[...]
> Yes - one hundred and fifty percent, if not more. Let me clarify: I claim
> kinship, unfortunately, with the Netanyahu and Perle's of the world,
> simply on the basis of a shared cultural background - and in Netanyahu's
> case, because he was the Prime Minister of a country I am citizen of.
> That ought to be enough. Nevertheless, I still reject them morally and
> politically. I think its possible to do both, and to do so with an
> extremely clean conscience as a leftist. I don't reject identity
> outright, if that's what you're getting at. We are all products of the
> social and historical milieus out of which we emerge, and I believe that
> to ignore and not use the material inherent in our backgrounds for
> universal social justice purposes can be nearsighted.
>
> However, I do think that the left has a problem talking about Jews and
> Jewish issues, and clearly both subjects remain of concern to
> progressives. I tend to find the way we talk about them is laden with a
> lot of misunderstandings that for for social justice reasons (like
> understanding anti-Muslim prejudice), need to be worked on. For example,
> the ideological invocation of anti-Semitism, like any invocation of
> racism, doesn't come out of nowhere. It has as many contemporary roots
> in the real life experiences of those whose opinions it manipulates as it
> does historical ones, and it might, in this instance, come from the same
> ideological reservoir that nourishes American religious hatred of
> Muslims. The point is to always be able separate all of these things
> out, weigh them carefully, de-legitimate their ideological uses, and then
> ask why such concerns still resonate.
===============================
Thanks for your reply, and I'm very glad to see how much we're in agreement.
I didn't realize you were a left-wing Israeli, who shares its Hebrew culture
with those on the right but rejects them "morally and politically". Of
course, I agree it's possible to do both with a clear conscience. Actually,
it takes greater courage for leftists to wage lonely and often dangerous
fights inside their own communities where they are reviled as national or
class traitors. My remarks were aimed at Jews outside Israel who consider
that Judaism is more than an religion, and that Jews constitute a "nation"
even though they share no common language, territory, and culture. This
national myth originated with Zionism, and, it would be of academic interest
only, save that it is the basis for the largely unwavering support of
Israeli policy within the world's Jewish communities, and thereby powerfully
helps to perpetuate it.
I don't see any evidence that there is a problem in the way the left talks about "Jews and Jewish issues" although it is strongly critical of Israel. Undoubtedly, there are some leftists who conflate the two, but in general the left is much better in differentiating between world Jewry and Israel than the great majority of Jews themselves, who see Israel as a "Jewish issue", and the great preponderance of anti-semites who are on the right. The left historically has been strongly internationalist and has fought all manifestations of racism and antisemitism, the far left most of all, which is why I found the illusions to Yoshie's insensitivity on the Cooper blog so patently ridiculous and offensive. This is part of a larger campaign which has been orchestrated by the US and Israeli right for some time now - with the active or tacit compliance of too many liberal Jews - and it's not only directed at the non-Jewish left but at anti-Zionist Jewish leftists like Norman Finkelstein and Noam Chomsky as well. That there is a growing reaction, including within the Jewish communities, to this neo-McCarthyist exploitation of anti-semitism is a welcome development which I think we can all support without reservation.