Is Criticism of Israel Really Anti-Semitism?

In continuation to a piece from the other day where I addressed the question of if it is racist to be afraid of Islam or acknowledge the connection between terrorist attacks and Islam, today I want to address the other side of the coin.

For many people feel they are unjustly vilified or called racist and anti-Semitic for what they claim is plain, simple criticism of Israeli policies and actions.

But is criticism of Israel itself anti-Semitic? Do Israel supporters use the accusation of anti-Semitism to try to stifle criticism? Is this accusation thrown around too easily? Or is there an empirical basis for it?

The truth is, it's probably a bit of both.

And in order to better understand when criticism is valid and when it can be interpreted as anti-Semitism we're going to establish a basic definition of anti-Semitism, in addition to determine a number of guidelines for distinguishing between justified criticism of Israel and anti-Semitism.

What is anti-Semitism?

In its most basic form, anti-Semitism is prejudice against Jews. In its extended form we have what is called the new Anti-Semitism, which is the hatred of Jews being projected onto the Jewish state, and can be identified as the emotional, irrational, obsessive or disproportionate criticism or hatred of Israel. For a separate discussion on this subject see Europe and the new Anti-Semitism.

Why do people say that criticism of Israel is often an expression of anti-Semitism?

In the world of the politically correct, it has become unacceptable to make racist or derogatory statements about Jews. There are many that believe, however, that with Israel being the Jewish state, racism and bigotry against Jews has been redirected towards Israel as a proxy, and is now expressed through unbalanced, unjustified criticism of Israeli policies and actions that reek of the same anti-Semitic tropes that used to be directed at individuals.

How can you distinguish between valid criticism of Israel and anti-Semitism.

There are a number of ways. We first have the hyperbole test. This is the easiest way to identify when anti-Semitism is the driver of an argument and not empirical fact or valid criticism. If an argument uses hyperbole as part of its claim such as words like apartheid, Nazism or colonialism to describe Israel's actions, then it can pretty much be written off as anti-Semitism (or at the least, complete ignorance of what these concepts really mean).

Why is that? Because these terms are used to out of context in a direct attempt to demonize Israel. And when each one is taken and examined it is clear that the arguments are false.

Apartheid for example was a set of laws and a form of government established to oppress an ethnic group based on the color of their skin and rob them of their rights. People that call Israel an Apartheid state always point to the fact that Palestinians don't have the rights of Israelis. What they ignore is that Arab Israelis (who like to be called Palestinian Israelis), do have the same rights as Jewish Israelis. For a separate discussion on this subject, see Is Israel Really an Apartheid Nation?

And is Israel a Nazi state? No it is not. Why? For many reasons. First of all it's a democracy, not a dictatorship. Additionally, Israel doesn't round up Muslims, Palestinians, or any other ethnic group and put them into concentration camps. Israel doesn't rob them of their possessions, use them as slave labor, starve them to death, murder them en masse, and so forth.

And what about colonialist. Is Israel a colonialist state? This seems quite confusing to people. A colonialist state is one that purposely sets out to usurp lands that are not theirs, and continually look to expand their domain. The simple fact is that Gaza, the West Bank, and the Golan Heights are lands that Israel obtained control of as the result of defensive wars, not as a pre-planned action to expand its domain. The West Bank and Gaza strip never previously belonged to any sovereign entity (except perhaps when there was a Jewish state two thousand years ago). Subsequently the land that is today the West Bank and Gaza is really disputed territory. And Israel obtained control of them by overcoming a offensive that was launched in an effort to destroy Israel by its neighbors. In 1948 Israel accepted partition as established by the UN, the Palestinians and Arab rejected it. Today Israel is trying to find resolution to this conflict. Subsequently, anybody claming that Israel is colonialist is twisting the definition to suit their political agenda. Much like when they use the terms Nazi and apartheid to describe it.

But some of the things Israel does resemble Nazi tactics, Apartheid or Colonialist behavior.

You'll still have those people that will point to specific aspects of events that have happened, such as children being killed, prisoners being blindfolded, mass destruction, the building of settlements, etc., that will be used in an attempt to try to prove that their argument is valid. The fact of the matter is that almost all of these cherry picked items meant to form a similarity with these concepts can be found in any conflict or war taking place in the world. And the way to determine if their use is justified is to not only compare them with the definition of the actions they are being accused of, but compare them with actual actions taken by other Sovereign nations, like that of the US Army in Afghanistan, Russia's actions in Georgia, in the case of "colonization" those of the English empire or Imperial France, and for "ethnic cleansing," examine the examples of Partition of India (into India and Pakistan), the Turkish takeover of Cypress, the expulsion of Germans by Czech after WWII from Sudetenland, and more.

