Why You Are an Anti-Semite

Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit

most priceless quote in a torrent of illogic aimed at McReynolds:

 "[A]nti-Semites will always argue that the Occupation is wrong - 
  it helps paint Jews in a bad light."


source - "Theater of the Oppressed Laboratory" <toplab@toplab.org>

Following is a copy of an exchange between Robbie and Manjula Michaelson and
David McReynolds that David forwarded to us and some other people. We could
not resist sending this to our lists.

Labeling critics of Israel as anti-Semitic, as the Zionist lobby and its
apologists frequently do, reflects a modern-day reworking of Samuel
Johnson's adage, "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel". It is a
logically evasive tactic; rather than argue against or attempt to refute
political criticism of the state of Israel and its actions regarding the
issue of Palestine, Israel's arch-defenders resort instead to the
time-tested smear tactic of calling opponents "anti-Semites".

It must be re-iterated: Anti-Zionism is a POLITICAL position, it is not an
anti-Semitic one. To state that Israel has committed a grave injustice
against the Palestinian people (and that is decidedly an understatement, to
be sure) is no more a position of anti-Semitism than is the charge that
Africans in the diaspora have been the victims of an ongoing historical
injustice an anti-white one. Both statements are true, and that some people
might feel emotionally threatened or insulted by them does not, nonetheless,
reverse or negate those sad facts.

To charge that the Palestinians are a colonized people living in Bantustans
under a system of apartheid in territory occupied by the state of Israel is
not a charge motivated by anti-Semitism; rather, it is an expression of
concern and outrage over their plight. To note that the Palestinians do not
have the same political, economic or social rights as Israelis is not an
expression of anti-Semitism; instead, it is simply an acknowledgement of the
situation as it actually exists. To demand that the Palestinian people be
allowed the same right of return to their homeland that the Israelis claim
for themselves is not an anti-Semitic demand; it is a demand for basic human
rights and social justice for all peoples.

Following the Michaelson-McReynolds exchange, a May 14 article by journalist
Robert Fisk is appended. Fisk, as many people know, has reported from the
Middle East for many years and is a writer of honesty and integrity who has
probed deeply and with complexity into the issues and historical factors
that inform the current situation. He has criticized Israel where that
criticism is warranted, and he has given a fair hearing to the Palestinians,
and has tried to explain their position and point of view. For his efforts,
he has received hate mail and death threats. Ironically, one of the threats
came from actor John Malkovitch, who stated that he would like to "shoot"
Fisk. From the actor who played a brilliantly wry and devious role in
"Dangerous Liasons", or who gave such a sensitive and heartwrenching
performance in "Of Mice and Men" we would hope that the humanism which
underlies the greatest artistic impulses would carry into his life outside
his screen personae. When it comes to Israel, however, it apparently does
not. --TOPLAB

*****


WHY YOU ARE AN ANTI-SEMITE

by caremint@attbi.com (Caremint)

originally sent to David McReynolds (DavidMcR@aol.com)


David:

You are a prolific writer. You seem to have a lot of time on your hands.
Let me address some of your statements because it would be remiss to the
others in what I have labeled the "Hal Davis Group" not to respond.

First, you are an anti-Semite because you write "that the issue of Israel,
the degree to which it is an artificial state", clearly crosses the line.
Criticizing Israeli policy is legitimate, insinuating that Israel is an
artificial state is to deny the right of existence to the only Jewish state
in the world and by extension deny the Jewish people the same rights of
nationhood that some 200 odd other peoples and countries have.The Israeli
state, despite all of the obstacles placed in her path, has achieved a
degree of success that most other countries should aspire to and have yet to
achieve. Just look at Africa and the rest of the Middle East. And yet I
don't hear too many people calling these states "artificial". It is a
trade-mark of anti-Semitic people to call Israel an artificial state!

