There's something very ugly in this rage against Israel

[shira]

Why are Western liberals always more offended by Israeli militarism than by any other kind of militarism? It’s extraordinary. France can invade Mali and there won’t be loud, rowdy protests by peaceniks in Paris. David Cameron, backed by a whopping 557 members of parliament, can order airstrikes on Libya and British leftists won’t give over their Twitterfeeds to publishing gruesome pics of the Libyan civilians killed as a consequence. President Obama can resume his drone attacks in Pakistan, killing 13 people in one strike last month, and Washington won’t be besieged by angry anti-war folk demanding ‘Hands off Pakistan’. But the minute Israel fires a rocket into Gaza, the second Israeli politicians say they’re at war again with Hamas, radicals in all these Western nations will take to the streets, wave hyperbolic placards, fulminate on Twitter, publish pictures of dead Palestinian children, publish the names and ages of everyone ‘MURDERED BY ISRAEL’, and generally scream about Israeli ‘bloodletting’. (When the West bombs another country, it’s ‘war’; when Israel does it, it’s ‘bloodletting’.)

Anyone possessed of a critical faculty must at some point have wondered why there’s such a double standard in relation to Israeli militarism, why missiles fired by the Jewish State are apparently more worthy of condemnation than missiles fired by Washington, London, Paris, the Turks, Assad, or just about anyone else on Earth. Parisians who have generally given a Gallic shrug as French troops have basically retaken Francophone Africa, stamping their boots everywhere from the Central African Republic to Mali to Cote d’Ivoire over the past two years, turned out in their thousands at the weekend to condemn Israeli imperialism and barbarism. Americans who didn’t create much fuss last month when the Obama administration announced the resumption of its drone attacks in Pakistan gathered at the Israeli Embassy in Washington to yell about Israeli murder. (Incredibly, they did this just a day after a US drone attack, the 375th such attack in 10 years, killed at least six people in Pakistan. But hey, Obama-led militarism isn’t as bad as Israeli militarism, and dead Pakistanis, unlike dead Palestinians, don’t deserve to have their photos, names and ages published by the concerned liberals of Twitter.) Meanwhile, hundreds of very angry Brits gathered at the Israeli Embassy in London, bringing traffic to a standstill, clambering on to buses, yelling about murder and savagery, in furious, colourful scenes that were notable by their absence three years ago when Britain sent planes to pummel Libya.

Such are the double standards over Israel, so casually entrenched is the idea that Israeli militarism is more bloody and insane than any other kind of militarism, that many Western liberals now call on their own rulers to condemn or even impose sanctions against Israel. That is, they want the invaders and destroyers of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and elsewhere to rap Israel’s knuckles for bombing Gaza. It’s like asking a great white shark to tell off a seal for eating a fish. America must ‘rein in Israel’, we are told. ‘The international community should intervene to restrain Israel’s army’, says a columnist for the Guardian, and by ‘international community’ he means ‘a meeting of the UN Security Council’ – the Security Council whose permanent members are the US, UK and France, who have done so much to destabilise and devastate vast swathes of the Middle East and North Africa over the past decade; Russia, whose recent military interventions in Georgia and Chechnya suggest it is hardly a devotee of world peace; and China, which might not invade other countries but is pretty adept at brutally suppressing internal dissent. On what planet could nations whose warmongering makes the current assault on Gaza look like a tea party in comparison seriously be asked to ‘rein in’ Israel? On a planet on which Israel is seen as different, as worse than all others, as more criminal and rogue-like than any other state.

The double standards were perfectly summed up last week in the response to an Israeli writer who said in the UK Independent that Israel’s attack on Gaza and its ‘genocidal rhetoric’ made her want to burn her Israeli passport. She got a virtual pat on the back from virtually every British activist and commentator who thinks of him or herself as decent. She was hailed as brave. Her article was shared online thousands of times. This was ‘common sense from one Jew’, people tweeted. No one stopped to wonder if maybe they should have burned their British passports after Yugoslavia in 1999, or Afghanistan in 2001, or Iraq in 2003, where often more civilians were killed in one day than have been killed by Israel over the past week. Why should Israel’s bombing of Gaza induce such shame in Israeli citizens (or Jews, as some prefer) that burning their passports is seen as a perfectly sensible and even laudable course of action whereas it’s perfectly okay to continue bounding about the world on a British passport despite the mayhem unleashed by our military forces over the past decade? Because Israel is different; it’s worse; it’s more criminal.

much more...
http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/theres-something-very-ugly-in-this-rage-against-israel/15400#.U8VJkZRX-ua

