I explain a lot more about those four points in an essay here starting with the words “Here are some of the reasons…” about 3/4 down from the top and ending with the third paragraph (you will then need to skip down to the very last section of the essay starting with “What makes me confident about….”)) (the fourth point I make is backed up in a post here about halfway from the top starting with “Ways in which Washington D.C. was bad…..” )

Another problem with this focus on Israel and use of it as a litmus test is that there have been a lot of very reactionary people who were anti-Zionist. There is not a strong, consistent connection between being a progressive and being opposed to Zionism.

I am not sure I am proving this aspect of my argument beyond the shadow of a doubt, but the differences are glaring in terms of the extent to which progressives today are embracing one cause and how they neglected the other cause in the mid and late 1990s.

Yes, These People Are Being Obnoxious, But Israel As A Jewish State Is Not Acceptable

Here’s the thing. I’m sure that many of the Jewish-American progressives are (according to the CNN article linked to at the top) supporting Israel to such a small, acceptable degree that I probably have no or little problem with them at all- i.e. if they simultaneously also identify as supporters of the Palestinians. But I’m also sure that many of them, for example, object to use of the phrase “Israeli Apartheid,” a phrase that, in different ways, accurately captures how the Palestinians were treated in the Gaza Strip (before Oct. 7th) and have been treated in the West Bank, and in East Jerusalem, and in the internationally recognized borders of Israel. I did a post that debunks the idea that applying the word “apartheid” to Israel is inaccurate and/or anti-Semitic. About 1/3 of the articles it’s based on are from The Times of Israel, which I believe is a fairly mainstream web publication based in Israel and about 1/3 of the articles are from the BBC (the BBC’s professional coverage of N. Ireland 1997-2005 probably means that they are a good source in general, especially for issues that DON’T involve people frequently setting off bombs in London for decades).

In general, some Jewish-American progressives need to understand that a self-defined “Jewish State” of Israel does now and very likely would in the distant future, involve continued inequality for Palestinian-Israelis- when the Israeli Left is in power that would change a little, but about 3-4 years later Likud or other right-wing parties would get into power and use the formally Jewish identity of the State as encouragement and cover for re-imposing anti-Palestinian policies. I have no idea how progressives can accept a state based on religion and/or ethnicity. It is so much in conflict with progressive values. (If you think that I have a double standard because I am not opposed to the 26-County Irish state based in Dublin and I support uniting the two parts of Ireland, see a post here and read the very last part starting with “Lastly, here is my response….” )

At some point I need to link to a post that takes a fairly comprehensive look at why I think Zionism was a bad idea and and why I believed in the one-state solution. On one hand, since Oct. 7th and Israel’s response I have leaned towards saying that now there must be so much hate on both sides that maybe the two-state solution is better. On the other hand, people who believe in justice and equality and peace might continue pushing for the one-state solution and I would sort of still support that and I can’t help but criticize progressives who rejected the one-state-solution BEFORE Oct. 7th. I should also say that uniting Ireland is more or less the one-state solution for that conflict, whereas re-partitioning Ireland would be comparable to the two-state solution in the Middle-East and is something that Sinn Fein and most Catholics in N. Ireland would never accept.

Anti-Semitism Weakens The Palestine Solidarity Movement

Was there anti-Semitism in the college campus protests that swept the nation 2-3 years ago? I am certain that Trump is not nearly as concerned about anti-semitism as he is hateful of Muslims, Arabs, and the Left. But some of the articles about that issue quoted Jewish-American leaders who said that although Trump is not helping and is exaggerating  the problem and/or that they hate Trump, there was a problem with anti-Semitism in those protests.

I make a big deal on my blog about the need to purge the PSM of anti-Semitism (to a large degree I am influenced by an article here that helps define what is anti-Semitism and what isn’t anti-Semitism in connection with the conflict). I have written on this topic here, here, here, and here (this last one is probably the best). I am not sure how popular or unpopular anti-Semitism is in America, and there’s a spectrum that makes this difficult to measure, but I think there’s at least a small majority of Americans who oppose it. So there’s a very good chance based on that alone that this bigotry costs us political influence and the Palestinian people support. If our goal is to get the Jewish Israeli population to transform their relationship with the Palestinians, it will work a lot better if we can convince them that accusations of anti-Semitism among us are untrue. More members of the PSM who are either Jewish or allies, numerically and strategically outweigh any loss of support from people who are simply anti-Semitic and show little potential for change.

On a personal level and on a political level I greatly value the Jewish-American population. Those who were/are liberal or progressive were disproportionately involved in the anti-Vietnam War effort, with supporting the anti-racist cause, and with Democratic Party victories. In my experience they were disproportionately involved with supporting the N. Ireland Catholic population during the conflict. On a personal level I have had some friends here and there who are Jewish, my Mom’s best friend almost her entire life was a Jewish woman, etc. My fiancé who I’ve been with for 6 and 1/2 years is partly Jewish. In case anyone thinks (after all I have written here) that  I will do anything to get along with Jewish people I should explain something- when I started thinking of leaving the Catholic Church about 5-10 years ago, I decided to convert to a Protestant Church after spending maybe an hour contemplating the idea that Christ was NOT the Son of God and then dismissing it and sticking with Christianity.

I think I say enough things in this essay that contribute to this statement: Anti-Semitism is destructive to our communities, our political movements, our nation, and our world. No more or less than, for example, anti-Muslim bigotry (some will say that the greater number of Muslims means that anti-Muslim bigotry is more destructive to humanity, but I am also influenced by the facts that within the last century we almost lost the Jewish population and anti-Semitism is the fuel for the neo-Nazi movement which is still a threat).

Islamophobia and Support for Israel Weaken The Movement Against Anti-Semitism

Via articles on the Southern Poverty Law Center web-site and other sources I have encountered anti-Muslim bigotry from Jewish-American people who were and are more right-wing than left-wing, but I am not sure how widespread is some mild variant of Islamophobia among progressive Jewish-Americans. I imagine it’s a small but significant problem because A) Jewish-Americans are basically White Americans and exposed to the same propaganda all white people are and B) Israel IS in a conflict that usually pits it against Muslims and that is often influenced by religion.

Most of what I would say to liberal or progressive Jewish Americans who might be islamophobic is either typed in, or linked to from, these paragraphs. These Jewish-Americans should spend some time thinking critically about how they see muslims and Palestinians. 

When progressive, Zionist Jewish-Americans say pro-Israel stuff alongside a ton of progressive things they make it a little more difficult for us to get progressive anti-Semites to abandon their bigotry because it is easy for people to experience that as politically maddening- that people would be progressive on all issues but one, about their people (when GOP Irish-American IRA supporters do their version of that I go a lot further and simply call them racist). The Palestinians do have very serious and legitimate national grievances and national aspirations and Jewish-American people denying that doesn’t help the fight against anti-Semitism.

Conclusions

People who are politically active and/or are inside certain communities can help advance these twin agendas of supporting the Palestinians and opposing anti-Semitism. When we convince progressive anti-Semites that their bigotry is wrong, we strengthen the PSM in America and the more people who hear the PSM’s message from people who oppose anti-Semitism, the more progress we make taking down anti-Semitism, the more Jewish Israelis will take us seriously— this goes around and around in an upwards spiral.

