A Friendly Reminder...
This week, Mel Gibson's drunken ramblings excluded, I've heard more anti-Semitic comments than at any time I can remember. I worry that anti-Semitism will soon become culturally acceptable and even trendy, as it was before WW2. Israel is behaving murderously, and the US support of Israel continues to be a moral travesty. But why is there no reminder, in the public discourse, that being Jewish is NOT the same as being Zionist? It is possible to condemn Israel's actions against Lebanon without hating Jews, just as it is possible to condemn George W. Bush's actions against Iraq without hating Christians.
posted by Left of Liberal at 1:00 PM
3 Comments:
anti-semitism becoming "culturally acceptable and even trendy"? no, dear, i don't think so. not in this country. you'll have to look to europe for that. thaoster
I don't think it'll ever become "trendy" to be anti-semitic, or at least not in the fashionista way, but I must disagree with thaoster in the sense of "culturally accepted." Because it already is.
Perhaps thaoster doesn't listen much to right-wing radio, and I probably wouldn't either except I share an office space with a person who plays it on her radio whenever she's in. We're only in that shared space simultaneously a couple of times a week, but when we are I get an earful. And it ain't pretty. The joke used the be that Liberals love Jews but hate Israel, while Conservatives love Israel but hate the Jews. It's sad that I now see the truth that makes that joke funny.
In less than an hour, I get to hear a diatribe about how Irael's brutal response is perfectly justifiable as an action against terrorism (with lots of call-in listener support), then just an hour later, hear how the Jew-controlled media is ruining America (with lots of call-in listener support).
While living in Chicago, I met many folk who felt that, bcause they lived in the near north-side, Chicago must not be a racist city. But they had no experinence at all with what Chicago was like outside their protected few blocks. Having grown up in the deep south, I found Chicago (as much as I love it) to be to most racially divided city I've ever lived in. But they couldn't see that, because their experience didn't exist beyond the few blocks in which they lived. They just didn't know that when you get beyond Lakeview, Boystown, etc... Chicago is a deeply different city.
So I'd say "thaoster" is fundametally wrong. She's making the mistake of looking at her neighborhood instead of looking at her nation. She thinks, No that can't happen.
But she's quite, quite wrong. It's already happened. Just not next door to her.
Cord said that right-wingers argue that "Irael's brutal response is perfectly justifiable as an action against terrorism." This has been the most galling reaction I've heard from the right, the center-right, and the center. As Rashid Khalidi, the Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia, so smartly explains, "The rhetoric of 'terrorism' has mesmerized those who parrot it, blinding them to the fact that Hezbollah and Hamas... developed as a response to occupation-- of the West Bank and Gaza for 40 years-- and of Lebanon from 1978-2000. ... Both movements [have historically shown] callousness in targeting civilians [but that is] a subject on which Israel's defenders are hardly in a position to preach."
Post a Comment
<< Home