[shira]

1. article cont'd

Of course, Western double standards on Israel have been around for a while now. They can be seen not only in the fact that Israeli militarism makes people get out of bed and get angry in a way that no other form of militarism does, but also in the ugly boycotting of everything Israeli, whether it’s academics or apples, in a way that the people or products of other militaristic or authoritarian regimes are never treated. But during this latest Israeli assault on Gaza, we haven’t only seen these double standards come back into play – we have also witnessed anti-Israel sentiment becoming more visceral, more emotional, more unhinged and even more prejudiced than it has ever been, to such an extent that, sadly, it is now becoming very difficult to tell where anti-Zionism ends and anti-Semitism begins.

So in the latest rage against Israel, it isn’t only the Israeli state or military that have come in for some loud flak from so-called radicals – so have the Israeli people, and even the Jews. In Paris on Sunday, what started as a protest against Israel ended with violent assaults on two synagogues. In one, worshippers had to barricade themselves inside as anti-Israel activists tried to break their way in using bats and planks of wood, some of them chanting ‘Death to Jews!’. Some have tried to depict such racist behaviour as a one-off, a case of immigrants in France losing control. But on that big demo at the Israeli Embassy in London last week some attendees held placards saying ‘Zionist Media Cover Up Palestinian Holocaust’, a clear reference to the familiar anti-Semitic trope about Jews controlling the media. On an anti-Israel protest in the Netherlands some Muslim participants waved the black ISIS flag and chanted: ‘Jews, the army of Muhammad is returning.’

In the virtual world, too, the line between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism has become blurrier during this latest Gaza conflict. When a Danish journalist published a photo of what he claimed to be a group of Israelis in Sderot eating popcorn while watching Israeli missiles rain on Gaza, it became a focal point of fury with Israelis – every newspaper published the pic and Amnesty tweeted about it – and it generated the expression of some foul views. Israelis (not Israel in this case) are ‘disgraceful’, ‘murderous, racist’, ‘inhuman scum’, ‘pigs’, etc, said angry tweeters. It wasn’t long before actual bona fide anti-Semites were getting in on this rage against Israeli people, with one racist magazine publishing the Sderot picture under the headline ‘Rat-Faced Israeli Jews Cheer and Applaud Airstrikes on Gaza Strip’. The speed with which what purported to be an anti-war sentiment aimed at Israel became a warped fury with Israeli people, and the ease with which demonstrations against Israeli militarism became slurs against or physical attacks on Jews, suggests there is something extremely unwieldy about fashionable anti-Israel sentiment, something that allows it to slip, sometimes quite thoughtlessly, from being a seemingly typical anti-war cry to being something much uglier, prejudiced and ancient in nature.

Such is the visceral nature of current anti-Israel sentiment that not only is the line between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism becoming harder to see – so is the line between fact and fiction. As the BBC has reported, the wildly popular hashtag #GazaUnderAttack, which has been used nearly 500,000 times over the past eight days to share shocking photographs of the impact of Israel’s assault on Gaza, is extremely unreliable. Some of the photos being tweeted (and then retweeted by thousands of other people) are actually from Gaza in 2009. Others show dead bodies from conflicts in Iraq and Syria. Yet all are posted with comments such as, ‘Look at Israel’s inhumanity’. It seems the aim here is not to get to the truth of what is happening in Gaza but simply to rage, to yell, to scream, to weep about what Israel is doing (or not doing, as the case may be), and the more publicly you weep, the better, for it allows people to see how sensitive you are to Israeli barbarism. It’s about unleashing some visceral emotion, which means such petty things as accuracy and facts count for little: the expression of the emotion is all that matters, and any old photo of a dead child from somewhere in the Middle East – Iraq, Syria, Lebanon – will suffice as a prop for one’s public emotionalism.

How has this happened? How has opposing Israeli militarism gone from being one facet of a broader anti-imperialist position, as it was in the 1980s, to being the main, and sometimes only, focus of those who claim to be anti-war? Why does being opposed to Israel so often and so casually tip over into expressions of disgust with the Israeli people and with the Jews more broadly? It’s because, today, rage with Israel is not actually a considered political position. It is not a thought-through take on a conflict zone in the Middle East and how that conflict zone might relate to realpolitik or global shifts in power. Rather, it has become an outlet for the expression of a general feeling of fury and exhaustion with everything - with Western society, modernity, nationalism, militarism, humanity. Israel has been turned into a conduit for the expression of Western self-loathing, Western colonial guilt, Western self-doubt. It has been elevated into the most explicit expression of what are now considered to be the outdated Western values of militaristic self-preservation and progressive nationhood, and it is railed against and beaten down for embodying those values. It is held responsible, not simply for repressing the Palestinian desire for statehood, but for continuing to pursue virtues that we sensible folk in the rest of the West have apparently outgrown and for consequently being the source of war and terrorism not only in the Middle East but pretty much everywhere. A poll of Europeans discovered that most now consider Israel to be the key source of global instability.