Some things that will help with combatting anti-Semitism:

1) American supporters of the Palestinians who believe that because Jewish-Americans are not oppressed (AS JEWISH-AMERICANS) no effort should be made to avoid friction with that community need to understand that we’re all standing in a lake of gasoline called ANTI-SEMITISM and we need to avoid creating unnecessary sparks that could set it on fire. 
2) The Irish political party Sinn Fein, which interacts with Americans a lot and which is largely against anti-Semitism, needs to stop putting out (side-by-side) the following two statements: A) that there must be a boycott of Israel and B) that it was okay that the IRA accepted aid from Nazi Germany (they need to repeal the second of those two statements).
3) It wouldn’t hurt if supporters of Israel would speak about anti-semitism in their own ranks (i.e. The Rapture, and the anti-Soros stuff, and comparing reasonable things like COVID-19 public health measures and hostility towards Republicans in our society with what Nazi Germany did to Jewish people).
4) Critics of Israel need to abandon two ideas I have encountered. The first is that because the conflict is asymmetrical it’s okay for the military wing of Hamas to target civilians. The other idea is that Palestinians are so powerless that they have the power to make war, but not the power to make peace. (I criticize both ideas here).
5) I think that a lot of American progressives fail to express enthusiasm, when looking at history, for the Allied cause in World War II. I’m thinking of people who are not anti-Semitic but who might be giving other people the wrong idea about the Holocaust, simply because they take their usually solid criticism of America too far.
6) Critics of Israel need to remember that although a majority of Jewish-Americans support Israel, that majority is a VERY SMALL minority of American Zionists.

I can only come up with two ideas to counter anti-Muslim bigotry besides everything else I have said or linked to above. 

1) If the opportunity arises, we should ask the US military if they would behave the way they did in Iraq 2003-2008 were they to find themselves policing a rocky Peace Process in N. Ireland (I am not sure how popular this shirt is, especially for the POST-Bush GOP, but the text of a shirt here should be discussed, especially the one about collateral damage).
2) I have read, at least once, the argument that anti-Muslim bigotry in America today resembles the anti-Catholic bigotry that occasionally surged and retreated in this country over the decades until about the 1940s (I think it has surged a little bit since then in terms of left-wing ignorance about Catholic politics). I used to be Catholic (I’ve sort of started converting to the Episcopalian Church) and I experienced anti-Catholic bigotry in this country at least two or three times (I also kind of experienced it in Northern Ireland twice).
3) The two very last statements in this conclusion should balance things a little.

It’s been about 15 years since I read huge amounts of information from the Southern Poverty Law Center, but if we DO see a resurgence of the Nazi skinhead movement, we should, as united communities, counter them by ANY AND EVERY means available. This will be more effective and successful if Muslim-Americans and Jewish-Americans cooperate and have not pushed each other away, and this future battle requires them to start massive dialogue now.

I am concluding with a quote from the hard-working opponents of organized hate, right-wing politics and economic injustice at the Southern Poverty Law Center. In one of the articles in the Fall 2008 issue of their publication, they wrote the following (it’s a statement by the author of that article, Sonia Scherr):
 

“Although criticism of Israel does not typically amount to anti-Semitism — and many critics of the Jewish state are unfairly accused of bigotry — in some cases those who denounce Israel also cross the line into denigration of Jews as a group.” 

My Qualifications And Some Other Stuff About Why You Should Consider What I Say In This Essay

I could be more familiar with this in some ways- but in other ways I believe I have a lot to offer. I  have read a ridiculous number of articles about the conflict there, I have read a ridiculous number of articles about anti-Semitism, and I have given a lot of thought to blending support for the Palestinians with opposition to anti-Semitism. Although it is just a BA, I got a degree in a very relevant field in 2003 at CU-Boulder— Ethnic Studies. When I attended the 2002 National Conference of Sinn Fein Youth in Galway, Ireland, I was representing the Anti-Racism Commission of the Democratic Socialists of America (see below). It might be relevant that I am engaged to marry a woman who identifies partly as Jewish- enough that I have been to three Passover Seders with her in the last four years.

I was a member of DSA from 1995-2002 and my familiarity with it gradually declined after 2002. I left for a hybrid of personal and political reasons but I have some reason to believe that I would probably still feel at home in it today if not for the personal stuff. The political stuff is not relevant to this. Even today I am not as literate when it comes to socialist theory as I should be, and around 25-30 years ago I knew even less. During that time I vaguely identified as a Marxist and I was either a third-party fan or reluctant to register as a Democrat. I have done an okay job of educating myself more since then and I now use two terms in combination to describe my political beliefs- democratic Marxist and left-wing social-democrat. I’ve been registered as a Dem since 2004. I am not officially with any political organization, although I might be close to identifying with Indivisible.

Some people might point out that practically no one has heard of me and suggest that I have done nothing in recent years to earn a prominent stall in the marketplace of ideas. The short version is that while I did a ton of activism in Boulder 1994-2004, since Aug. of 2001 I have been dealing with a “perfect storm” of things that are A) largely or completely not my fault and B) largely personal tragedy (in some ways that situation has been almost overturned since I started dating my fiancé in 2020, but in a lot of ways I still struggle with stuff vocationally, mentally, emotionally, etc.). During the time since 2001 I have continued reading a HUGE amount of political material, I have developed some analytical skills through writing a lot, and I have made some decent contributions to the progressive community. Since 2008 I have published about a million words on this blog. Although in the last 6 years my blog has gotten only about 10 page-views a week on average, 2008-2018 there were about 10,000 first time visitors (who may have looked at several posts and/or come back some other time for more) and in the first few months of the pandemic there were somewhere around 100 page-views a day. 2011-2022 I volunteered an average of five hours a week at a large food-bank in this area. Since early 2021 I have gotten a total of about 10 LTEs and about six Guest Opinions published in a mainstream Boulder County publication and a sort of mainstream Boulder County publication. Since 2010 I have gone to a progressive event or protest about twice a month on average and in the last year it’s been about twice a week on average.

A big part of why few people have heard a lot about me as a political activist in the last 20 years is that I have 4+ mental disabilities that got worse or more numerous at a few different points in the last 25 years (for more about my mental health and progressive politics, read this).           

The Anti-Muslim Attack In San Diego

Below is something I submitted to the daily Camera a week ago about the 5/18 attack on a San Diego mosque. It probably won't be published at this point. You should read a CNN.COM article here. It basically says that an effort was made to deny mosques DHS funding for security about a year ago.

 

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For decades I have been worried about anti-Muslim bigotry in this country, especially since 9/11. I’m not sure how often I have done something really significant about it- unless expressing support for the Palestinians counts, in which case I have done a lot (including at least one very visible effort). I think that yesterday’s attack in San Diego might be the first fatal attack on a mosque here. There have been many other manifestations of anti-Muslim bigotry in America, including some deadly violence. Trump has done a lot to fuel that bigotry here, especially with his first-term Muslim travel ban and his second-term suggestions that it would be appropriate to get Palestinians to leave Gaza permanently and that it would be appropriate to destroy, as in commit genocide against, the Iranian nation-state. And there’s been tons of smaller stuff as well.

I’ll be honest, in the same spirit of saying that all white people are at least a tiny bit racist, as a Christian I have had occasional anti-Muslim thoughts. It’s so minor it’s barely worth mentioning, but since I am writing this, I should say that I think that in recent years I may have slightly or significantly discounted the progress made in the Muslim world when it comes to how women are treated by men and male-dominated institutions. In the last few years I have been pleasantly surprised by how many news articles quote Gaza women (for example)- to be honest, I DID think they would be discouraged by men and other women from speaking to the media. People who are much worse than flawed Christian allies of America’s Muslim population should consider that Sharia has been mentioned enough already.