And that brings us to our next factor for determining if criticism of Israel is justified or not, relativity.

Are Israel's actions different to those of other western countries under similar circumstances?

This is a very important lens through which to judge if accusations against Israel are founded or not. So many claims we see in the media and the blogs point to Israel's actions and their consequences. For example, for years Israel was accused of breaking international law using drones to hunt down and kill terrorists. They called it extrajudicial killing. Today we see coalition forces doing this on a daily basis in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and other locations. You can also read claims that the destruction in Gaza was disproportionate, and meant to punish Palestinians. But when we look at Baghdad or any other war zone, its clear that wide scale destruction is the result of war in general, and not only "evil Israeli retribution."

Ask yourself if Mexico was launching rockets into Texas, how the US would respond. Ask yourself if America's enemies were sending destructive weapons to a country neighboring the US, how would the US respond (we know from the Cuban Missles Crisis in 1962). In pretty much every situation you'll discover that Israel is acting to protect the life and welfare of its citizens, much like any other sovereign nation on the earth would do under similar circumstances. And to expect Israel to sit on its hands with its home front being attacked while other nations are allowed to take the actions required to protect their citizens, or in other words, trying to rob Israel of the right to self-defense is most likely a symptom of some deeper, primordial enmity, and often a subconscious, irrational belief that Israel is evil and has no right to exist.

Only Looking at Israel's Actions and its results while Ignoring the Complete Picture

Then there are more subtle means of criticizing Israel that aren't quite as blatantly in your face anti-Semitic. That's why its important for people to examine the information they're provided and not only look at Israel's actions, but try to understand why Israel did what id did.

For example, you may see genuine, biting criticism of Israel's actions that seem to make sense. But when you take a closer look you notice that in doesn't mention why Israel was doing what it was doing, or if it does so, it only does in one or two sentences, while the rest of a piece will focus on what Israel did wrong. In other words it strips out the examination of the circumstances Israel's actions, and their intent.

This can be regularly seen in reporting on Israel. Where Israel is accused of murdering innocent Palestinians, Turks, Lebanese, or Human Rights activists, yet the report barely if at all addresses why Israel took the actions it did, and most importantly, how or why it is that the innocent people got killed were in the position they were. Most often, when you look closer you'll see that the "innocent civilian" that was killed attacked an Israeli soldier with a knife, as we saw in the Flotilla incident, was holding gun as often happened in Lebanon, or was hanging out by a rocket launcher when the rocket was fired at Israel as wee see in Gaza, or was being cynically used as a human shield as we saw in most of these examples. Yet the way you read about it in the press would suggest that almost nothing the individual that was killed could have done can justify Israel's actions, essentially robbing Israel of the right to self defense.

One of the primary strategies of terrorist organizations is to launch attacks against Israel from near or within civilian infrastructure. Quite often the attackers surround themselves with groups of civilians when launching an attack. Then, when Israel responds to this type of attack, "innocent" civilians get killed. Although all too often what is meant by "innocent civilians" are people that that have willingly or unwillingly acted as human shields, or purposely put themselves in the line of danger with the belief that if something happens to them they will be made into heroes (martyrs).

We had an example of that yesterday when a group of children were apparently encouraged to setup an ambush of an Israeli vehicle and hid in wait together with a fleet of media photographers. These children jumped out at the car and started hurling rocks at it. In this particular instance there is video that exposes the members of media lying in wait together with the children that gives us an understanding of this tactic, and we can now see that opposed to the story they would have liked to publish, being evil Israeli settlers runs over an innocent child, the fact is that it was a staged event that purposely put this child's life at risk. For more information on this event see Palestinian Children as a Weapon of Choice.

Obsessing about Israel's actions while ignoring places like Congo, Russia, China, Sudan and others

This is another issue that often comes up. Those supporting Israel claming that the world is prejudiced against it often emphasize that there are horrendous crimes against humanity being committed around the world. Rape is used as a weapon of war in Congo, Sudan has experienced a bloody civil war for years where ethnic cleansing is taking place against non-Muslims. China wiped out an entire neighborhood making its residents homeless in order to build the site for the Olympics, Russia regularly suppresses free speech and persecutes those of its citizens that are vocal critics, and yet the with so many bad things in the world, the media so disproportionately focuses on Israel, and individuals looking for a cause seem to metastasize around the Arab Israeli conflict in criticism against Israel.

Whenever this is pointed out those people doing so are often accused of trying to cover up Israeli "crimes," being accuse of trying to deflect valid criticism of Israel.