[font color = "red"]This is where we can see what the new anti-Zionism shares in common with the old anti-Semitism: both are about finding one thing in the world, whether it’s a wicked state or a warped people, against which the rest of us might rage and pin the blame for every political problem on Earth.[/font]

[hlthe2b]

2. Oh, brother...

[IronGate]

6. Oh brother what?

Everything Shira cited is the truth, it's seen right here on DU.
There is much more outrage at Israel defending their country than at the terror org., Hamas, who fires rockets into Israel.

[hlthe2b]

7. Bullshit

Both sides are discussed, including the transgressions of both sides, which is something some here don't like.

[PCIntern]

8. BOTH sides are "discussed"?

I'm sorry...I must have been on the wrong website for about 10 years now...

[hlthe2b]

13. I'm not going to engage in those who think only one side has issues to discuss....

The Palestinians DO, have a case to make, despite the desire for us to defend our ally, Israel.

[PCIntern]

23. Yes they do have a case to make, but

here, Israel cannot make her case without vituperative retaliation against those of us who attempt to do so. I have been called a remarkable litany of names in the last couple weeks, which I would not even dream of utilizing for the 'other side'.

[PCIntern]

36. Young?

You must be joking.

[King_David]

40. I have been called horrible names ,

And accused of the worst things.

There are quite a few Gay Jewish posters frequenting this group and we have to put up with homophobic slurs on top of everything else .

But I don't complain because some posters will say the homophobia is a consequence of the occupation .

[shira]

9. What exactly is bullshit about the OP? n/t

[hlthe2b]

14. You don't want to discuss it any more than

Cheney wants to engage in discussion as to why the Iraqi war was wrong.

Both sides have a case and argument to make. Israel is not blameless.

And as to your bright red bolded statement:

This is where we can see what the new anti-Zionism shares in common with the old anti-Semitism: both are about finding one thing in the world, whether it’s a wicked state or a warped people, against which the rest of us might rage and pin the blame for every political problem on Earth.

.

the flip side and more accurate aspect of your statement is that all ARABs, neigh, ALL MUSLIMS have become the "wicked state or a warped people, against which the rest of us might rage and pin the blame for every political problem on Earth".

Israel absolutely deserves to defend itself, but not to commit the kind of atrocities that have become all too common and which only serve to deepen the hatred. To blindly accuse those who find fault on BOTH sides of what you have upstream is not only irresponsible, but demonstrably untrue.

[shira]

16. So nothing substantive. Predictable. n/t

[hlthe2b]

17. your bolded statement precludes any kind of reasoned discussion/debate. It is shameful.

[cali]

48. no it's not. it's largely opinion. truth, btw, is a very subjective concept

The article starts out with a fallacy and continues without examining in any real way why there is such anger. Is some of it disproportionate? I believe so, but much of it isn't. For instance, your post is disingenuous. You characterize Israel as simply "defending their country", but there's so much more to it than that: An oft harsh and dehumanizing occupation, land theft via ever expanding settlements, hatred equal to that of Hamas on the part of the far right in Israel- a faction that wields real power. I could go on, but I fear you aren't receptive to any reasoned criticism of Israel.

[shira]

3. While the OP is sound, this isn't about liberal rage vs Israel

Those who hate Israel are not liberals at all. They're radical leftists, rightwingers, and fascists and they all hate liberals.

Then again, we Americans see our liberals differently than Australians (liberals are conservative there) and Brits (liberals are extreme leftwingers there) so that may account for the language.

[larkrake]

4. It is Israel's attitude I find disturbing

definitely Apartheid. and we are just as guilty

[PCIntern]

10. "definitely" - so that matter is hereby settled.

I love how BOTH SIDES are discussed here. More like:

Anything Israel does is fucked up.
Anything Israel says in its own defense is a lie.


No win situation.

[geek tragedy]

5. yeah, no liberals ever complain about the invasion of Iraq. nt

[shira]

11. Drones in Pakistan, France in Mali, the UK in Libya....

....do not draw protests, UN resolutions, nor twitter poutrage like IDF responses WRT Hamas.

