The Slippery slope of anti-Semitism
Ilan Greilsammer
Translation by Douglas
French original: "La pente savonneuse de l'antisémitisme"
(Líbération, 2003/09/24)
Ilan Greilsammer is professor of political science at Bar-Ilan University in Tel-Aviv. His most recent work published in French is la Nouvelle Histoire d'Israël [“The New History of Israel”], Gallimard, 1998. Coming in October: Léon Blum, les lettres de Buchenwald [“Léon Blum: the Buchenwald letters”], Gallimard.
Time and time again, I see the Parisian microcosm embroiled in controversies over anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. It’s truly bewildering to learn that this subject still has the power to shock people, to the point that whole books are devoted to it and while matters are as clear as spring water. So, at the risk of knocking down doors that are already open, let’s set the record straight.
There are two groups of people for whom the anti-Zionism/anti-Semitism question is leaves no doubts and is immediately resolved. Firstly, it is true that for many Jews, any criticism of the policies of the Israeli government, even the most timid remark, constitutes anti-Semitism. From the moment one offers the slightest criticism of Sharon and his government, be it for their absurd strategy with the Palestinians, for their complacency with respect to the settlements, for the money spent on the building bypassing roads, for their incoherent economic policy or disastrous social policy, some parts of the community immediately level the accusation of anti-Semitism. This charge, somewhat of an “open sesame,” is grotesque, all the more because the entire Israeli left and all of the moderate and liberal Israeli population bitterly criticize the Sharon government, in terms often far more violent than abroad. How many times have I been booed or verbally assaulted in the community when I expressed my dismay before the total incompetence of my leaders?
At any rate, these fundamentalist, conservative and nationalist circles within Jewish communities have always been one subway train behind mainstream Israeli public opinion. They think that the Israel of the 1950s still exists, that the kibbutzim and the IDF have remained unchanged and sing praises of the the wonderful victory of 1967 whenever we lament the catastrophic state of Israeli society in 2003... These Jewish circles are not serious. They are anachronistic.
But another group of people, far more dangerous to my eyes, also have an definitive view of things: they are all those highly respected intellectuals for whom anti-Zionism and anti-Israelism can never, no, never, contain an ounce of anti-Semitism. One could say anything about Israel and the support that Jewish communities have for it, unleash a torrent of insults on the Israeli people, define the Israeli-American axis as a new axis of Evil, name what happened at Jenin as an “Auschwitz” (dixit Saramago), compare Israeli soldiers to the SS, treat the Jewish state as a pariah among nations, without ever being accused of anti-Semitism. For them, anti-Semitism is confined to Le Pen and to Mégret. Besides, there has not been any rise in anti-Semitism in France ,the Jews are exaggerating. They’re hysterical. There is no anti-Semitism in the outer city housing estates, the fire-bombings of synagogues and the assaults on Jewish schools are “embellished” by the Jewish community...
What is serious in my view is that the perverse efforts of this little group are starting to bear fruit in French society: more and more people are saying and writing things about Israel and the Jews that they never would have allowed themselves to say or write a few years ago. They would never have allowed themselves to say such things because they would have been immediately put in their place by their neighbors, their friends and acquaintances, because their co-workers, at university or in the laboratory, would have turned their backs on them. Apparently, such opprobrium no longer exists, which is why they can say whatever they want. It is for those who might be tempted to follow them down this slippery slope that we must recall a few basic truths.
1) There is anti-Semitism when one is ready to struggle for the national independence of any people in Europe, Asia or Africa but one denies to one people alone in the world, the Jewish people, its own movement for national liberation, Zionism and its state, the state of Israel.
2) There is anti-Semitism when one seeks to hide the historic, cultural and national ties of the Jewish people with the land of Palestine/Israel and when one tries to pass off the return of Jews to this land as colonialism, pure and simple.
3) There is anti-Semitism when one pretends to ignore that goal of the Palestinian islamist movements Hamas and Islamic Jihad is to kill as many Jews, because they are Jews and not Israelis, and when one refrains from denouncing these groups as what they are: fundamentally and essentially anti-Semitic organizations.4) There is anti-Semitism when one does not say a word about the style or content of Palestinian propaganda, of caricatures like those that appeared in Der Stürmer or the anti-Jewish television series (the Knight without a Horse) broadcast by Egypt over a period of weeks, or television movies portraying Sharon as a vampire thirsty for the blood of Palestinian children.
5) There is anti-Semitism when one describes IDF soldiers as SS, when one claims (as was said not long ago) that Israeli soldiers rape Palestinian women, when one describes the lot of the Palestinians imprisoned by the Security Wall as the equivalent of a Nazi concentration camp.
6) There is anti-Semitism when one asserts that the only “good” Israelis, those that one is ready to frequent and invite into one’s home or to speak on campus, are those anti-Israeli Jews whose only occupation is to speak ill of their people and their country.7) There is anti-Semitism when the journalists accused of liking Israel too much and of not being sufficiently critical of it are, as if incidentally, Jews, when the intellectuals that one accuses of neo-Conservatism and partiality in favor of Israel are themselves, as if by accident, Jews. Not to mention, of course, the denunciations of the great “Zionist lobby” which is nothing more than a denunciation of those Jews disgusted by the attacks on the very existence of Israel.
8) There is anti-Semitism when the only country in the world that is denounced in filthy terms, and that one associates with the “crimes” of Bush in Afghanistan or in Iraq is... Israel and that Israel finds itself accused everywhere, in every street demonstration, whatever the cause or aim.
9) There is anti-Semitism when one is — rightly — scandalized by the tragedy of Palestinian refugees while the exodus of Jews from Arab countries is presented as wholly without interest.10) There is anti-Semitism when one seeks to implicate Israel in the struggle against globalization, when Israel is the only country in the world vilified by the leader of a peasant confederation, when Israel is taken as the target of environmentalists who sing the praises of the earth, when on hints that Israel has something to do with multinational corporations and the oppression of the poorer countries by the richer ones.
11) There is anti-Semitism when people on the left and far right join forces in advocating the exclusive nationalist sovereignty of immigrants... all while explicitly condemning Israel on the international stage.
I can understand perfectly that many people find themselves in a difficult situation: they are scandalized by the policies of Sharon. They want to criticize the Israeli government and support the Israeli left in its struggle but all without hurting the very existence of the Jewish state. Yes, this is difficult and complicated: how can one display one’s unhappiness, one’s anger before the barriers and humiliations without that the Zionist enterprise, one of the greatest enterprises of the 20th century, should be called into question and risk annihilation? I think that honest people of good will can distinguish between Sharon, Netanyahu, Mofaz and their lackeys and the Israeli people who are fundamentally healthy, even if they have ceased to think, paralyzed by the attacks.
But we must continue, you will forgive the expression, to rub the noses in their own pee of those who would pull the wool over our eyes, of all those anti-Zionists who understand perfectly well the meaning of their words and who seek at all costs to give themselves a virginity they have long since lost.
[Posted 2003/09/27]
Copyright © Watch 2001-2006.
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