I’m embarrassed by that oversight of mine for at least a few reasons and one of them is that I have read, at least once, the argument that anti-Muslim bigotry in America today resembles the anti-Catholic bigotry that occasionally surged and retreated in this country over the decades until about the 1940s (I think it has surged a little bit since then in terms of left-wing ignorance about Catholic politics). I used to be Catholic (I’ve sort of started converting to the Episcopalian Church) and I experienced anti-Catholic bigotry in this country at least two or three times (I also kind of experienced it in Northern Ireland twice).

I could be better equipped to do this- although I set out to read the Koran about 6 and 1/2 years ago, I only read about 5% of it and then the pandemic distracted me. The part I read didn’t contain anything I found offensive. I get the impression there’s a fair amount of politically good stuff in that book, just like there is in the Bible. We need to remember a handful of facts- Muslims believe that Christ was an important prophet and the Angel Gabriel appears in both books. Many people use the term “Abrahamic” to refer to Islam, Judaism and Christianity, and I believe strongly that we all pray to the same God.

Would I say that non-Muslims should never criticize certain tendencies (sexism and homophobia) in the Muslim world in order to avoid encouraging religious bigotry? No. But we should blend critical statements about them with positive ones about Islam and the Muslim community. We should make more efforts to build bridges in every sphere of life with Muslims. We should understand that the Palestinians have very legitimate national grievances and aspirations and reject the Israel lobby’s demonization of them. We should ask the US military if they would act the way they did in Iraq 2003-2008 if they found themselves policing a rocky Peace Process in N. Ireland.

We need to stand with our Muslim brothers and sisters at this time and in general and whenever hatred for them raises it’s ugly head.

Combatting Anti-Semitism

Below is a guest opinion of almost 700 words that, with very few small differences, I submitted to the Daily Camera (Boulder's main paper) about four weeks ago. At this point it's not going to get published.

There are some things I'm going to clarify and offer some addendums below the essay following this introduction. Let me first say that I have heard of two other recent attacks in the last year or so and there was one more in London three weeks ago. Also, one thing I came across a few times in the last several months in articles on CNN.COM is prominent liberal or progressive Jewish-Americans saying that there ARE some problems with anti-Semitism on the university campuses Trump has been attacking, although these leaders make it clear that it's not as bad as Trump makes it out to be and that the President is not helping at all

 

Tom

 

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I’m sure I am forgetting 1-2 examples of this, but in the last eight years there have been some really significant anti-Semitic physical attacks. From the American Right there was the 2018 murder of 11 Jewish people at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. Right here in Boulder in 2025 one Jewish person (a Holocaust survivor) was killed and several were wounded and the number one suspect is a Muslim. At Bondi Beach last year in Australia 15 Jewish people including one Holocaust survivor were killed and the two (dead) suspects were a Muslim father and son. In January 2026 an anti-Semitic arson took place at an important synagogue and the number one suspect is a White, American (possibly fundamentalist) Christian. A few days ago a destructive attack was carried out at a synagogue and community center in Michigan and the dead suspect was an Arab-American man.

Some of this predates the Gaza War and most of it predates the Iran War. The common theme is anti-Semitism. I do have some connections to the Jewish-American community, and I am incredibly partisan (on one side) in the fight against anti-Semitism, but I go where the facts take me and I say what has to be said, independent of the politics (I have been a supporter of the Irish political party Sinn Fein since 1997, but 1999-2004 I criticized them very publicly three times because they had strayed a bit from the path of opposing homophobia). Although this is greatly exaggerated by some political tendencies among Jewish Americans (such as the ADL), most Republicans including Trump, and an official part of the Israeli government, there IS some anti-Semitism among progressive supporters, Muslim supporters and Arab supporters of the Palestinians. I have encountered it in Ireland and in Boulder.

When I started my blog in 2008 I was very quick to add fighting anti-semitism to the list of official main topics. I’m not sure when I started thinking about it critically (probably about 25-30 years ago) but I have always been a fan, when looking at history, of what the Allies of World War II did. The Holocaust was one of the worst things to happen in this world’s history (a big part of my major was American Indian Studies and in some ways what happened to Native Americans may have been more destructive to humanity, but the Holocaust, overall, was way up there, too). One of the other reasons I made it a big part of my blog is that in my Sophomore year of college (1995-1996) I was mildly anti-Semitic. I don’t think I did any harm, and there were a lot of anti-Semitic things I did NOT do, but I believe in compensating for the tiniest possibility that I DID do some harm. Anyway, about half of why I was slightly but significantly hateful was the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.

What can be done about anti-Semitism in the short-to-medium term? Some suggestions:

1) Supporters of the Palestinians who believe that because Jewish-Americans are not oppressed (AS JEWISH-AMERICANS) no effort should be made to avoid friction with that community need to understand that we’re all standing in a lake of gasoline called ANTI-SEMITISM and we need to, when appropriate, avoid creating sparks that could set it on fire.
2) Supporters of Israel need to be less trigger-happy with the accusation of anti-Semitism. I don’t have space here to go into any detail, but, for example, there is nothing inherently bigoted about the term “Israeli Apartheid.”
3) Sinn Fein, which is largely against anti-Semitism, needs to stop putting out (side-by-side) the following two statements: A) that there must be a boycott of Israel and B) that it was okay that the IRA accepted aid from Nazi Germany.
4) It wouldn’t hurt if supporters of Israel would speak about anti-semitism in their own ranks (I.e. The Rapture, and the anti-Soros stuff, and comparing reasonable things like COVID-19 public health measures and hostility towards Republicans in our society with what Nazi Germany did).

I AM a pretty solid supporter of the Palestinians, and for decades now I have believed that opposing anti-Semitism STRENGTHENS that movement, and that supporting the Palestinians STRENGTHENS the struggle against anti-Semitism.

 

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Some things to clarify and/or add:

 

1) There's a post partly about my sophomore year and anti-Semitism, here.

 

2) As far as my assumption that Jewish-Americans are not oppressed AS JEWISH-AMERICANS, I wrote a fair amount about that in mid-2020 here.

 

3) Why do I mention a "lake of gasoline"? There's a line in the 1991 movie "Backdraft" spoken by Robert De Niro, a line that for some reason I really like. It refers dramatically to a "lake of gasoline."

 

4) I don't know if this has been repealed since but at some point about 20 years ago an agency of the EU said that the term "Israeli Apartheid" is anti-semitic. I did a post that was largely about refuting that accusation. It's here.

 

5) After Bondi Beach I felt like I had to do something and I decided to weaponize a post on my blog about the problem with Sinn Fein that I refer to above. It went nowhere, for some reason or other. So I brought it into this. The post is here. 

 

6) Maybe the worst fit in this essay is suggestion #4. I did a post on my blog that is overwhelmingly about examples of anti-Semitism among SUPPORTERS of Israel. I think it's at least kind of relevant to this, but I'm not sure if I added it to this essay very well. That blogpost is here.

 

7) I am thinking of doing a fairly long essay that focuses on and substantiates and further develops the idea in the last paragraph of the essay above.

How To Address Tension Between Jews and Muslims, Zionists and Palestinians In America?

Below is something I am very fond of. It's not flawless but I believe it's pretty good. The joke about McMahon might not be as funny as I thought. Also, if the reference to Nazi skinheads seemed odd- A) I believe that they pose a very serious threat to our society and B) reminding Muslim Americans and Jewish Americans that they share or shared or will share a common enemy might be helpful.