Second, anti-Semites will always argue that the Occupation is wrong - it
helps paint Jews in a bad light. The majority of Jews, inside and outside of
Israel, myself included, believe that it is in the best interests of peace
that Israel relinquish a good part of Judea and Samaria. We believe so not
because the occupation is wrong, but because real politics call for
compromise. For the same reason we accept the eventuality of a Palestinian
State - not because it is justified or that the Palestinian Arabs deserve a
state. They don't. What you and all those on the looney left, including many
misguided Israelis and Jews, don't understand is that the Palestinian Arabs
have been trying to kill us for over 100 years and are, to a large degree,
responsible for the suffering that they are enduring. That said, I support
the creation of a viable demilitarized Palestinian State alongside a secure
Israeli State because I understand that for there ever to be peace these
people have to get their state.

I don't agree that American foreign policy is generally terrible. That is a
blanket statement that is easy to throw around. I agree that American
foreign policy could be greatly improved. Anti-Semites always harp on the
"massive tax support and military aid Israel has gotten over the years"; you
never mention the significant aid given to other countries, like Egypt (2
$billion last year alone). You never mention that in the case of Israel the
aid is not a one way street - Israel has provided America with captured
Soviet era radar, with a MIG fighter jet, with sophisticated technology,
with intelligence information, etc. What do we get for our "investment" in
other countries? We saved Kuwait and Saudi Arabia from Sadaam Hussein and
now they don't even want us in their country. In fact, Americans have been
bombed by Saudis in Saudi Arabia and in New York and Washington. Where is
your indignation about that?

You write about "the sheer arrogance of the Israelis, of Sharon in
particular, in first denying that anything special had happened in Jenin".
Again, your anti-Semitism shows. Jenin was a center for suicide (homicide)
bombers. I guess we Jews were "arrogant" in wanting to put an end to the
terror coming from Jenin.  Oh, I forgot, you are not really anti-Semitic,
you are just against Israel. It is just accidental that mainly Israeli Jews
are getting murdered by Arab terrorists - but you are not against Jews, only
Israelis. Give me a break. You can't have it both ways. Jenin was a "set-up"
to get the United Nations to do to Israel what they have not done to any
other country in the world, not to Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Syria,
Afghanistan, Pakistan, etc. They wanted to condemn the Israeli Government of
war crimes that didn't happen. They wanted to compare Israeli actions to the
Nazis. And you support such a biased inquiry? And you don't think that is
Anti-Semitic!

It saddens me to recall the efforts by the worldwide Jewish community to
help free Nelson Mandela - and what did we get for that - he cozies up to
Yassir Arafat and recognizes the "rights of the Palestinian people" but not
the rights of the Jews. Shame on Mandela and shame on South Africa for
allowing the Durban conference on racism to degenerate into a diatribe on
the "sins of Zionism". Zionism is the liberation movement for the Jewish
people and anyone who criticizes the legitimacy of Zionism is anti-Semitic!

Next you wrote "of the fact Israel is a rouge (sp) state. (So is the US -
on that we can perhaps agree!) I don't agree! My understanding of a rogue
state is a state that acts in a vicious and destructive fashion. Certainly
Israel and the United States have undertaken vicious and destructive
actions. Some of the actions were undoubtedly of a rogue nature. Some of
them might have been overboard or even unwarranted. Israel is fighting a war
of survival - not occupation. The U.S. is fighting a war against terrorism
(sponsored in large part by elements in the Moslem world) - not globalism.
By labeling Israel a rogue state you are engaging in a degree of
anti-Semitism whether you want to admit it or not. You can try and hide
behind your leftist and "progressive" ideology but the fact is that your
zeal to condemn Israel likely supercedes your condemnation of what is going
on in so many other parts of the world and as a Jew and a supporter of the
Jewish State of Israel it is legitimate to ask why you are so critical of
Israel? There are so many other areas of the globe that call for the
attention of peace loving people that it is amazing to me that the cause of
the "poor down-trodden Palestinian Arabs" seems to garner so much
attention - other than the fact that it affords the world's anti-Semites a
platform which to attack Jews!

