When AntiSemitism Leaks Through

Let me make it perfectly clear. I am a Zionist and a supporter of a Palestinian state. There is nothing new about this ... the early Zionists were very supportive of Arab culture and a great majority of Israelis believe in the two state solution.

Why do I begin with a defensive protest? Because I am tired of reading the subtle antisemitism that passes for liberal opposition to Israel. These people protest that they are not antisemites, some even play the linguistic game of saying they can not be antisemites because the Arabs are semites. Then, of course, they defend their stances by accusing Jews who dispute their points of view of misusing the word antisemite.

The result is a kind of Newspeak that makes discussion of the truth impossible and hurts the efforts of all people who want peace. When we talk, Lee and I or others with his views, there is NO interest in the kinds of positive things that are being done by Israelis, Palestinians, Americans, Egyptians, Jordanian and Japanese to promote peace. Sad, a little more support for PeaceNow might push this humpty dumpty over to the peace side!

This form of antisemitism almost always begins with an equation of Israel to the biblical Hebrews, Cannan to modern "Palestine," and the Palestinians to the descendants of the Canaani. In this view Israel shares the guilt of the crusaders and the jihadist ...making war in the name of God. In this view the Jews weirdly get the blame for the crusades and Islamic holy wars..

Recently a comment of mine on this issue was censored at HorsesAss because one of the editors, Lee, got upset when I confronted his charge that Judaiamjs is like Christianity and Islam because Israel is motivated by the cheredi .. that is by orthodox Judaism and the belief that this land is promised by Hashem. Weirdly, after censoring my posts, he explained himself by accusing me of accusing him of racism.

Truth be told I like Lee a lot, though he makes me sad. Why each of these? Lee is a devout and good liberal with strong ideas abut equality, fairness and esp. the need for decriminalized drugs. All admirable. Lee, however, is a self described person of Jewish descent but does not want to be considered Jewish.

Lee is all too typical of many folks I know ... admirable folks with obvious Jewish intellectual heritage, pride in Jewish relatives, interestinterst in Israel and stated support for its existence, BUT an insistence that they are not Jewish because they do not follow the Jewish religion. My African American friends know this syndrome too, it afflicts Clarence Thomas.

I certainly have never slandered Lee. Indeed, I despite his frequent effort to win arguments by calling others, me included, a prick, stupid ass, fool, etc. I write this off to immaturity and never respond in kind. . The worst thing I have ever called Lee is “Bubbelah” ,, an affectionate term for a small. older Jewish woman. His words for me have ranged over a more ill tempered, sarcastic tonal scale.

To be a bit more specific, I have never accused Lee of racism or anything of the sort. I have even introduced Lee to some folks I know in the Black community because I think Lee’s ideas about drugs have a lot of merit and would hope he could help get some things done.

So how have Bubbelah and I disagreed?

1. He got upset with me when I wrote about the need to recognize intolerance and hatred in the Muslim community after the murder here in Seattle.

I do not believe tolerance should extend to religion when religion is intolerant. Click here for relevant posts. There is major need for reform in the Islamic community because of the role of extremists. Lee simply does not believe this is an issue, he maintains that Islamic Extremism is a rare affliction of a very few people around the world and that the issue is not important here in the Good Ol USA. I disagree,

Rather than dealing with Lee's equation of the Israelis and the crusaders I wold rather move upscale to three authors SJ usually admires. Jefferson.. Russel and Armstrong.

Tom Jefferson himself regarded us a money grabbing Pharisees, obviously influenced by the Christian Bible and the same world that produced Shylock. It is so said that Jefferson did not know that the philosophy he admired in Jesus was, in fact, Pharisaic. But then, he also never figured out that the french trained chef at Monticello, members of the Hemings family, should be free men. Imagine what TJ missed in the great meals a FREE James Heming might have cooked. The mind boggles .. how might history have changed if Jefferson had the chance to dine at a seder, read our stories of freedom and enjoy a seder meal prepared by James?