 

With some small editing my essay was published as a Guest Opinion in Boulder's main paper a few days after the incident. Below is what I submitted to them. (The quote at the bottom is something written by Sonia Scherr)

 

Tom

 

********** 

 

I saw the headline around 4 PM Sunday afternoon. For the most part I wasn’t too surprised. Although at this point it seems likely there was no Boulder dimension to the planning and execution of the attack, I had encountered Israel-connected anti-Semitism, to a small but significant degree, on a discussion and organizing list associated with the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center shortly after Oct. 7th- at one point concerned City of Boulder officials were briefly involved. Although this attack is suspiciously convenient for the Trump Administration, I am inclined to usually take accusations of anti-Semitism seriously. I didn’t know it was too soon after the attack for some kind of unifying rally near the crime scene, so when I went to Pearl Street about 6:30 PM there were just cops there.

More so than with any other opinion piece I’ve submitted to local media in the last 5 years, I wish I could include links to my blog. Fighting anti-Semitism is a major part of my blog, about 15% of the total, and supporting the Palestinians is about 10% of my blog (those two parts overlap a lot). I am a very passionate supporter of the Palestinians (I was happy to cover my face with a keffiyeh I was given when I was standing next to working-class Catholics fighting the British Army in Belfast in 2002 (fortunately for all of us in the street that day, Education Secretary Linda McMahon wasn’t around enforcing her anti-mask rule!)). On the other hand my response to Oct. 7th was so hostile to Hamas that two people associated with the RMPJC accused me of being a Zionist and almost no one on that list disagreed with them.

The Peace Process in Israel/Palestine is in serious trouble. In recent years I have leaned towards supporting a one state solution, but after Oct. 7th and Israel’s response, maybe a two state solution is more realistic.

Until there is some massive progress towards peace, what can we do in America to prevent more attacks that target people because they are Muslim-American or because they are Jewish-American? With Trump in office, I don’t have high hopes. Here are some thoughts (not an exhaustive list):

1) Critics of Israel need to abandon two ideas I have encountered. The first is that because the conflict is asymetrical it’s okay for the military wing of Hamas to target civilians. The other idea is that Palestinians are so powerless that they have the power to make war, but not the power to make peace.
2) It’s been about 15 years since I read huge amounts of information from the Southern Poverty Law Center, but if we DO see a resurgence of the Nazi skinhead movement, we should, as united communities, counter them by ANY AND EVERY means available.
3) It’s possible that events in the near future will lead me to use this word without hesitation, but I think that until Trump talked about a Gaza Riviera, critics of Israel were a little trigger-happy with the word “genocide.”
4) I think that a lot of American progressives fail to express enthusiasm, when looking at history, for the Allied cause in World War II. I’m thinking of people who are not anti-Semitic but who might be giving other people the wrong idea about the Holocaust, simply because they take their usually solid criticism of America too far.
5) Critics of Israel need to remember that although a majority of Jewish-Americans support Israel, that majority is a VERY SMALL minority of American Zionists.

I am concluding with a quote from the hard-working opponents of organized hate, right-wing politics and economic injustice at the Southern Poverty Law Center. In one of the articles in the Fall 2008 issue of their publication, they wrote the following (it’s a statement by the author of that article):
 
“Although criticism of Israel does not typically amount to anti-Semitism — and many critics of the Jewish state are unfairly accused of bigotry — in some cases those who denounce Israel also cross the line into denigration of Jews as a group.” 

A 2023 LTE About Gaza And The IRA

Below is something I wrote about Gaza. It (probably with some changes to what is below) was published in late Dec. 2023 on the web-site of the Boulder Weekly, but not in the print version of their paper and I can't find it on their site anymore.

 

Tom 

 

 Editor,

 

I have been a supporter of the Palestinians for about 30 years. In 2002 I convinced the other members of a CU-Boulder group (Students for Justice in Northern Ireland) that we should endorse the campus Coalition for Justice in Palestine. In the last 15 years one of the main topics on my blog is supporting the Palestinians. But an even bigger part of my blog is about opposing anti-Semitism, and I’m proud to say that those two parts of my blog overlap heavily.

 

There are many progressives who reject anti-Semitism but have failed to condemn Hamas’ Oct. 7th offensive. Although that failure is not necessarily bigoted, what Hamas did IS bigoted. They are religious fundamentalists and overwhelmingly targeted civilian life, and it was Jews they were after. As someone who looks back and supports almost everything the IRA did in The Troubles, I condemn the Oct. 7th pogrom but I would not condemn a Palestinian effort that resembles what the IRA did- targeting the security forces and (using methods that almost always prevent civilian death) destroying government and commercial property.

 

Why would I say something like that? Because although what happened Oct. 7th was horrible, the Palestinians have very serious and legitimate grievances. Those Palestinians who are Israeli citizens experience a fair amount of inequality (the State is officially Jewish, it cannot be simultaneously democratic). Those in the West Bank have it even worse (they are state-less (they have no citizenship, and thus no civil rights)). And those in Gaza the last month have endured a nightmare much worse than living in the world’s largest open-air prison- which was their existence for almost two decades until the last month.

 

They have every reason to be furious at the Israeli state and Israel’s Jewish population. But intentionally killing civilians in war is, to one degree or another, wrong, and in this case bigoted. Palestinians should leave that to Israel and/or it’s settlers, as we see in the West Bank and Gaza.

 

There must be a cease-fire in Gaza!

 

Tom Shelley
Boulder

 

Trump, Gaza, and Genocide

(This (with a tiny bit of editing) was published 3/8/25 in the Daily Camera here (a small part of what is below wasn't submitted to the Camera- the parenthetical italicized statements))

 

Since 10th grade (1991-92) I have supported the Palestinians (i.e. I have publicly said in the last 18 months that if it resembled, in terms of targets and methods, what the Irish Republican Army did I would probably support an armed campaign by the Palestinians (see this and this). Since Oct. 8th I have often but decreasingly thought that a lot of Palestine solidarity activists might be using the term “genocide” inappropriately. Looking at the UN definition, yes there have been and are several elements of the crime found in the war on Gaza and to a much lesser degree, Israeli Apartheid in general (stretching back to the creation of the state). In the last 18 months I was not certain that there was an INTENT to destroy the Palestinian population. After I learned what kind of government there is in Israel now, and as the assault on Gaza went on and on and on, I started thinking- more and more that maybe, yes, something I THOUGHT was possible was ACTUALLY HAPPENING- the genocide of the Palestinians. But that’s nothing- in terms of my certitude that it’s genocide and in terms of the national destruction involved- compared to what Donald Trump has proposed.

Moving the entire Gaza population elsewhere would eliminate them as Gazans. They would be leaving their land, not because it’s become a “dust bowl,” not because the place was nuked and humans in general couldn’t live there anymore, etc. but because of hatred towards them in connection with their racial and/or national and/or religious identity (one thing that backs me up on this is an explanation here of how Apartheid IS the right word to apply to Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians in areas it controls). And transforming that now-blood-drenched beach-front property into something that practically no Palestinian could afford to live in would underline their loss- news reports (for example) about Trump’s Riviera would be reminders of what Trump did and would be rubbing it in. In general, Trump’s plan would involve some kind of national trauma comparable to the historical trauma experienced by American Indian communities.