Not even close.

[geek tragedy]

12. do you really want to go down this path about comparing

overpublicization of certain incidents compared to others?

also, get back to us when the US sets up checkpoints outside every city in Pakistan, the French army control's all of Mali's borders, and the UK has gobbled up vast portion of Libya as colonies for privileged Brits to occupy.

[shira]

15. There's no comparison. The fangs come out...

....when Israel is at war. Outrage by the usual suspects regarding the US, UK, France, Russia, etc... doesn't come even remotely close to the utter hate, contempt, and outright bigotry exhibited against Israel.

[geek tragedy]

18. Here's the real disparity:

Dozens of Palestinian children dead, even more maimed and injured.

And the only thing about it that upsets pro-Israel types is that Israel gets criticized for killing them.

[hlthe2b]

19. Indeed...

[Israeli]

20. you are completely missing ....

shira's point .

There's something very ugly in this rage against Israel

Its all antisemitism geek tragedy

[shira]

22. Are you upset Hamas rejected ceasefire?

BDS calls for a reality that would put an end to Israel w/ full Right of Return, an Islamist state in its place.

That's a declaration of war too.

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

33. BDS is good for you, shira.

It will make you give up your misplaced anger...eventually.

After sanctions and reconciliation South Africa is a better place. So too it will be with Israel.


Let go of your hate, shira.

[shira]

38. (Video) Norman Finkelstein calls BS on BDS

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

41. It is time for you to give up your hate, shira.

[shira]

43. BDS does enuff hating for all concerned

As Finkelstein stated, they're for the destruction of Israel.

Doesn't get more hateful than advocating for war and bloodshed.

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

44. Regardless of your holstilities towards it, BDS is bigger than you and growing.

In some ways I feel deeply sorry for those that want to bury their head in the sand and dream about an expansionist Israel.

The dream is over, shira. Time to wake up to reality.

[shira]

45. If you say so. n/t

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

46. You'll see the light someday. There's hope even for you.

[shira]

39. Co-founder of BDS rejects ceasefire, sides w/Hamas

http://www.thecitizen.in/palestinians-totally-united-in-rejecting-egypts-pro-israel-proposal-for-ceasefire/

Proud moment for BDS when founder Omar Barghouti spews Hamas line WRT not enuff Palestinian blood has been shed.

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

42. The idea of BDS is bigger than it's founding members.

Just as Israel was bigger than the murderous Irgun.

BDS is coming shira.

You better hold on, It's going to be a bumpy ride for you.

[Shaktimaan]

50. So exactly what is BDS to you anyway?

I've noticed you tend to take a rather lackadaisical approach to the precise meanings of a lot of the terms we use here in I/P. For example, the occupation gets switched out with the settlement issue a lot. Apartheid gets confused with discrimination. And the specific goals of movements like BDS get ignored in favor of generalized statements which take a far broader approach in both demands, actions and expectations.

BDS is a movement which has three demands for Israel, the most controversial being the full right of return for all palestinian refugees to Israel.

It's not the same thing as a generic boycott; though you seem to use the terms interchangeably.

BDS is coming shira

Ok. So when you say something like that, what do you mean?

Do you really believe that Israel will be forced to allow 5m+ Palestinians in as citizens? Or do you just mean that some folks will stop buying oranges till the occupation ends?

[Israeli]

51. BDS is coming Shaktimaan ...

Not every BDS initiative is identical of course the movement is far from monolithic. Prof. Gordon, for example, is an expert on the Israel-Palestine conflict a man who cares deeply about his country a true activist who has been engaged for decades in on-the-ground efforts to foster dialogue, reconciliation and peace, and who remains a supporter of the two-state solution :

http://articles.latimes.com/2009/aug/20/opinion/oe-gordon20

So if the two-state solution is the way to stop the apartheid state, then how does one achieve this goal?

I am convinced that outside pressure is the only answer. Over the last three decades, Jewish settlers in the occupied territories have dramatically increased their numbers. The myth of the united Jerusalem has led to the creation of an apartheid city where Palestinians aren't citizens and lack basic services. The Israeli peace camp has gradually dwindled so that today it is almost nonexistent, and Israeli politics are moving more and more to the extreme right.

It is therefore clear to me that the only way to counter the apartheid trend in Israel is through massive international pressure. The words and condemnations from the Obama administration and the European Union have yielded no results, not even a settlement freeze, let alone a decision to withdraw from the occupied territories.

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

55. So... shak...

Israeli just summed it up for you.

