Joel Beinin in “Silencing Critics Not Way to Middle East Peace,” an article published in the
San Francisco Chronicle, discussed the campaign to silence critics of Israeli policy. Beinin, a professor of history at Stanford University, is active in Jewish Voice for Peace and an editor of
Jewish Peace News.3 Here is what he had to say about the campaign to attack critics of Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians:
Why discredit, defame and silence those with opposing viewpoints? I believe it is because the Zionist lobby knows it cannot win based on facts. An honest discussion can only lead to one conclusion: The status quo in which Israel declares it alone has rights and intends to impose its will on the weaker Palestinians, stripping them permanently of their land, resources and rights, cannot lead to a lasting peace. We need an open debate and the freedom to discuss uncomfortable facts and explore the full range of policy options. Only then can we adopt a foreign policy that serves American interests and one that could actually bring a just peace to Palestinians and Israelis. 4
DEFENDING PALESTINIAN HUMAN RIGHTS
The Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims have many legitimate reasons to criticize the policies and actions of the Jewish state. No state is above criticism, particularly not a state that aggressively and repeatedly attacks its neighbors, discriminates against its Arab population and is slowly but systematically ethnically cleansing its territory.
There is also much to criticize in the Arab world, but it would be absurd to say that one cannot criticize Saudi Arabia for its treatment of women or its human-rights record, because such criticism is racist against Arabs or is anti-Muslim. A person who made such an argument would be laughed at. No one would take him or the argument seriously.
Yet the allegation of anti‑Semitism is a frequent smear tactic that has been used against non-Jewish individuals who have publicly supported Palestinian human rights.59
To conclude, here is what Ran HaCohen, an Israeli academic, has to say about using anti-Semitism as a means of silencing criticism of Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians.
The eve of the Jewish New Year is an excellent occasion for what Jewish tradition calls Kheshbon Nefesh, or soul‑searching, on so‑called “anti‑semitism,” which has now become the single most important element of Jewish identity. Jews may believe in God or not, eat pork or not, live in Israel or not, but they are all united by their unlimited belief in anti‑semitism.
When a Palestinian kills innocent Israeli civilians, it’s anti‑semitism. When Palestinians attack soldiers of Israel’s occupation army in their own village, it’s anti‑semitism. When the UN General Assembly votes 133 to 4 condemning Israel’s decision to murder the elected Palestinian leader, it means that except for the US, Micronesia and the Marshal Islands, all other countries on the globe are anti‑semitic.
Even when a pregnant Palestinian woman is stopped at an Israeli check‑point and gives birth in an open field, the only lesson to be learnt is that Ha’aretz journalist Gideon Levy — who reported two such cases in the past two weeks, one in which the baby died — is an anti‑semite.
Anti‑semitism is an all‑encompassing explanation. Anything unpleasant to anti‑Palestinian ears is just another instance of anti‑semitism. Jewish consciousness focused on anti‑semitism has taken the shape of anti‑semitic conspiracy theories like that of
The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion: whereas the anti‑semitic classic relates every calamity to Jewish conspiracy, Jews relate to anti‑semitic conspiracy every criticism of Israel. As we shall see, this is not the only similarity between anti‑Palestinianism and anti‑semitism.
The abuse of alleged anti‑semitism is morally despicable. It took hundreds of years and millions of victims to turn anti‑semitism — a specific case of racism which led historically to genocide — into a taboo. People abusing this taboo in order to support Israel’s racist and genocidal policy towards the Palestinians do nothing less than desecrate the memory of those Jewish victims, whose death, from a humanistic perspective, is meaningful only inasmuch as it serves as an eternal warning to human kind against all kinds of discrimination, racism and genocide.60
http://mepc.org/journal/middle-east-policy-archives/anti-zionism-anti-semitic?print
