1. In a discussion over at Engage in which he offers arguments in support of a boycott of Israel and only Israel, Ran Greenstein says,
Third, any diminishing of the capacity of the Israeli state to continue with its exclusionary and abusive practices is a blow against anti-semitism, because it relieves Jews of the burden of having to pay a price for Israeli policies they do not support and have nothing to do with them.
Continue reading ‘Gurvitz-Goldman, Greenstein And Good Jews’
Neve Gordon is an Israeli academic who favors an international boycott of Israeli academics. David Hirsh goes to town on him here. You really should read it all but I’ll provide a brief taster:
Yoram Hazony, the Israeli scholar whose brilliant essay on Europe and Israel I critiqued here, has a piece in The Forward replying to a particularly silly take by J.J. Goldberg on the same piece. Inter alia, he writes:
In a paean to Tony Judt and Edward Said, Jerónimo Páez has the following to say about the former in today’s El País:
He was born in Great Britain and proud of being Jewish. Nevertheless, he considered himself to be a citizen of the world. He didn’t like nationalism. “Identity”, he said, is a dangerous word.
Arising from this post and the comments that follow it I’d like to advise readers that from now on attempts to blame antisemitic behavior on the policy or activities of the Israeli government will be referred to in this blog as examples of the Gurvitz-Goldman doctrine. The term honors Yossi Gurvitz, whose article identifying Israel as one of the main causes of antisemitism I critiqued in the post, and Lisa Goldman who vigorously defended it in the comments.
Some Israeli commentators seem to be developing a curious distaste for national self-determination and the rights and burdens it brings with it. Take Yossi Gurvitz, for example. His article starts with a consideration of a recent survey of attitudes to Jews in Spain and his first paragraph concludes like this:
Continue reading ‘Gurvitz: Sick of Having National Rights And Blaming Jews For Jew Hatred’
Imagine that you are a distinguished academic, a sociologist say, or a historian. You have a nice job in an American university, your family background is Catholic Polish and though you are well known to experts in your own area of study the broader public has never heard of you.
Many readers will have already come across Jeffrey Goldberg’s piece in The Atlantic about the possibility of Israel resorting to force against Iran. Though it’s received a lot of attention, I don’t think it’s that interesting; it’s long on personal anecdote (by the way, for a seriously unflattering view of the Netanyahu family you ought to read Chapter 12 of this book) and the views of unnamed sources and short on analysis. People seriously interested in this matter still need to read Tira.
Mondoweiss has reported the death of Tony Judt. I daresay they’d know. As good a moment as any to recall that he regarded Jews as morally unfit for self-government and warned that the Jews as a whole might have to suffer as a result of the alleged crimes of some individual Jews.
The death of the Portuguese writer José Saramago has just been announced. As he won the Nobel Prize in 1998 and had in recent years acquired a status something like that of a secular seer we are in for a couple of days in which the media will carry eulogies praising his humanity and intelligence.
Apart from being Jewish and having lost family members in the Holocaust (why that should bestow insight on anyone’s analysis of Middle East history and politics I don’t know but it seems to be the case), Tony Judt’s chief claim to credibility as a critic of Israel is that he is a renowned historian of modern Europe and is therefore, one would imagine, capable of getting his facts right and arguing in a rigorous and convincing manner.
Fintan O’Toole is a prominent Irish writer, journalist and theater critic. If you’re Irish and have a comfortable station in life but consider yourself progressive in your politics you probably have a very positive view of O’Toole and have incorporated a good deal of his worldview into your own.
Continue reading ‘Israel = Nazi Germany Says Top Irish Writer’
1.
Linda Grant has a piece here in which she compares the Gaza flotilla with the Exodus. If I understand it correctly, its main point is that legality or justifiability of the conduct of Britain and Israel in each case is largely irrelevant, what really matters is the broader public perception of what occurred and the images on which that perception is based.
The Israeli writer David Grossman is a great artist but that condition offers no guarantees about his views on current events. At the end of an article in which he harshly criticizes Israel’s policy towards Gaza and the diversion of the Gaza flotilla he says,
By way of Engage, I came across this excellent interview with Moishe Postone which I commend it to your attention. I have a quibble though and it’s about the very first thing he says:
It is true that the Israeli government uses the charge of anti-semitism to shield it from criticisms.
Continue reading ‘Moishe Postone, Antisemitism And Star Trek’
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