While I am not an expert on Israeli military aid to Central American
dictatorships and Israeli links to the old South African regime I would
concede that this might not have been a best policy - and perhaps even a
mistake. But again, you have to consider the history before being so
judgmental. In the case of Latin America there is a large market for
military items and Israel has been forced to develop a significant arms
industry to ensure her survival. In 1967 France cut off supplying Israel
with arms because Israel had the audacity to preemptively attack Egypt and
Syria without Charles de Gaulle's permission. From that point on Israel
started to develop a serious arms industry. With little natural resources,
and facing the Arab economic boycott, Israel began developing markets in
Latin America, among other places, for arms sales. Nothing special here -
other countries of all political persuasions did and do sell arms to every
place and every body all the time. Given Israel's historical background
perhaps Israel should have thought more thoroughly about the wisdom of
selling to certain regimes. But to single out Israel is to be selective. The
case of South Africa is again multi-faceted. On the one hand Jews were
instrumental in supporting the ANC and working against apartheid. On the
other hand, almost every African country broke diplomatic relations with
Israel following the Six Day War. They did this despite the fact that Israel
had helped many of these countries with foreign aid, medical projects and
agricultural ventures. The African countries really did this because of the
pressure the Moslem and Arab countries brought on them. It was easier to
sacrifice relations with one small Jewish country than 22 Arab countries. It
is the same deal as is being played out in the United Nations today. There
were also significant military links between the Israeli and South African
military establishments. But so what. South Africa eventually did away with
minority rule from within and has now tilted their foreign policy toward the
Arab States and the Palestinians - despite the fact that these parties did
little, if anything, to fight apartheid until it became fashionable.

You seem to relish throwing bits of information into the mix with the
mistaken idea that you can prove you somehow have more and hence superior
knowledge. Let me tell you that I am very much aware of the early stages of
Hamas and of the mistaken Israeli policy of nurturing that organization as a
counter balance to the PLO. So what is your point? I also recall that you
spent some time in Syria. I wonder why you picked Syria as a destination?
Was it for the archeology? I also know a little bit about Syria and it is
not very good. An acquaintance of mine was a Captain in the Syrian Army and
his main function was to oversee the grooming of Bashar Assad's horses. His
father was a Lt-Colonel in the Syrian Air Force and fell into some disfavor
with the current regime. He was not "made to disappear" but he is now out of
the military and barely surviving on a small government pension and the
remittances that his son sends from America. Why don't you spend some time
investigating the Syrian "occupation" of Lebanon? Do you think that over a
million Syrians should be working in Lebanon. What is your opinion of
Greater Syria? Is Lebanon an "artificial" creation? And what about Syria,
and Iraq, and Saudi Arabia, and Jordan, and Kuwait? Are they all not
"artificial" creations? And what about the Syrian weapons of mass
destruction program? Why aren't you concerned about that? I think I know the
answer - these countries are not Jewish, and they don't fit into your neat
little concept of imperialism, globalism and world conquest!

The fact that 50,000 Israelis demonstrated against the "occupation" in Tel
Aviv should not be equated to the anti-Israel demonstrations that have been
so pervasive in certain circles. Those people were demonstrating against a
policy of the State of Israel, namely the reluctance to abandon settlements
until there is a secure peace deal with the Palestinian Arabs. They are not
demonstrating against the rogue State of Israel. They are not stating that
Israel committed war crimes in Jenin. They are not calling for the United
Nations to one-sidely investigate Israeli actions. That is the difference
between these Israelis and you anti-Semites!

The peace that we all should want must not go through Jerusalem. The
parallels with the former Czechoslovakia are real and the price of
appeasement was WWII and the holocaust. Peace through strength has always
been a better policy and those who advocate that the "occupation" is the
main impediment to peace are ready to jeopardize the security of the State
of Israel, and the Jewish people by extension. If that isn't anti-Semitism I
don't know what is!

Robbie and Manjula Michaelson

                             *

McReynolds Replies - May 15, 2002 02:11

Dear Robbie and Manjula,

What a remarkable letter! You have deduced from the fact that I reject a
Zionist position that I hate Jews. I don't have a lot of time on my hands -
the chaos of my apartment and the fact I can't find one of my pairs of
glasses at the moment is testimony to paying too much time on the computer,
which I hope to sharply curtail.

