The Venn diagram between criticism of Israel and anti-Semitism

The Venn diagram of Anti-Semitism and Anti-Zionism

Prompted by recent public controversies, I’ve been trying to puzzle it out. Why does criticism of “Israel” either equate or not equate (assertion dependant on stance of asserter) to anti-Semitism? Many eloquent Jewish writers have focussed on the question in the past few weeks, and influenced my understanding. I still feel it’s worthwhile working it through – so here goes.

There are a few given facts for most sane, liberal people.

·      Suspicion, hatred and persecution of Jews have been horrible realities for centuries;

·      Zionism has been the political/religious movement for a Jewish homeland in modern times, very much driven by the experiences suffered as a result of the first fact;

·      Israel, the new Jewish homeland, was founded, in the 1940s, at great cost in blood and homes to Palestinians; and

·      Israel has expanded, and maintained its legal and de facto borders at a cost in blood and homeland to Palestinians (and in blood to Israeli citizens).

These last two facts are the basis of criticism of Israel, which criticism is so vehement, indeed vitriolic, at present time.

Now, in normal political discourse, criticism of a country’s wars or policies does not lead to the conclusion that damns every citizen of that country as complicit in those wars or policies. Being against many of the USA’s policies, or the UK’s, does not mean that Americans or Britons are tarred with the brush of their government (unless an individual identifies with and defends a particular policy).

Therefore, one may conclude, what’s the problem with criticising the actions of Israel (which are the actions directed by its government for the time being)? Isn’t this on a par with any political attack?

Yes, but…. Israel has many features that are unique.

·      The historical Zionist project – the seeking of a homeland for Jews in the territory where once there was a homeland;

·      The imperative for this quest, given the fate of European Jews in the mid C20;

·      The promotion of this end by Western imperial powers, specifically the UK;

·      The role of guerrilla/terrorist organisations (make your own choice) in hastening the end of the British Mandate in what was then all “Palestine” in the 1940s (my father was a British army officer tasked with defusing bombs in this campaign);

·      The expulsion of Palestinians from much of what is now Israel.

It is clear that the merits of the first two clash somewhat with the last two.

Then there were the Arab-Israeli wars, and the Occupation, and the conflicts in Gaza. The morality of all these events is bitterly, even lethally, contested. There is plenty of justified righteousness on the side of those who support Palestinian rights and deplore Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, or Israeli Arabs.

Indeed, many conclude that that this very young country, Israel, was founded upon an injustice and exists today in a degree of injustice.

On the other hand: Jews were granted (some of) that territory by European powers because of the dreadful things that have happened to Jews in may countries over many centuries. For most Jews, Israel, a Jewish homeland at last, is something they are existentially committed to, a place where they have the right to live, by virtue of being Jews, even if they have no present intention of going there (there is traffic in the other direction, away from Israel).

Here’s the Venn diagram. There’s a big overlap between Jews and supporters of the existence of Israel. In this sense, very many Jews identify as “Zionists” – supporters of the Jewish state.

Here’s the troubling problem. Zionist is the label stuck on the Israeli state’s policies. So if you are a Zionist in the sense of supporting the existence of Israel, your Zionism and Israel’s policies get conflated. You become, in the ugly insult, a Zio, and fair game for vilification.

Being a Jew and a supporter of the existence of Israel puts you in the way of condemnation – essentially for what you are, and what the history of the Jews has been.

This is a state of affairs distinct from criticism of Israel’s policies (criticism which is shared by very many Jews).

Howard Jacobson writes:

“When an anti-Zionist tells me that his fervent wish is to see the end of Israel, but he cannot be a an anti-Semite because he regrets the Holocaust, I don’t necessarily feel that I am in the presence of a friend.”

Jonathan Freedland writes:

“Because Israel’s creation came at a desperately high price for Palestinians – one that Israel will one day, I hope, acknowledge, respect and atone for through word and deed – it is impossible for most Jews to see it as a mistake that should be undone.”

And again:

“..when Jews call out something as anti-Semitic, leftists non-Jews feel curiously entitled to tell Jews that they are wrong, that they are exaggerating or lying or using it as a  decoy tactic – and to then treat them to a long lecture on what anti-Jewish racism really is.”

Anti-Semitism isn’t a scientific term (although some, especially the Nazis, have sought to justify anti-Semitism on “scientific” grounds). It isn’t confined to broad attitudes – “If you are Jewish, I hate you [on whatever grounds given: appearance, personality traits, religion, global conspiracies]”. Anti-Semitism need not “embrace”each and every Jew.

If the very existence of Israel (with all its flaws) is an essential part of the modern identity of many, if not most, Western Jews, then to dispute the right of Israel to exist is an attack on that Jewish identity.

This may not be programmatic anti-Semitism, fascist-style. But it is anti-Semites. Why? Because Jews feel it to be so, viscerally. And they may suspect that such an attitude covers other attitudes.

May 2016