Sharon's Best Weapon: The Left Must Confront Anit-Semitism Head-on

Chuck Grimes cgrimes at rawbw.com
Thu May 9 09:23:23 PDT 2002


``...you must notice that there _is_ a problem of anti-Jewish conspiracy theory* here. I don't want to blow it out of proportion, but I don't want to downplay it either....The presence of anti-Jewish conspiracy theory is an index of political blind spots, which lead communities afflicted by them to political dead ends...'' Yoshie

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How do I want to put this? Yes, there is a problem with anti-Jewish conspiracy theories on this conflict. But there is another problem. I have no trouble denouncing conspiracy bullshit as bullshit (irrational) but not specifically the Jewish end of it.

There is a generally related problem in all sorts of conflicts that are linked to issues of identity: so-called reverse Racism, speaking for the Disabled within disabled groups, going on about Feminism as a man, and in my case discussing Jewish identity or denouncing the use of anti-Semiticism by Jewish groups who are using it as a justification of support for Israel and using it as a way to silence non-Jews who attack Israeli policies. That is the more serious threat that I see (around here and in the general US context). But I have no credentials at all to go after this latter use of anti-Semiticism.

So, in a larger context as a tactic, I would rather go after the US Right on the basis of its Racism against Middle Eastern looking people, which I also think more accurately explains the Right's motivation for support of Israel. It is a way to unite multi-racial, multi-ethnic political movements in support of the Palestinians. It also helps isolate the anti-Muslim branch of anti-Semiticism. But here again this is a mine field that is much better sorted out by left Jewish and Muslim groups in some kind of coalition.

My very limited experience with Arab, Muslim or Middle Eastern people (Saudis, Lebanese, Jordanians, Syrians, Iranians, etc) here in the US on anti-Jewish attitudes is---that this is a much different sort of problem. It really is not like the European based anti-Semiticism that we (well we white guys) are used to dealing with. Such attitudes really need to be negociated between Left Middle Eastern Jewish/Muslim US groups. For example Israel is a Western and predominately European country in a non-Western region, and as such it is an extention of Western colonialism. In fact Israel is as much a negative creation of western colonialism and western anti-Semiticism as it is the positive creation of European and US Jewish self-determination movements---but again this has to be discussed, nuanced or refuted by US/Middle Eastern Jews and Muslims, not non-Jews or non-Muslims.

Hopefully this makes some kind of sense. I really don't want to go much further on this.

Chuck Grimes



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