(Nothing in this essay is meant to excuse or justify what happened Oct. 7th, which was mostly an attack on Israeli civilians. I have written a LOT of material critical of Hamas (here, here and here), but at this point it is time for me to focus more on the Palestinians)

In Ireland, the political party Sinn Fein (which was associated with the IRA and is now the biggest party if you look at votes in both the North and the South) announced that they will be boycotting the St. Patrick Day events at the White House this year and they are doing that because of Trump’s plans for Gaza. It might help everyone if I explain something here- SF, especially in the last 3-4 decades, makes a fair amount of effort to avoid conflicts in America with American politicians when it’s about something not central to justice for N. Ireland Catholics and/or peace in N. Ireland. That should help Americans understand how serious this situation with Gaza is- SF and most of the world are terrified by what Trump said.

In addition to the trauma experienced by Gazans, Trump’s plan will not bring peace to the middle-east. To one degree or another almost everyone there supports the Palestinians. If Egypt and/or Jordan cooperate with Trump, the governments in those two countries will probably be overthrown. The odds are pretty good there will be various renewed efforts to attack Israel. There will be more efforts to attack American targets.

There are some other flaws in Trump’s plan. How many REALLY nice pieces of real estate are A) empty of people and B) lucrative enough that two million or more Palestinians could prosper there? I have no idea what location Trump is thinking of. He kind of skirts around this, but he should be politically apprehended for pretty much saying that there will be no reconstruction in Gaza as long as the Palestinians are there but as soon as they are dragged away THEN it will be re-built for rich people. And he’s pretty much said that no, there will be no return.

Trump and Israel must be stopped before they do something horrible.

(An essay I wrote about the flaws in the Zionist argument and how to resolve the conflict is here)

Anti-Semitism In Student Protests Is A Problem, But Not As Much As You Might Think

Below is an essay which, after some editing, was published as a guest opinion in the Boulder Weekly here.

Tom

**********

 

As I write this I am having trouble staying on top of what is happening at this or that university campus- it’s wonderful that so much protesting is going on. Although, as I’ll explain below, I am concerned about the likely fact that there is at least SOME anti-Semitism among American progressives supporting the Palestinians, I recently decided that it is probably a smaller problem than what I thought most of the last seven months. What prompts me to say that? A 4/23/24 video on CNN’s web-site (not some far-left web-site) about how the Columbia encampment included a Passover meal.

 

I believe that there IS a substantial amount of anti-Semitism in the sense that these activists are probably not condemning Oct. 7th. I believe most American progressives supporting the Palestinians don’t understand that intentionally killing civilians in war is wrong. I believe that they also don’t understand that Hamas is not a progressive organization. The military wing of Hamas are religiously fundamentalist socially conservative mass murderers.

 

On the other hand, so many Americans, including a dwindling percentage of the Democratic Party, just don’t understand what the Palestinians have gone through- as horrible and unjustified as it was, Oct. 7th did not happen in a vacuum. The Palestinians did experience, to various degrees depending on what part of Israel/Palestine they live in, some pretty serious injustice for decades BEFORE Oct. 7th. A very good source about that is the blog of an expert on the Middle-East who has written negatively about Oct. 7th but generally supports the Palestinians. His name is Juan Cole and his blog is at- https://www.juancole.com/ . If you want something less partisan, there’s an online Israeli newspaper called The Times of Israel, at- https://www.timesofisrael.com/ .

 

The problem of anti-Semitism among progressives might be greatly exaggerated by allies of Israel, but it is a problem. And I believe that Oct. 7th was anti-Semitic. You had an organization like Hamas targeting only Jews and mostly Jewish civilians. I am not sure what has happened recently in the investigation of the alleged use of rape as a weapon of war on Oct. 7th, but I read a handful of things in the last several months, from non-Zionist sources, making me think that it happened (see “UN: 'Convincing information' sexual violence committed against hostages in Gaza” BBC 3/52024). Even without this I am comfortable calling Hamas anti-Semitic, but if there was organized rape of Jewish women, that says something about the acute HATE that Hamas had for their victims.

 

I think that a lot of progressive supporters of the Palestinians need to seriously consider that Hamas doesn’t deserve their support and they need to take the threat of anti-Semitism more seriously. They need to understand that it will be easier to refute accusations of anti-Semitism if they DO condemn Oct. 7th. I think that American supporters of Israel (although the Jewish zionists are a small part of the Israel lobby, this is aimed more at them than at the MUCH larger population of conservative Christian zionists (who are less likely to care about justice)) need to think more critically about Israel and consider that it is impossible for a state to be based on religion and ethnicity and to simultaneously be democratic. There is a lot of material on my blog about these issues, at- https://theblackandthegreen3.blogspot.com/ .

 

I am concluding with a quote from the hard-working opponents of organized hate, right-wing politics and economic injustice at the Southern Poverty Law Center. In one of the articles in the Fall 2008 issue of their publication, they wrote the following (it’s a statement by the author of that article):

 

“College campuses are particularly susceptible to anti-Semitism that originates in certain sectors of the far left. This source of anti-Jewish sentiment often begins with condemnation of Israeli policies and devolves into derogatory statements about all Jewish people. Although criticism of Israel does not typically amount to anti-Semitism — and many critics of the Jewish state are unfairly accused of bigotry — in some cases those who denounce Israel also cross the line into denigration of Jews as a group.” (My emphasis)

 

The most important part is the last sentence. Both opponents and supporters of Israel need to think about that seriously.

 

We Need MORE Criticism of Hamas, not Less

 Since Oct. 7th I have read a lot about the war between Israel and Hamas, I have done a small amount of protesting on the street, I have gotten a letter published in the Boulder Weekly (a widely-read alternative newspaper), I have sent a few messages (in support of the Palestinians) to federal politicians, and I have also taken part in a fair amount of email discussion among a lot of the Boulder County people supporting the Palestinians. In those discussions I encountered two ideas that I think overlap and which I would like to address in this essay. First is the idea that it’s okay for the Palestinians to kill civilians because it’s an “asymmetrical” conflict where the Palestinians don’t have the resources, power, and environment to fight in that the Israelis have. The second idea is that the Israelis have the power to wage peace and the Palestinians don’t and therefore it is the former who need to take the first few steps or so towards peace and the latter can wait until those steps have been taken to reciprocate.

This essay will address these two ideas and to a lesser degree some other aspects of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

*****

Since Oct. 7th I have read something like 2,000 words a day about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict- 50% from the BBC, 10% from Juan Cole’s site Informed Comment, 10% from CNN and the rest is miscellaneous. Looking at the 30 years before that I probably read an average of 100-200 words a day about it and it broke down like this- 20% from Juan Cole and about 20% is from the BBC. The rest, about 60% is from various sources, some  mainstream, some progressive, including The Nation, the Washington Post, the Times of Israel, etc.

*******

Although I only have a BA, it’s in Ethnic Studies and mine includes three courses taught by Ward Churchill (I don’t think this affected how much I learned from him, but he was my faculty advisor (I got an A in all three of the courses he taught)). I have also spent a huge amount of time studying the recent conflict in Northern Ireland (in the last 26 years about 1,000 words a day on average), and that included some things that made me more familiar with the violence than most outside observers (A: I heard a lecture in 2002 by someone who had just months earlier been Chief of Staff of the IRA and B: in 2002 I was in the middle of two riots with the security forces).

