[lbo-talk] Adam Hanieh, "Canadian Union Takes Important Step against Israeli Apartheid"

Bill Bartlett billbartlett at dodo.com.au
Sun Jun 4 18:22:59 PDT 2006


At 5:16 PM -0700 3/6/06, Angelus Novus wrote:


>But that was not the intent behind my post. As I
>stated before, criticism of Israel is anti-semitic
>when Israel is singled out for special treatment for
>simply acting as any nation-state would in a similar
>situation.

Criticism of Israel's "apartheid"-like policies could only be "anti-semitic" to the extent that support for apartheid is an intrinsic part of being semitic. Are you arguing that support for apartheid is an intrinsic being semitic? I must say that it isn't a notion that would have occurred to me, but if you can convince me that its true then I would have to acknowledge that it would make me anti-semitic.

Merely singling out Israel for criticism, for policies carried out by every other nation state, is not necessarily anti-semitic. It would merely be hypocritical. However, to be fair, I hardly think that genocide is the normal policy of "any nation-state would in a similar situation." That is to say that I think describing Israel's policies as merely "apartheid" is (even if understandable) entirely too generous.

Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas



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