However. There are lots of "artificial states" and in some ways they all
are. But few - none come to mind - match Israel, which in just over fifty
years transported  Jews from around the world, Russia, North Africa, Europe,
the United States, to a land they had never seen, displacing in the process
the native population, to create a specifically Jewish State and to revive a
dead language. There is so much that is commendable about this - I'm better
informed on the positive aspects than you realize - that it is painful to
remind you that most other artifical states - Jordan, for example, or most
of the African states, simply drew lines around already existing
populations. The US is certainly an "artifical state" in that it brought
total strangers thousands of miles to this country, to displace the people
who lived here. Taiwan is another, where mainland Chinese took over an
island they had never seen, slaughtered many thousands of the Taiwanese
population, and declared it, incredibly, "China". Before the whites took
over South Africa (a very typical settler or artifical state) the Zulu had
just done the same thing, driving out the Africans who had "originally"
lived there.

The reason supporters of Israel are nervous is that their neighbors have for
years pursued an attitute that this artifical state would never settle down.
Now that it has, and is militarily beyond threat, Israel still lives with
the earlier image, too insecure to pursue a reasonable peace while there is
yet time. There are, at last count, more Jews in the United States than in
Israel. I do have to ask why the Jews have the right to a distinct State -
it exists, and I don't want it destroyed, nor see the Israelis driven into
the sea. But just as a question, what is the special right of the Jews to
settle in Palestine (and please don't quote biblical text to me - for the
original settlement of Palestine was done by the Hebrew tribes driving out
earlier folks - the Jews were not the first people there and they had been
long gone before Israel suddenly came into existence).

If this discussion is anti-Semitic, it may mean that Israeli scholars, who
have pursued similar discussions, are anti-Semites.

Dear friends, the Occupation is wrong because it is wrong - not because it
paints the Jews in the bad light. It does, but that doesn't make it wrong.
Not the light, but the reality. If you aren't going to make these people
voting citizens of Israel (which would destroy the Jewish State) they you
must give them their freedom. To occupy them is a total violation of Judaic
law. You are subjecting them to treatment worse than the Jews in North
Africa traditionally faced from the Muslims.

You say the Palestinians have no right to a State, immediately after you
insist that the Jews - people who haven't lived there (with notable
exceptions) for two thousand years - do. Your logic utterly escapes me.

There are lots of things I "never mention". I don't think I mentioned
previously the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty, a clearly marked American
ship flying the US flag. And I have mentioned US military aid to the Arab
states and deplored it - you weren't listening. I don't want US military aid
going to ANYONE. Even if (as with the Saudis) they buy it. Israel doesn't
buy it - it has been a gift. Am I anti-Semitic to oppose all arms trade with
the Middle East? If you think I have no fury over the bombing of the World
Trade Center I'll happily direct you to the web site of the War Resisters
League, which carries a statement of mine dealing with 9/11 and mentions the
Saudis. (Just go to warresisters.org and you'll find our Middle East
statement and my own statement on 9/11).

We "saved" Kuwait because of our oil interests. And no, they aren't yet a
democracy, surprise surprise. But that is one UN resolution the US
enforced - a selective enforcement, since Israel has successfully defied a
number of UN resolutions.

On the UN team for Jenin, you are assuming what they would have charged
Israel with. Is this an admission of the war crimes widely reported? What
did Israel have to hide? Why were ambulances not allowed in? Why the host of
lies from the Israeli government about the reasons observers could get in?
Give me a break - Jenin is what marked the end of the "Israeli free pass"
with the US and European public.

If I declare the US a rogue state (and I emphatically do) does this make me
anti-American?  Was the great German socialist leader, Willy Brandt,
"anti-German" because he fled Germany to oppose the Nazis from exile? Was it
"anti-American" to oppose the bloody Indochina war? Or was it not a part of
a decent part of our tradition, which also included our massive civil
disobedience against the traditions of Jim Crow and racism. Were the tens of
thousands demonstrating in Tel Aviv last week "anti-Semites"?