In general, I support the Palestinians- in some ways more than many people who support them (in 2002 I got a CU-Boulder group called “Students for Justice in N. Ireland” to endorse the campus Coalition for Justice in Palestine), but in some ways less so (I wasn’t among the brave young people who went there in solidarity with them around 2002). I did a post where I do a pretty good of taking down Zionism and explaining why a one state solution would be better than a two state solution. Here and there in the last six months I say that although I condemn what happened Oct. 7th, I would support something that resembled what the IRA did during The Troubles (a detailed explanation of how I reached the conclusion that the IRA were (OBJECTIVELY) not terrorists is here and a description of the Republican Movement’s (1970-1997) strategy is here).

On the other hand I hate Hamas and always have. Recently I decided that I no longer consider the Palestinian Authority/Palestinian Liberation Organization to be worthy of my support.

I did a post about how incredibly appropriate it is to use the word Apartheid in relation to Israel. That is largely about Israel, East Jerusalem and the West Bank. In one way or another, to one degree or another, in the last 17 years residents of the Gaza Strip have had it worse than Palestinians in the West Bank (until recently Gaza was dominated by Israel even though it had no soldiers there (now it’s still dominated (if that’s the right word), in part because there ARE soldiers there)). Those Palestinians in the West Bank and in Gaza are state-less and thus very close to powerlessness.

So, it’s true that Israel is MUCH more powerful than the Palestinians, and is allied with the most powerful country in the world. The resistance is underground in East Jerusalem, Israel, and the West Bank. Israel has an advanced and conventional military that includes, for example, tanks. Does that asymmetry mean that Hamas shouldn’t be seriously criticized for focusing overwhelmingly on intentionally killing civilians Oct. 7th?

No, it doesn’t mean that. Crucially, the IRA almost never intentionally killed civilians and almost never unintentionally killed civilians and almost never TRIED to kill civilians (I explain how I came to those conclusions here). The IRA was of course an underground army and the British had, for example, many helicopters that were used extensively (especially in South Armagh, where, without helicopters, the British Army would have been defeated by the IRA). In the struggle against Apartheid, operations by the military wing of the ANC (in English known as “Spear of the Nation”) were even less likely to result in civilian death, and they were definitely fighting under difficult conditions.

I should say at some point here that I believe there is a spectrum between completely legitimate targets on one hand and completely innocent civilians on the other hand. This is reflected in my opinion of Hamas’ military wing and my opinion of the IRA, among others. It doesn’t mean that I think less-than-totally-innocent civilians are legitimate targets, but I don’t attach much value to such killings when deciding if I consider the group responsible to be a terrorist organization or something better.

Although I do not totally agree with international law on this, international law is so unfavorable towards the killing of civilians that I believe killing civilians is not excused by the conditions that an underground army fight under against a technologically and institutionally superior foe.

Although this may not be the fairest thing to say about them, it almost seems to me that progressive supporters of Hamas believe that there is something akin to a Law of Physics about the inevitability of underground armies intentionally killing civilians- their argument seems to be, “you don’t condemn an apple for falling to the Earth.” But there are at least two such armies that never or almost never intentionally killed civilians. One of them was totally successful (although it should be mentioned that their economic agenda was not realized, the ANC’s primary goal was the end of Apartheid) and the other was sort of successful (the Good Friday Agreement isn’t that bad and in recent years Sinn Fein and the EU have forced the British to create a border of sorts between N. Ireland and Britain).

The second and overlapping idea is that the Palestinians don’t have the power to wage peace and can only wage war until Israel takes the first few steps towards peace on their own. In my opinion Israel is a lot more responsible for the conflict than the Palestinians are. The average Israeli Jew is a lot more comfortable than the average Palestinian is and could survive the re-distribution of resources (i.e. water) that peace would require. I’m sure a lot of Palestinians would say that they have little or nothing to lose and that for decades now Israel has been brutalizing them and undermining the possibility of a two state solution and many of them will fight until Israel makes the first moves.

Although I am not a pacifist, A) I overwhelmingly support non-violent political efforts and B) what I’m about to say needs to be seriously considered by supporters of this theory that Hamas cannot wage peace at this point. The Black population in America was seriously dis-empowered in the decades before and during the Civil Rights Movement (there was SOME militancy and looking back at that history, I support some of that militancy). But Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was almost 100% against the use of violence and saying that he “waged peace” is putting it mildly- it was a scorched Earth version of “waging peace.” I have a theory that intentionally killing civilians in war is further from “waging peace” than exclusively targeting combatants. I am not saying that liberation movements out there in the world need to completely abandon the use force in order to respect the legacy of Dr. King. But I believe progressives should be careful with who we support when it comes to armed liberation movements. And although I am not going to go into a lot of detail beyond looking at the Civil Rights/Black Power era and N. Ireland, I also think we should ask ourselves, “what would Gandhi think?”

The Republican Movement (Sinn Fein and the IRA), as I mentioned above, conducted a very honorable struggle and DID do a lot of non-violent stuff. In all fairness to Hamas, they did successfully contest an election in 2006 and didn’t have much more in terms of opportunities for non-violent political efforts. But I am still going to point out that starting in the mid-80s SF members who got elected to local councils took their seats and engaged their unionist opponents non-violently and democratically- a move towards waging peace in the acutely imperialistic Thatcher years. When the conditions seemed right, in 1994 the IRA went on cease-fire for about a year. After a brief return to war, they went on cease-fire again in 1997 and to a VERY large degree have become less and less relevant and I wouldn’t be surprised if they pretty much ceased to exist in the last 15 or so years.

Although I’m not gonna go into much detail here (I talk about this in a 2009 post) the RM and the Nationalist community in general bent over backwards to make the peace process work. It would have been VERY reasonable if they had refused to sign up to anything that failed to guarantee a United Ireland after some transitional period. The republican argument is something I go into some detail about here. Around 1997-2005 the IRA took several steps leading up to the full decommissioning of their arsenal, steps that kept the Peace Process going forward, despite frequent provocations by their opponents (i.e. for about 3 months in late 2001 loyalists terrified little Catholic girls (aged about 11) on their way to school just inside a Protestant area (there’s a fairly good article about it here)). 

When the conditions seemed right, the IRA was quick to wage peace. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Palestinians in the West Bank or Gaza have less power than the 1998 Catholic population of N. Ireland, but it’s also relevant that on a per-capita basis, Catholic civilians might have been slaughtered in The Troubles to a greater degree than was the case with Palestinian civilians since 1967 (that is, until Oct. 8th 2023 when that situation changed dramatically) (below, starting with the sentence “As I write elsewhere 856+” I try to illustrate how the Catholics were slaughtered). Even though the Catholics probably had more power in 1998, when it came to support from the global community, the Palestinians definitely have more (i.e. the Catholic population of N. Ireland didn’t have a representative at the UN) (and the British, although I don’t believe they used this to win diplomatic battles with Dublin, are permanent members of the UN Security Council and have a veto and they might have benefited from that in terms of discouraging support for the IRA). I talk about the Irish half of that comparison with South Africa in the middle third of a post here (starting with a paragraph that begins by mentioning South Africa). Crucially, the US government was, to one degree or another, on the side of the British as I describe in note #17 of a post here. As I said, the IRA waged peace not when they had the global community behind them, not just when British politics made peace more likely, but when it appeared there was an opportunity to stop the violence and the inequality, the hate and the injustice. In 1994 that meant after very few moves by the British and the Unionists. In 1996-1997 there were a few more moves by the British, but also some provocation by London and the unionists- which was ignored.