The truth of the matter is that this disproportionate focus on Israel is also a form of anti-Semitism. And the fact is that if it was only a handful of people that were disproportionately criticizing Israel, it could be written off as random. But because the disproportionality of it is so immense, it's hard to ignore the fact that indeed Israel is the eternal criminal in global community's psyche. And we have to ask why. Why can there be 56 nations in the world that identify themselves as Muslims, but its considered racist for Israel to call itself a Jewish state? How is it that in many of these countries non-Muslims have less rights, by law, than Muslims. But it is only Israel that is accused of apartheid and racism? We'll get back to that in a moment.

So then, what can be construed as valid criticism of Israel's actions

In summary, any sound, balanced criticism of Israel that doesn't use hyperbole, takes into account similar actions by other countries under similar circumstances, takes into account the entire chain of events that took place and doesn't only focus on Israel's actions and its consequences, examines the overall circumstances of the entire event, and looks at Israel's intent, is valid criticism.

But one sided analysis as we all-too-often see throughout the global media, in almost every UN investigation into the results of Israel's actions with no regard whatsoever to why Israel did what it did can be attributed to some form of explicit or implicit anti-Semitism.

So then, are all people that make one-sided claims against Israel really anti-Semitic?

This is a hard one to answer. There are so many good hearted people out there trying to make a difference. Those that want to help the underdog, oppressed people of the world. There are those people that want to donate some of their time and effort support a good cause and make the world a better place, but can only pick one. And of course, we have to remember that Israel is at the heart of the global psyche, being at the seat of the founding of Monotheistic religion.

But how is it that such a inordinate amount of people choose the Palestinian cause to support or decide to join movements who's sole focus is to criticize Israel with no relation to the events and circumstances in other places in the world? How is it that we have a global movement to boycott Israeli universities, hospitals, sports clubs and businesses, while countries like Iran, Saudi Arabia and Libya barely come under any scrutiny? Particularly when historically boycotting an institution like a hospital has always considered unacceptable, or sports is supposed to be beyond politics? This large scale mobilization to alienate and deligitimze Israel, that involves UN bodies such as the UN Human Rights Movement, recognized leaders such as Jimmy Carter and Desmond Tutu, dozens of nations, artists and the media, is almost inexplicable. The outpouring of hatred that can be clearly seen expressed by so many in opinion pieces, blogs, and comments in articles across the webosphere, on TV and on University Campuses is even more startling.

It almost seems to be the result of some primordial enmity that genetically programmed into global human psyche, some deep seated hatred of Jews, which as the result of political correctness as its called in the US, or multiculturalism as its known in Europe, has resulted in the partial deflection of anti-Semitic sentiment from individuals and is now projected on to the Jew of the world, Israel.

I understand it's hard to call these good hearted people who only seem to have concern for the oppressed and poor of the world anti-Semitic. And that they feel like they've been slandered. In many cases they have many friends that are Jewish, if they're not Jewish themselves (which is often the case). They seem tolerant of modern, liberal Judaism, and yet there's still that irrational, emotional hatred. That crazed, glazed over look they get in their eyes every time a person dies at the end of an Israeli gun, without regard to the circumstance and intent of Israel's actions. And the wild, hysterical attacks against Israel are quick in coming.

And one has to wonder why this burning righteous indignation bursts out like a volcanic eruption when supposed "human rights activists" are killed by Israeli soldiers boarding a boat supposedly bringing supplies to the innocent in Gaza, or when a house is struck by an Israeli missles (launched in response to a rocket fired at Israeli population centers), but is suspiciously lacking when dozens of children are sent into war and thousands of women and children are raped in war in Congo. When an entire nation of people as we saw in Iran demand that their vote counted and voice heard the world stands near silent, making weak protests and letting an entire nation be held hostage to the will of a dangerous dictatorial regime.

Perhaps it is due to a lack of enthusiasm by the media to investigate the events in the rest of the world as much as they do in Israel. Or perhaps the decision on what events to report on by the media is made by the popularity of the articles as read and responded to by the public.

In either case, it's clear that Israel is one of the most popular topics in the media, analysis of Israel's actions and its results is what draws readers, while the source of Israel's actions doesn't seem to interest anybody.

But this blog post isn't about the media. It is about how to better determine if criticism of Israel is justified based on a balanced examination of the intent, circumstances and empirical data, and a concern for the lives and well being of the poor and oppressed. Or if it's based on some deeper, sinister, hate based motive. I hope I've brought some clarity in the matter. And I can only hope that in the future, the good hearted people of the world that want to play a constructive role and provide a positive contribution will try to analyze events with the guidelines set out above.