And my God in heaven, how did I get to Syria? I have never been there in my
life! I'd love to go to see the old ruins. I am totally opposed to the
current regime and its brutal treatment of opposition (much more brutal than
anything Israel has done - but we aren't funding the Syrian government!) but
I'd love to see the country. You may realize why discussions are difficult
when I am now accused of visiting Syria! A wish is not a reality.

Let me close, because we aren't getting anywhere but I'll make one bet -
I'll bet you live in this country and not in Israel. I've had fierce debates
with Israelis, including one who felt the editorial page of the Wall Street
Journal and  articles in the National Review were more reliable than the
Manchester Guardian overseas edition (because the Guardian was "biased").
I've also heard reports that the New York Times should be boycotted because
of its hostility to Israel. Bu no one in Israel has - yet - called me an
anti-Semite. My hunch is you live here in this country and may be a little
guilty that you aren't there sharing the burdens and risks of that small
nation.

Peace, there is no alternative,
David McReynolds

*****

The Independent (UK)
May 14, 2002
http://argument.independent.co.uk/commentators/story.jsp?story=294787

Why does John Malkovich want to kill me?
by Robert Fisk

He might be denied any further visas to Britain until he apologises for his
remarks. But the damage has been done.


Robert Fisk: Why does John Malkovich want to kill me?

It used to be just a trickle, a steady drip-drip of hate mail which arrived
once a week, castigating me for reporting on the killing of innocent
Lebanese under Israeli air raids or for suggesting that Arabs--as well as
Israelis--wanted peace in the Middle East. It began to change in the late
1990s. Typical was the letter which arrived after I wrote my eyewitness
account of the 1996 slaughter by Israeli gunners of 108 refugees sheltering
in the UN base in the Lebanese town of Qana.

"I do not like or admire anti-Semites," it began. "Hitler was one of the
most famous in recent history". Yet compared to the avalanche of vicious,
threatening letters and openly violent statements that we journalists
receive today, this was comparatively mild. For the internet seems to have
turned those who do not like to hear the truth about the Middle East into a
community of haters, sending venomous letters not only to myself but to any
reporter who dares to criticise Israel--or American policy in the Middle
East.

There was always, in the past, a limit to this hatred. Letters would be
signed with the writer's address. Or if not, they would be so-ill-written as
to be illegible. Not any more. In 26 years in the Middle East, I have never
read so many vile and intimidating messages addressed to me. Many now demand
my death. And last week, the Hollywood actor John Malkovich did just that,
telling the Cambridge Union that he would like to shoot me.

How, I ask myself, did it come to this? Slowly but surely, the hate has
turned to incitement, the incitement into death threats, the walls of
propriety and legality gradually pulled down so that a reporter can be
abused, his family defamed, his beating at the hands of an angry crowd
greeted with laughter and insults in the pages of an American newspaper, his
life cheapened and made vulnerable by an actor who--without even saying
why--says he wants to kill me.

Much of this disgusting nonsense comes from men and women who say they are
defending Israel, although I have to say that I have never in my life
received a rude or insulting letter from Israel itself. Israelis sometimes
express their criticism of my reporting- and sometimes their praise--but
they have never stooped to the filth and obscenities which I now receive.

"Your mother was Eichmann's daughter," was one of the most recent of these.
My mother Peggy, who died after a long battle with Parkinson's three and a
half years ago, was in fact an RAF radio repair operator on Spitfires at the
height of the Battle of Britain in 1940.

The events of 11 September turned the hate mail white hot. That day, in an
airliner high over the Atlantic that had just turned back from its routing
to America, I wrote an article for The Independent, pointing out that there
would be an attempt in the coming days to prevent anyone asking why the
crimes against humanity in New York and Washington had occurred. Dictating
my report from the aircraft's satellite phone, I wrote about the history of
deceit in the Middle East, the growing Arab anger at the deaths of thousands
of Iraqi children under US- supported sanctions, and the continued
occupation of Palestinian land in the West Bank and Gaza by America's
Israeli ally. I didn't blame Israel. I suggested that Osama bin Laden was
responsible.