As I was typing this I increasingly came to understand that in terms of power, the Catholic population had more than their brothers and sisters in Palestine. But what I wrote about the latter having more support globally is true. Also, in terms of forgiving your oppressors and waging peace, you have to consider what I write below about the Catholic civilian population, on a per capita basis, being slaughtered to such a great extent that it was possibly worse on a per capita basis than what the Palestinians have been through between 1967 and Oct. 7th (it’s not a perfectly symmetrical comparison and for multiple reasons I am not going to hunt down solid figures for deaths of the Palestinians, but you might agree with me when you read that section after the next paragraph).

I don’t think anything excuses much less justifies what Hamas did Oct. 7th. I’m not saying that they are anywhere near as responsible for the conflict in general as Israel is but Oct. 7th was a massive and (sort of) unprovoked escalation (I say sort of unprovoked because it was disproportionate to what Israel was doing- nowhere near as disproportionate as Israel’s response to Oct. 7th, but still disproportionate (you have to consider that targeting civilians is more provocative than attacking soldiers)). If they were fighting offensively as the IRA did, I’d be pretty supportive. Coming back to reality, what do I think Hamas and the PLO and the Palestinian people in general should do? I think their allies worldwide need to continue to take a stand and communicate to Israel that it had better stop bombing Gaza and allow humanitarian aid into Gaza like never before, and stop going towards what I think would be something fairly genocidal. And they need to get the US to stop supporting Israel. (I believe that when it comes to genocide  there is a spectrum between 100% dead and, at the other end of the spectrum, what Ireland experienced during the Famine). I have no idea how making Gaza livable for 2.2 million people will be accomplished in the immediate future. But worse than that is the possibility that Israel will try to push Gazans out of Gaza and into Egypt, which would be pretty genocidal. I have almost no idea what should be done beyond an end to the violence and a return of aid to Gaza and and an end to American support for Israel. Normally I would say that a one-state solution must be pursued as I argue here, but after what has happened to both the Jewish population and the Palestinian population, I am thinking of going back to supporting the two-state solution. I imagine the reality is there will be no peace process worthy of the name for a very long time.

*******

As I write elsewhere 856+ Catholic civilians were killed in the years 1969 to 2005 by either loyalist paramilitaries or the security forces. A comparable scenario in America would have meant around 67,000 unarmed people of color killed by cops or Nazi skinheads (etc.) in the same time period. A: based on what I’ll describe below, I would guess that the actual number for that was probably somewhere around 7,000-8,000; B: I'm not saying the racist system in this country wasn't, ideologically or programmatically, capable of killing 67,000 people of color in those years if the "rebellion" among people of color here had been as militaristic as the one among Catholics in N. Ireland; but the reality is that as bad as it was for people of color here in those years, it was, in terms of deaths, MUCH worse for Catholics in N. Ireland.

What makes me confident about my statement “probably somewhere around 7,000-8,000”?



1. Between 1996 and 2005 according to the FBI there were 38 racist murders. I have read that the Department of Justice officially estimates that for every hate crime reported to the FBI there might be 20-30 that aren’t reported because not all local law enforcement agencies report such crimes to the FBI. So I came up with 1,140 for those years.


2. I heard (from organizers of a Black Lives Matter protest) that in a 12 month period during a 2014 (apparent) surge in police murders of black people including those of Eric Garner in NY, Tamir Rice in OH, and Michael Brown in MO among other highly publicized such cases, that around 200 black people armed or unarmed, had been killed by cops in America. Although I’m very open-minded about accusations that cops plant guns, this country also has a ridiculous number of guns.


3. Bear in mind that decades ago the number of people of color and the number of cops in this country were both smaller or much smaller than they are today.


4. If it’s worth much, about 10 years ago I read a huge amount of what the Southern Poverty Law Center put on their web-site in the previous 10-15 years. I also got an Ethnic Studies degree if that’s worth much.


5. There was little or no talk about “Brown Lives Matter” so I get the impression that very few Latinos/Latinas/Chicanos/Chicanas have been killed by cops in recent years (as far as I know, even Arpaio’s sheriff’s department in AZ didn’t kill a single such person) and that might reflect the situation in earlier decades. I have practically never heard of Asian-Americans being killed by cops. And if Native Americans were being killed at a high rate in the 80s and 90s I would have heard (a massive chunk of my major was Native American Studies).
 

UPDATE 6/9/21 I just found a Democracy Now! story relevant to this. It's about the last 20 years, but there's a small overlap between that and the period I was looking at Catholics and people of color (1969-2005), and it's possible that what I said about this comparison is off a little. Bear in mind that the figure I refer to in item #2 above came from organizers of a Black Lives Matter protest.

******

In that first part (ending just above this line) I addressed the issues of asymmetry in war and waging peace. Here I need to address some other aspects of Hamas that contribute to me being hostile.

I believe in being consistently against religious fundamentalism and social conservatism. Towards the bottom I will explain how I don’t have a racist double standard in the favor of the Irish.

Hamas is an Arabic acronym for “Islamic Resistance Movement” and they’re very friendly with Iran, so I think I am on pretty good ground saying they are fundamentalists. I’m not an atheist and I’m certainly not a NEW atheist (see this). I believe in the separation of religious institutions and the state, I believe in secular politics (although I have nothing against religious socialists I am not one myself) and I believe in “Intelligent Design” not creationism.

I won’t apologize for consistently being against social conservatism, including sexism and homophobia. I’m sure some readers are groaning at that sentence in this essay, but please read what I write below.

I get the impression there is something close to a consensus among American progressives that criticizing the allegedly misogynist attitudes of MANY Muslim men is inappropriate. Are Muslim women oppressed to one degree or another in many (perhaps most) muslim societies? I think the answer is pretty close to “YES, although I have gotten the impression that some progress has been made on the issue in recent decades. I need to make clear that I don’t support laws (in France, for example) where muslim women are banned from dressing in a way that might be considered religious and/or traditional and/or conservative. I believe that Muslim women are adults and don’t need the government, or male relatives, or random males in the street telling them what to wear, when men are not treated that way as well.

What about homophobia? In general I get the strong impression that the VAST Majority of Muslims are homophobes. I wish I had a lot of evidence specifically about HAMAS being homophobic, but I am comfortable just assuming that they are. I DO know that in recent years Hamas and Iran get along very well and Iran is DEFINITELY homophobic. I also read a brief accusation of homophobia that Meredith Tax leveled against muslim fundamentalists in her book “Double Bind.”

Do I have a racist double standard in favor of the Irish and/or Catholics? No. Republicanism is mostly secular. There were a few Protestants in the IRA (is Sinn Fein as anti-protestant as Hamas is anti-Semitic? See this), and there are a LOT of atheists in Sinn Fein. Going back to the IRA, I was told that at one point, perhaps in the mid-1990s, a significant minority of IRA POWs were housed together in the same part of the prison because they were all devout. But I am certain it was a minority and probably a small minority of the POWs.

The first (or at least close to the first) Vice President of Provisional Sinn Fein (the SF that Gerry Adams was President of for a long time), in the early 1970s, was a woman. In the era of the Civil Rights Movement (late 60s/early 70s), if there was only one leader of the CRM it was Bernadette Devlin (McAliskey). She was also perhaps the main leader of those, around 1980, who were supporters of republican POWs demanding political status. In the mid-1980s for one year SF was pro-choice and between then and now (or at least most of that time) their position was only MODERATELY pro-life, and they might be pro-choice today. In recent years the two most senior leaders of SF are both women. When Gerry Adams stepped down as President of SF he came out as pro-choice.

A handful of facts about SF and homophobia are here.