I know that I have stated pretty much the same thing to others on IP So... anything that I could add to what Israeli has posted would be refundant...So take it or leave it.

[Shaktimaan]

58. Nope. That's pretty much what expected.

So here's my question. If the entire BDS movement is based solely on common tactics (boycott, etc.) but every faction or individual is free to dictate their own customized terms, then what exactly is Israel supposed to DO in order to comply?

Do you see my point? Every successful boycott campaign I can think of benefitted from concise demands. If the BDS movement allows it's participants to offer their own custom demands, then how is Israel even supposed to start having a conversation about compliance? What exactly IS compliance under these conditions?

The official BDS website has three clear demands. One, unfortunately, makes little sense as it's already been enacted, and another is basically impossible, but at least their demands are clear.

But if BDS can't even advance a clear set of conditions then how is this whole thing even supposed to work?

[shira]

21. It's a senseless war. What do u think......

...about Hamas rejecting a ceasefire? Are you disappointed at Hamas?

[geek tragedy]

24. Hamas is a repulsive terrorist organization

so it's unclear that they are capable of disappointing me, given how low expectations are set.

What line would Israel have to cross before you and yours would consider criticism to be legitimate? 1000 dead Palestinian children? 10,000? Formally declaring apartheid? Full-scale ethnic cleansing?

What is the line at which you would turn against Israeli policy?

[shira]

25. Since Hamas is that bad, show me public displays.....

...by fellow leftist organizations or leaders who are trying to hold Hamas accountable for the vile war crimes they're committing against Palestinians and Israelis.

I'm assuming you're upset Hamas rejected the ceasefire. You didn't really say...

The line drawn is at intentional, senseless, and malicious cruelty. Unlike some, I realize Israel is in a very tough neighborhood and that its people face genuine (even existential) threats to their security. Some people wish to ignore or deny the very real dangers Israelis face.

[geek tragedy]

27. Is cruelty ever unintentional, lacking in malice, and sensible?

Hamas is Hamas. It's known and expected to be evil, just like the ocean is expected to have salt.

[shira]

28. It's cruel to ignore, minimize, deny real threats 2 Israelis.

Give me an example (just 1 so we can discuss it) where you think Israel is deliberately acting unreasonably with malice and contempt against innocents, something for which there simply is no defense possible.

[geek tragedy]

29. sure:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/113468162

bombing the family residence of a police official.

at least 15 dead, all civilians, including children

not an act of self-defense. not legal under international law (police are considered non-combatants), no regard for the lives of the people in the house

[shira]

31. Looks bad. Let's see how Israel looks into it. n/t

[cali]

49. perhps because the situation with Israel and Palestine has been ongoing for the better part

50 years+. And yes, there most certainly have been protests over drones and the UK in Libya. I don't know about the U.N. and I do think the U.N. makes a mockery of itself quite frequently by not addressing atrocities by other actors in other parts of the world.

[CBGLuthier]

26. I feel that as an american taxpayer I can complain about how my tax dollars are spent.

without american backing the place would have been overrun 40 years ago. So yes, when MY TAX dollars pay to kill women and children I get a little bit pissed. I thought the same fucking thing when we were helping to kill people in Central America.

[COLGATE4]

30. I stand in awe of your acute grasp of

international affairs and insightful comment.

[shira]

37. Think the "tax payers" are concerned about this, even one bit? n/t

[mwrguy]

52. There's something very ugly about Israel

bombing Palestinian children

[JI7]

53. it has to do with settlements and how palestinians are restricted in many ways all the time

i do agree there are many who are anti semetic, especially in things like how the jewish homeland should have been in europe as someone posted today.

but the comparisons in the OP miss many things like the settlements .

also the western govts going in are doing it for the purpose of going after terrorists and the number of those killed are still far less than those who are killed by the terrorists.

this is not the case with israel where most of the lives lost are on the palestinian side.

[shira]

57. That's not it. It's pure bigotry

There are too many folks enraged at Israel who support Hamas. They defend Hamas war crimes against the Palestinian people (human shielding & deliberately putting Gazans in harm's way). That's not concern about settlements.

The bigotry is so strong they will gladly defend Hamas crimes against humanity AGAINST PALESTINIANS in order to vent their hatred at Israel. And then sanctimoniously state they care about Palestinians.



Pure bigotry.

It's evil.

[4now]

59. I guess we don't like bullies

Bullies that kill civilian children.

Israeli soldier posts Instagram image of Palestinian child in crosshairs of rifle.
Speaking of something ugly.