In a famous essay, "Why I am not A Christians," Bertrand Russel BLAMED the Jews for Christian and Islamic irredentism. Bertie singled out monotheism and the hatred of polytheism as the origin of the atrocities of the west. to easily this allowed thye great phlosopher to transfer western guilt to the Jews.

Finally, Karen Armstrong, a brilliant writer on Abrahamic religions, shares Russel's point of view AND equated the invasion led by Joshua to the criusades and the modern Israeli-Palestinain conflict.

With all respect to Tom, Bertie, Karen AND Lee, I think none of these folks knew or know enough about Judaism or archeology to support the accusation that Jews invented religious wars of conversion.

Since Lee deleted my posts at HA, here (briefly) are the ideas again.

The process of conversion to Judaism is hard enough that the Christian concept of war would not make any sense. Moreover, as the chosen people, Jews consider themselves selected for a special burden. Why would others want that burden?

Jews, like most peoples, have conducted nationalistic wars. We have never, however, fought a war of religious conversion, i.e. a crusade, or to bring our law to other peoples, as in the Islamic explosion. As for conquest to establish the rule of Hallakah (Jewish Law) over non Jews, that is an imaginable interpretation of the Christian version of our bible, the"old testament,” but is not historically accurate.

The "sacred" stories on the invasion of Canaan by the tribes led by Joshua are, to Jews, part of our founding myth .. not part of revelation from Hashem. Jews, unlike Muslims and Christians do not and have never considered these books (Judges, Kings and Prophets) to be revealed truth. Only the Torah .. Moses' 5 books, is considered revealed. These books of prophets and kings and judges are mythic. Like others' myths these tales likely represent an admixture of history, legend and, esp, propaganda. THERE is no imperative in Judaism to consider the actsin these books as factual, ethical or moral.

The wars described are wars of national conquest not religious conversion. Joshua’s battles are closer to those of Shaka Zulu then they are to the crusades or Islamic expansion.

Archeology now says that these conquests NEVER occurred. There is no evidence of a sudden invasion. Rather there appears to have been a gradual emergence and dominance of hebrew tribes over many years.“Moses” as described in the Torah may not have existed. No one can be certain whether or not this fellow did or did not exist but the archaelogical data says there was never the sort of invasion led by Joshua that the texts describe. One fascinating idea is that Moses was one of the Hyksos, a semitic people who ruled Norther Egypt for quite awhile and were driven out. Bottom line:The myths are no more and no less than founding myths. of Rome You like Romulus and Remus?

The practice of equating the Cananni to the Palestinians is absurd. Both modern genetics and archaelogy suggest that the Hebrews arose indigenously within the Cannani people, probably in the hill country now called the West Bank. The Philistines were not indigenous they were part of the sea people and came to the coast as conquerors. Most may know the sea people as Carthaginians and Trojans. FWIW, fighting them off would be roughly comparable to the Iraquis evicting the American occupiers.

BTW the term “Palestine” comes from the Latin, hebre Arabic word for Phillistia and was invented after the Jewsih wars t demean the memory of the Jewish state by anming the land after a then extinct people. Until 1948, the word “Palestinian” refered to the Jews of Palestine.

Lee is correct hat there are some fanatical cheredi who regard Israel as a gift of Hashem. That is true and is a real issue because this view is a new aspect of Zionism. The only people who saw the founding of Israel as a religious matter were Christians and Muslims. The founding Zionists and to this day the great majority of Zionists are at least secular and many were atheists. As a matter of fact … to this day a very large number of orthodox Jews OPPOSE Israel because they feel Jewish state should not be established until the messiah comes .. including the red calf and the lineal descendent of King David.Some of these folks have appeared with Arafat and more recently with Ahmadinejad.

Bottom line, Jews do not celebrate these conquests, nor do we believe in conversion by conquest. To the best of my knowledge, the ideas about religious war orginated with the Romanization of Christianity and were later adopted by Islam.