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(I believe that Hamas is anti-Semitic. This is primarily based on 2-3 facts. They’re religious fundamentalists and they went after Jews, and some of them raped Jews (if you can prove that they raped a lot of non-Jewish people, I’ll reconsider that statement). I have decided that the PLO are anti-Semitic (based on a BBC article here) and if THEY’RE anti-Semitic I feel comfortable assuming that the socially conservative religious fundamentalists are, too. When I have made this accusation in the past 1-2 American supporters of Hamas have said that the anti-Semitism of some Palestinians can be traced back to Europe- that doesn’t make it okay!)

There are two last things I need to say. This post is partly a response to a blog post  by a woman named Helena Cobban here. The main theme of her post is that “it’s past time to end the demonization of Hamas.” Combined with everything else I have written above, I need to explain that Hamas weakens, it doesn’t strengthen, the cause of Palestine. Large numbers of people in the world believe it’s wrong for civilians to be targeted in war. Large numbers of people believe that anti-Semitism is wrong. Hamas’ targeting of civilians and their anti-Semitism turn people away from supporting the Palestinians. I mean Oct. 7th did nothing to increase support for their people. ISRAEL’S REACTION has, and that might have been Hamas’ plan, but I think that was a pretty bad plan and doesn’t change the fact that Oct. 7th was anti-Semitic. I guarantee you there would be more support for the Palestinians if they were not associated with Hamas.

I imagine that when anti-Semitism in the Palestinian population is not challenged by American supporters of the Palestinians, it might be noted by the younger and more impressionable progressive activists who might adopt that bigotry as their own. That means that ignoring anti-Semitism among the Palestinians can have an effect on how Jews are treated HERE.

We need to criticize Hamas MORE not LESS.

More on the Hamas Offensive

Below is an LTE I might not actually submit to a newspaper, but it says some things that I need to say. The first post I did on this theme is here.

I have been a supporter of the Palestinians since somewhere around 12th grade. I have protested in support of them here in America, and also in Belfast, N. Ireland. In 2002 I convinced the other members of a CU-Boulder group (Students for Justice in Northern Ireland) that we should endorse the campus Coalition for Justice in Palestine. In the last 15 years one of the main topics on my blog is supporting the Palestinians. But an even bigger part of my blog is about opposing anti-Semitism, and I’m proud to say that those two parts of my blog overlap heavily.

I know that there are many progressives who are not anti-Semitic but who have failed to condemn Hamas’ early October offensive. Although that failure is not necessarily bigoted, what Hamas has done IS bigoted. They are religious fundamentalists and overwhelmingly went after civilian life, and it was Jews they were targeting. As someone who looks back and supports almost everything the IRA did in The Troubles, I would not condemn a Palestinian effort that resembled the IRA’s campaign- targeting the military and (using methods that almost always prevent civilian death) destroying government and commercial property.

I say that because the Palestinians have very serious and legitimate grievances. Those who are Israeli citizens experience a fair amount of inequality (the State is officially Jewish, it cannot be simultaneously democratic). Those in the West Bank have it even worse (they are state-less (they have no citizenship, and thus no civil rights)). And those in  the Gaza Strip live in the world’s largest open-air prison.

They have every reason to be furious at the Israeli state and Israel’s Jewish population. But intentionally killing civilians in war is, to one degree or another, wrong, and in this case bigoted.

Tom Shelley

Fuck Hamas

This is my position on what happened in Israel and Palestine in early Oct.

First, as far as the history of that conflict, about 20% of my knowledge comes from Juan Cole’s site Informed Comment and about 20% is from the BBC. The rest, about 60% is from various sources, some  mainstream, some progressive, including The Nation, the Washington Post, the Times of Israel, etc. In the last week it’s something like 50% the BBC, 10% Juan Cole, 10% CNN and the rest is miscellaneous.

I have been a supporter of the Palestinians pretty much since I started becoming more than a tiny bit political. I sort of explain my general thoughts about the conflict in a post here. I have only briefly been VERY familiar with Israeli and Palestinian politics, and that was the first 2-3 months of 2020 when I was reading about 15 articles a day on the web-based newspaper The Times of Israel. I used to be a member of what used to be the American section of the Socialist International (the Democratic Socialists of America) and in 2001 learned that Fatah, the leading part of the PLO (Arafat was a leader of Fatah), was a less-than-full member of the SI. Until recently I basically supported them.

That was increasingly (in recent years as more and more criticisms were made of the PLO) because of who the main alternative was. My position has always been- “Fuck Hamas.” To one degree or another Hamas is a lot more socially conservative than Fatah is, and I think that the activities of the military wing of Hamas were more likely to intentionally kill innocent civilians than the PLO was when they were fighting Israel.

But for decades now I have heard about the PLO being corrupt and abusing their power. They also have done a horrible job of advancing the interests of their people. Although that’s been clear to one degree or another for decades now, there was a BBC article that really explained that just recently. And then there was a BBC article accusing the President of the Palestinian Authority (sort of an extension of the PLO, in the West Bank) of giving a VERY anti-Semitic speech. As you’ll understand if you read that article, Abbas said that European Jews were targeted because they had money. This is not true and even if all Jews were rich, how in the world would that justify killing them- especially when rich people outside the Jewish population were not targeted as well.

I won’t discuss this in this essay, but I am not sure who I can support among the political movements in the Palestinian population.

The Palestinians have very serious and legitimate grievances. Those who are Israeli citizens experience a fair amount of inequality. Those living in the West Bank have it worse (they are state-less), and in different ways the residents of the Gaza Strip have it even worse than that. The first two of the three aspects of the Israeli state I just referred to are often referred to as being governed by “Israeli Apartheid.” I explain how that’s a legitimate term for how the Palestinians are treated here. The two state solution has been dying a slow death for decades as Israel plants settlers in the West Bank, changing the “facts on the ground” that will make an independent Palestine non-viable.  The Israeli Right, who are in power right now, wants to annex all of the West Bank, at the expense of the Palestinians living there.

So, yes, the Palestinians have every reason to be FURIOUS with the Israeli state and the Israeli people. But what Hamas has done in the last few days is horrible. IF it had been aimed at the military and (using methods that avoid civilian death) government and commercial buildings, I would at least sort of approve. But that’s not what happened. What happened was a massacre of civilians and, especially with a right-wing extreme Zionist government in Jerusalem, it will provoke an even greater (UPDATE 310/10/23 bigger, and/or more extensive) response than what we have seen in the last few days. It will probably bury any chance at peace for a generation.

Is that guaranteed? Fortunately it is not. We need to continue our efforts to change American policy on Israel. That effort will be boosted if we do more to incorporate opposition to anti-Semitism into our solidarity work in support of the Palestinians. That is one of the main themes in my post on Zionism and a one state solution. At the risk of scheming internationally, this is one more reason to support the Irish political party Sinn Fein. After SF got within striking distance of leading a left-wing and republican government in Dublin in 2020, Juan Cole wrote a post about what that might mean for the Palestinians. In recent years there has been a trend of bigger and bigger percentages of the Jewish-American population supporting the Palestinians, and this will help.

In general I am a supporter of Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions, although I worry that a CULTURAL boycott could fuel anti-semitism. But an economic and political BDS network would be awesome.

So, we need to do a better job than we have done. And I think that a good place to start is to react to recent events by condemning Hamas, talking up a one state solution, and doing more of what we have already done.

 

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UPDATE 10/12/23 There is another item on the same theme here.