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

[Angelus Novus]

--- Bill Bartlett <billbartlett at dodo.com.au> wrote:

> 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? 

Hello Bill,

Perhaps the quotation marks I used around "apartheid"
did not make my intent clear enough.  No, I am not
arguing what you attribute to me above.

What I am saying is that Israel's policies are not
apartheid, and that use of the word "apartheid" in
this context is just a way of trying to win a kind of
moral legitimacy for opposition to the occupation.

Which I think is not necessary.  The opposition to
occupation is valid and correct without resorting to
exaggeration of the sort by using the word
"apartheid."

Otherwise, one would have to say that any state
practicing a military occupation is practicing
apartheid.  So is the U.S. invasion of Iraq also
"apartheid?"  I think it's criminal and stupid, but
it's not "apartheid."

> Merely singling out Israel for criticism, for
> policies carried out by 
> every other nation state, is not necessarily
> anti-semitic. 

But I would say that it most definitely is.  Quite
obviously so.

>However, to be fair, I
> hardly think that 
> genocide is the normal policy of "any nation-state
> would in a similar 
> situation."

Well, this is just silly.  Are you saying there is an
Israeli plan to physically exterminate the
Palestinians?  This is like NATO using the word
"genocide" to describe anything the Serbs did during
the Yugoslav civil war.  It cheapens the term.




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