But the e-mails that poured into The Independent over the next few days
bordered on the inflammatory. The attacks on America were caused by "hate
itself, of precisely the obsessive and dehumanising kind that Fisk and Bin
Laden have been spreading," said a letter from a Professor Judea Pearl of
UCLA. I was, he claimed, "drooling venom" and a professional "hate peddler".
Another missive, signed Ellen Popper, announced that I was "in cahoots with
the archterrorist" Bin Laden. Mark Guon labelled me "a total nut-case". I
was "psychotic," according to Lillie and Barry Weiss. Brandon Heller of San
Diego informed me that "you are actually supporting evil itself".

It got worse. On an Irish radio show, a Harvard professor--infuriated by my
asking about the motives for the atrocities of 11 September--condemned me as
a "liar" and a "dangerous man" and announced that "anti-Americanism"--
whatever that is--was the same as anti-Semitism. Not only was it wicked to
suggest that someone might have had reasons, however deranged, to commit the
mass slaughter. It was even more appalling to suggest what these reasons
might be. To criticise the United States was to be a Jew-hater, a racist, a
Nazi.

And so it went on. In early December, I was almost killed by a crowd of
Afghan refugees who were enraged by the recent slaughter of their relatives
in American B-52 air-raids. I wrote an account of my beating, adding that I
could not blame my attackers, that if I had suffered their grief, I would
have done the same. There was no end to the abuse that came then.

In The Wall Street Journal, Mark Steyn wrote an article under a headline
saying that a "multiculturalist"--me--had "got his due." Cards arrived
bearing the names of London "whipping" parlours. The Independent's web-site
received an e-mail suggesting that I was a paedophile. Among several vicious
Christmas cards was one bearing the legend of the 12 Days of Christmas and
the following note inside: "Robert Fiske (sic)--aka Lord Haw Haw of the
Middle East and a leading anti-semite & proto-fascist Islamophile
propagandist. Here's hoping 2002 finds you deep in Gehenna (Hell), Osama bin
Laden on your right, Mullah Omar on your left. Yours, Ishmael Zetin."

Since Ariel Sharon's offensive in the West Bank, provoked by the
Palestinians' wicked suicide bombing, a new theme has emerged. Reporters who
criticise Israel are to blame for inciting anti- Semites to burn synagogues.
Thus it is not Israel's brutality and occupation that provokes the sick and
cruel people who attack Jewish institutions, synagogues and cemeteries. We
journalists are to blame.

Almost anyone who criticises US or Israeli policy in the Middle East is now
in this free-fire zone. My own colleague in Jerusalem, Phil Reeves, is one
of them. So are two of the BBCs' reporters in Israel, along with Suzanne
Goldenberg of The Guardian. And take Jennifer Loewenstein, a human rights
worker in Gaza--who is herself Jewish and who wrote a condemnation of those
who claim that Palestinians are deliberately sacrificing their children. She
swiftly received the following e-mail: "BITCH. I can smell you from afar.
You are a bitch and you have Arab blood in you. Your mother is a fucking
Arab. At least, for God's sake, change your fucking name. Ben Aviram."

Does this kind of filth have an effect on others? I fear it does. Only days
after Malkovich announced that he wanted to shoot me, a website claimed that
the actor's words were "a brazen attempt at queue-jumping". The site
contained an animation of my own face being violently punched by a fist and
a caption which said: "I understand why they're beating the shit out of me."

Thus a disgusting remark by an actor in the Cambridge Union led to a website
suggesting that others were even more eager to kill me. Malkovich was not
questioned by the police. He might, I suppose, be refused any further visas
to Britain until he explains or apologises for his vile remarks. But the
damage has been done. As journalists, our lives are now forfeit to the
internet haters. If we want a quiet life, we will just have to toe the line,
stop criticising Israel or America. Or just stop writing altogether.


*********************************************************************
"The first duty of a revolutionary is to be educated." --José Martí
*********************************************************************
The Theater of the Oppressed Laboratory   http://www.toplab.org
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